Toyota staff provide 75,000 reasons for using kaizen
Kaizen is a simple, Japanese philosophy defined as continuous (kai) improvement (zen) through gradual, systematic change. It avoids the pitfalls of throwing money at organisational problems by encouraging a thoughtful approach. Masaaki Imai in his book, Kaizen: Key to Japan’s Competitive Success, defined it as: “A means of continuing improvement in personal life, home life, social life, and working life. In the workplace, [it] means involving everyone – managers and workers alike.” Kaizen promotes making small improvements immediately to encourage active employee participation. Toyota has used kaizen processes since the late 1970s. At one of its US plants 7,000 employees made more than 75,000 suggestions in 1999 and amazingly, 99 per cent of them were implemented.
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