The challenge of globalization has magnified the economy of most of the developed and developing nations. Globalization has created new complexities in every industry and thus requires new strategies and unique approaches. Have you ever thought why some countries have higher economic growth rates than others? Or why some industries grow at a faster pace and more constantly than any other industry? Perhaps the answer could be they all believed in constant changes for better improvement in order to survive against the competition.
The business world has changed dramatically in the last couple of years and the biggest challenge that most business managers/ entrepreneurs or any business are facing these days is to implement and adopt change programs. The business has become more competitive and no one can deny from the fact that today the requirement to improve the quality and productivity is one of the highest priorities in business management. This is where “Kaizen”, comes into picture and plays a vital role. Kaizen has been derived from the fusion of two Japanese words: “Kai” and “Zen”, it stands for “Change” and “Good” and defined as nonstop enhancement or improvement. In simple terms it means constant analysis to have a better performance. Invented and developed in Japan, this Kaizen approach helped many firms all across the globe to achieve better operational excellence and improve their productivity.
Designed to achieve better quality at low cost and on-time delivery of products, Kaizen generally focus on defining standards and then repeatedly following those standards to get better and maximum output. This is an approach that strives toward achieving perfection by eliminating waste. Moreover, it encourages a better communication between different departments through Total Quality Management. Apart from this, Kaizen approach also focuses on complete productive maintenance and pay attention on getting the highest utility by effectively utilizing the present technologies.
The most important highlight of Kaizen approach is that involves every single employee within an organization starting right from senior managers to the bottom line employees, and makes every person working there, feel the company as something personal. This indirectly helps in improving the individual performance and motivates them to deliver better output. With every employee is looking for ways to make improvements, an effective Kaizen approach can lead to have better results like:
1) It helps in decreasing the waste in areas such as inventory, transportation, and over production.
2) It focuses on discovering problems at their source and solving them at their source, and if in case a situation arises where one needs to change the standards, it further helps in changing the standard so that the problem can be solved.
3) It helps in positive space utilization and better use of production capacity, capital and employee retention.
4) Kaizen can be easily implemented by effective and well planned elimination or transformation of existing procedures
5) It focuses on creative investments and small improvements instead of large capital investments and thus provides immediate results.
No doubt if we observe the current market scenario, by following the Kaizen approach any organization can indeed achieve and develop an organized work place with disciplined employees. Making the appropriate and correct use of skills of your employees to further improve the competitiveness can greatly contribute towards the growth of your business; standardize the working culture and measure all possible metrics to attain the best market result.
In recent years Kaizen as a new concept has been applied into many organizations, manufacturing and service companies. Thus, if any company is looking to improve its productivity at lower costs, and planning to maintain or achieve a sustainable growth rate, then Kaizen is definitely one of the answers.