Kaizen: The Culture of Continuous Improvement

What is Kaizen?

Kaizen is a Japanese term meaning “good change”, “change for the better”, or “improvement.” As a business philosophy, Kaizen involves all employees and promotes a mindset where small incremental changes create a significant impact over time. The Kaizen method enhances specific organizational areas by involving both top management and employees to initiate daily changes, knowing that many tiny improvements in the process can yield big results.

The History of Kaizen

Kaizen’s roots or rapid improvement processes can be traced back to post-World War II, when economic reform consequently took over Japan. Since the Toyota Motor Corporation implemented the Creative Idea Suggestion System in May 1951, changes and innovations led to higher product quality and worker productivity, substantially contributing to the company’s development.

In September 1955, Japanese executives officially started visiting the United States as one of the initiatives of the Japan Productivity Center. Integrating the American way of doing business with a humanized approach eventually pushed Japanese companies into worldwide competitiveness. During the 1980’s, management consultant Masaaki Imai worked with Taiichi Ohno to spread the message of the Toyota Production System (TPS), a result of several years of continuous improvements.

Considered the Father of Kaizen, Masaaki Imai globally introduced kaizen as a systematic management methodology in Kaizen: The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success (1986). Today, organizations across different industries adopt kaizen as a part of their core values and practice continuous improvement on a day-to-day basis with concepts from six sigma and lean. It is also used with other analytical frameworks such as SWOT.

The Five Core Principles

To maximize the benefits of the Kaizen technique, there are five main principles that should be clearly understood before applying them in your context. Aside from management commitment and practicing the 5S, here are the core principles of Kaizen:

1. Know Your Customer - Know the needs of your target audience. Understand their needs so you can find ways to satisfy them.

2. Let it Flow - Remove any bottlenecks in operations. Streamline processes to boost productivity and efficiency.

3. Go to Gemba - Visit the actual place of work with a Gemba Walk. Use standardized Gemba Walk checklists to spot opportunities for improvement.

4. Empower People - Create a workplace culture where everyone can contribute ideas. Give people a voice in what needs improvement.

5. Be Transparent - Share plans and problem-solve openly with your team. Keep everyone informed and aligned to build trust.

The Kaizen Process

The Kaizen Step-by-Step Process

Since kaizen is a step-by-step process, the journey of effectively implementing it can only move forward by asking the right questions. Understanding the key elements and Kaizen rules sets up the organization for success because they lay the foundation for expected results. Here are key guide questions to help you get started (and keep going) with Kaizen continuous improvement initiatives in the workplace:

1. What is the root cause of the problem?

If an ongoing change-resistant culture is bad, then investing resources in solving the wrong problem is worse. Leaders should deny their assumptions about what (or who) they think is wrong and dig deeper into the issue by practicing Gemba walk and root-cause analysis. Place yourself in a better position to identify quality gaps by personally communicating with employees and observing their work firsthand. Remember not to criticize, find faults, and blame people; instead, generously absorb everything that is currently happening because it is a more accurate reality of a typical day in operations.

2. How can we address the root cause?

One of the simplest problem-solving techniques is the 5 Whys Analysis, and performing it to determine the root cause of a problem can be effective in formulating solutions that prevent recurrence. Armed with creative suggestions from workers and supported by valuable information from where the work happens, managers can now implement low-cost but high-value improvements that align with the quality objectives of the organization.

3. Are changes applied consistently across the team?

The management displays its commitment to continuous improvement when it immediately takes action on the small incremental changes and follows through with impactful long-term initiatives. Walk the talk by personally changing the way you work and taking note of its effects on the quality of your output. Kaizen is for everybody—meaning it can be used not just by team members but also by leaders—and should take place everywhere, not just on the shop floor. Save time and money from manual monitoring across different sites and all levels of the company by centralizing Kaizen management.

4. What impact are improvements creating?

Individuals tend to give up on implementing Kaizen because they do not instantly see or feel the difference their seemingly small actions make in the whole company. The A3 report or 8D report are ideal documents to share with employees because it monitors the performance and measures the effectiveness of implemented changes and is proven to effectively communicate the impact of Kaizen initiatives. As a general rule, continuous improvement done right leads to positive, lasting results that significantly add value to the entire organization. Keep the most impactful solutions in mind to know which actions the company needs to stop, start, and continue.

5. How else can we keep improving?

The road of continuous improvement is not marked by an attitude of perfectionism but a desire for growth—personal and organizational. Achieving 50% of improvement goals now is good; celebrate the win but never stop improving. Be proactive about solving problems in the workplace because kaizen is an unending process. The Kaizen cycle aims to keep on producing industry-shaping innovations through years of continuous improvements.

Kaizen in Action

A kaizen blitz, or kaizen event, is a short-term improvement project designed to accomplish significant results in process management and quality issues. Kaizen events focus on improving a specific area of the company, meaning they are ideal to deploy in a business process or department of 50 or fewer employees.

As a short-term approach with visible benefits within weeks, a kaizen blitz enables project management teams to easily obtain a high level of commitment from the people involved and maintain the interest of top management. Conducting a 5-day kaizen blitz can set organizations in motion to intentionally build a culture of continuous improvement or kaizen, but it should not replace implementing the Kaizen cycle.

Step-by-Step 5-Day Kaizen Example:

Before the event:

1. Gain the actionable support of any sponsor from top management

2. Present the project scope, SMART objectives, and resources needed

3. Form a cross-functional blitz team

4. Collect the necessary data for defining the improvements required

5. Brief the blitz team and other key stakeholders

During the event:

1. Day One: Kaizen blitz introduction from top management, blitz team training on process improvement, and project review with a high-level map of the blitz process

2. Day Two: Gemba walk with a process map and problem-solving with supporting data

3. Day Three: Data analysis and development of workable solutions like 5S

4. Day Four: Solutions refinement, prioritization, and implementation

5. Day Five: Continuous improvement preparations and planning and presentation of outcomes and recommendations to top management

After the event:

1. Keep implementing improvements, especially for actions overlooked during the blitz

2. Communicate process changes to key stakeholders and all employees

3. Sign off on the impact of kaizen blitz (vs. project objectives) with top management

Kaizen Management Success Stories

It takes a long-term commitment of consistently making incremental changes in daily operations to maximize the benefits of Kaizen and create a standard quality of work. Improved quality, productivity, and safety through kaizen management in the workplace results in increased employee morale, customer satisfaction, and company revenue. 

Many successful brands have shown that pairing Kaizen with smart technology makes a big difference. By leveraging digital tools, they’ve been able to easily manage day-to-day continuous improvement efforts and consistently solve problems with cost-efficient solutions. 

Here are some notable success stories:

1. Toyota Motor Manufacturing (U.K.) - Perhaps the most well-known example of kaizen in action. Alongside the Just-in-Time method, Kiichiro Toyoda strongly advocated for continuous improvement. Simple, low-cost innovations such as Dougal, which reduces wasteful movement by bringing parts to workers that speed up tedious tasks, which saves 35.1 seconds per car. Applied globally in 2018, those gains added up to nearly 10 years of conserved work. Undoubtedly, kaizen elevated Toyota as the world’s first company to produce more than 10 million cars in a year.

2. Thermosash Group - For over 50 years, the Thermosash Group has shaped New Zealand’s skyline with striking building facades. Their workers face daily risks, from working at heights to managing the challenges of WorkSafe compliance, leaving little room for error. By adopting SafetyCulture’s digital solution, Thermosash embraced the Kaizen principle of empowering people. Through the SafetyCulture platform, workers are directly involved in training, managing equipment with sensors, raising safety concerns, and taking ownership of continuous improvement in their roles.

3. PHX Ireland - As the country’s leading integrated healthcare provider, PHX Ireland often found itself stretched too thin with heavy paperwork, countless digital tools, and the sheer volume of patients they serve. With SafetyCulture’s help, teams can now communicate and strategize seamlessly all the way from the shop floor to retail, practicing the Kaizen rule of Let it Flow by removing bottlenecks. The result: staff now spend 40% less time on admin and more time helping patients, with faster audits, stronger compliance, and a safer workplace.