Lesson three – Kaizen – November 2009
The Key to Japanese Competitive Success
"Kaizen strategy is the single most important concept in Japanese management – the key to Japanese competitive success."
Masaaki Imai
"The competitor to be feared is the one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time. Businesses that grow by development and improvement do not die."
Henry Ford
After World War 2, Japan was in shambles. The industrial base was destroyed and the only goods coming out of Japan were cheap and poor quality. However, it was in America’s enlightened self interest to rebuild Japan to become a supplier for the US forces stationed there. The reason was that North Korea, supported by Communist China, was becoming belligerent, and war with them was possible.
The United States needed a strong Japanese economy to supply the material and supplies to support American forces in the event of that war. So, the US sent businessmen, engineers and efficiency experts to Japan to train their Japanese counterparts in American methods of production. Thousands of Japanese businessmen went through courses at American military bases to learn the new skills.
One of the Americans sent to Japan was W. Edwards Deming, an efficiency expert (today we would call him a quality control expert). Deming taught the Japanese about an American method of manufacturing that entailed making continuous small steps to improve all processes in the plant.
The Japanese embraced Deming’s advice and named that process Kaizen (K-Zen) – "steps toward the good".
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The Prius Tale
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The most famous company to embrace Deming’s advice is Toyota, who became fanatic about Kaizen as a way of doing business at entry level.
An example of Toyota’s continuous quality improvements comes from a friend with two Toyota Priuses – a 2001 model and a 2006 model. After returning from a vacation with his wife, he discovered that the battery was dead on the 2001 car, but not on the 2006 model. Neither car had been driven for about 15 days.
A check with the Toyota dealer found that the 2001 model battery is rated at 12 days of disuse before draining, but the battery on the 2006 is rated at 30 days of no usage before draining – more than twice the older model.
Unfortunately, when Deming returned to the United States, he tried to get American manufactures to adapt Kaizen style methods with very little success. American manufacturing was winding down from war production and was not interested.
In all fairness, as the years passed and American manufactures began to get pressure from Japanese quality products, they began to institute some of Deming’s methods, but it has taken a long time in the game of catch up.
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Kaizen in Practice
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At my company, we practice Kaizen. We have a company meeting every two weeks called the "good ideas meeting"; and it has yielded major improvements in the way we do business.
Once every two weeks on Wednesdays at 9AM, all of us sit around a table and talk about one process or product that we want to improve on. I generally lead the meeting and solicit every idea we can get no matter how wild or impractical they may sound. The goal is; how can we get better at what we do? It’s that simple.
The results have been outstanding. Every aspect of our business has become more efficient, and products continue to be better and shipped faster.
Even in these times, we have managed to survive. And, it is all because of the constant small improvements that we instituted 1, 2, 3 years ago and more.
I encourage you to strive to make every aspect of your life and your business better and better.
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