Introduction
Masaaki Imai, author of Gemba Kaizen, states that companies, particularly in manufacturing field, can become more profitable by continuously looking for efficiencies. In Western style management it is more common to seek huge leaps. In Japanese style "Kaizen" businesses must try to eliminate anything that is inefficient thus cutting waste. Imai gives impressive examples from real world situations and supports them with case studies that show "Kaizen" in work.
Discussion
1) The theme. Gemba Kaizen is divided into two major parts. The first part is well organized and deeply explained, very easy to read and understand overview of lean management concepts. Author has done a great job of reviewing the key concepts of lean production. The second part is a series of case studies. They cover a wide range of businesses and author gives examples how different companies applied lean principles.
Masaaki Imai fully explains to non - Japanese managers the offshoot and use of "Kaizen" philosophy: continuous striving for improvement and periodically setting higher standards to be reached. This strategy will lead the companies to become more profitable and employees to better morale.
2) Importance of concept. "Gemba Kaizen" is a work discipline, philosophy that uses small but continuous improvements in the workplace to save money and increase the output instead of heavy investments into new technology. This concept is especially important for Western style management because today's managers often try to apply urbane tools and technologies to deal with problems that can be solved with easy to apply, common sense and, what is more important, low cost methods.
Authors proposed two approaches to gain this ...
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...yee's involvement in process will create more friendly working conditions and the feeling of working in a team will appear. Manufacturing will produce products of higher quality with lower rate of defects found. Services will become even more customer oriented and result in greater satisfaction by the customers.
Conclusion
In Gemba Kaizen Masaaki Imai focuses the result-oriented technique of "Kaizen" on the place where real production is done - "Gemba." Small "Kaizen" improvements in the key operations will multiply into greater profits and higher quality many times over. No complex and expensive technology or procedures are needed - the business philosophy of making continuous improvements is the only way to become the leader on the market.
References
1. Imai, Masaaki, 1997. A Commonsense, Low-cost Approach to Management. New York: McGraw-Hill.
The paper starts with basic description on Lean Thinking, Toyota way and quality measurements like six sigma. They describes Lean as Lean is commonly understood to be a waste reduction methodology wherever processes square measure examined for seven specific wastes, and also the wastes are for good far from the method. Then they start the real topic of paper using this lean thinking in a donuts company. In this case the company is facing a serious issue in maintaining its service in the peak business hours. The paper explains the total flow of the operations that take place at backend
“Quality of lean systems is based on kaizen, the Japanese term for “change for the good of all” or continuous improvement” (Russell & Taylor, 2013, pg. 737). Continuous improvement involves “every employee at every level” (Russell & Taylor, 2013, pg. 737). It is the process of employees identify “quality problems, halt operations when necessary, generate ideas form improvement, analyze processes, perform different functions, and adjust their working routines” (Russell & Taylor, 2013, pg. 737). “The idea focuses on improving processes and products while using employee creativity to help define the way procedures and systems can be improved” (Wagner, N., 2015). The kaizen approach encourages an organization to achieve better operational excellence and improve their productivity. The key component to achieve a successful kaizen “is finding the root cause of a problem and eliminating it so the problem does not reoccur” (Russell & Taylor, 2013, pg. 738). One of the techniques for achieving the root cause of a problem is asking the “5 Why’s”: “repeatedly asking “why?” until a root cause is identified” (Russell & Taylor, 2013, pg. 738). Kaizen is that big results from many small changes accumulated over time. This does not mean that kaizen means small changes. What is does mean, is that everyone involved is making improvement for a more streamline process. Kaizen is part of the quality of source that involve; visual control,
It is stable over time and expands the attention range of the corporation. Through involving a broad and long term aim, it creates a sense of urgency and improvement drive
Dr. William Edward Deming is known as the father of the quality evolution. To gain this status Deming developed many innovative processes and philosophies. The most recognized being the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle (PDSA), which is a method for continuous improvement of processes. Another major development in the process improvement sector was Deming’s creation of the 14 key principles; this is an outline of codes that aid in transforming business effectiveness. In addition to the 14 key principles, Deming also established the seven deadly diseases; a list of conditions that would halt continuous improvement. Also notable were Deming’s Red Bead experiment and the chain reaction philosophy which exemplified the importance of investing within the organization..The effectiveness of these philosophies and principles can be viewed from Japanese industry; where Deming spent much time in his early career sharing his knowledge about process improvement.
Next, researchers explained that a successful organization with good performance like good sales volume, market share, stock price and revenue all comes with a relationship within organizational culture as well as company performance. All at once, it is crucial that an organization fits the culture into the demands of the company’s environment (Kotter and Heskett, 1992). For instance, a high technology industry that supports its performance by having a strong culture that encourages adaptability and innovativeness will produce good presentation. On the another hand, imagine a same industry company that practice their culture by their tradition with high respect and strong precedence in procedures and upholding rules, this may affect the employees to suffer in such culture. In another way round, it will have a competitive advantage when an organization has the “right” culture, meanwhile it can also lead to responsible for performance failure or difficulties when the organization has the “wrong” culture, and this act might lead to the organization in taking risks as well as barrier of changing (Elvir and Savo,
...ions, consensus management and seniority-based reward systems all suitably adapted to the local context, of course, this would force the adoption of Japanese practices such as Kanban(JIT) and Kaizen (continuous improvement), that call for flexible utilization of resourceful humans.
There is a lot of literature on the concept of continuous improvement (CI). Studies show that CI is very important to creating competitive advantages in highly competitive industries such as the automobile industry (Bhuiyan & Baghel 2005; Li et al. 2009; Schaeffer, Cadavid, & Backström 2010). These studies suggest that manufacturing firms use CI to eliminate waste in all organisational systems and processes (Bhuiyan & Baghel 2005; Li et al. 2009). Currently, manufacturing firms use lean manufacturing, six sigma, lean six sigma, and the Kaizen methods of CI methodologies to reduce wastages, simplify the production line, and improve quality (Swink & Jacobs 2012).
Kaizen is the most important concept in Japanese management. It means continuous improvement in every aspect of life, including social life, working life and home life. A wide range of production techniques and working practices must be carried out for it to be effective. This approach argues that a day should not pass without some kind of improvement being made, no matter how small, and achieving the lean goal eliminating all waste that adds cost without adding value.
Management is the process of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling resources within a company to achieve organizational goals and economic well-being. With that being said, there are numerous theories regarding behavioural management as well as classical management approaches that can be considered as to which would predominate a Japanese business such as Nikon. Japanese business such as Nikon tend to make decisions by ‘consensus’, focus on the problem at hand, constantly increase effectiveness and focus, prioritize security and productivity, and open up to organizational change.
Gemba takes the general concepts of system and processes and extracts the system of processes directly involved in producing value on behalf of a customer. An organization needs to have a purpose for providing a product or service and that purpose is directly related to the customer. When an organization can clearly see the value it is adding to the customer, the organization is “Beginning with the End in Mind. By “Putting First Things First”, an organization is able to use priorities and steps for providing the product or service. These priorities and steps create a hierarchy of importance. For example, raw materials need to attach to other parts before they can be painted. Another habit that Covey discusses is “Being Proactive”. A company that is proactive instead of reactive is able to work much more efficiently within the system. By working more efficiently within the system the company is able to utilize Gemba as a priority.
...reduce cost to the business, customers and the environment. Lean production system can be seen really great operations strategy for Kellogg’s, however, the management need to look for methods, which enables the employees to understand the system better, therefore resistance can be avoided. In order employees to be motivated, there is a need for training before their work as well as involve them in the implementation procedure. Consequently, Kellogg’s would be more successful if the company carries out this program.
Quality is a very important thing in an organization; therefore it is not possible to improve the quality of a product or service substantially without major changes in all aspects of the organization. Because quality is so important if changes aren’t made throughout the organization the output of the product will no be very successful. Everyone in the organization plays a major role in the out come of its products.
The twentieth century has brought in a number of management theories which have helped shaped our view of management in the present business environment. These emerging theories have enabled managers to appreciate new patterns of thinking, new ways of organising and new ways of managing organisations and people. Over the years these different theories have enabled the study of trends that have taken place in the management field. The major management viewpoints- which include the classical, behavioural and contingency approaches- have assisted in the formation of the contemporary twenty-first century management theory and techniques (S. C. Certo & S. T. Certo, 2006). Although, there are significant differences among all these approaches they seem to be unified by the efforts of improving an organisation’s efficiency in terms of proper human resources management. Furthermore, the dissimilarities seen in these approaches are due to the always changing organisations and environments which demand new management practices and techniques be applied to maintain the efficiency of an organisation.
There are several theories that examine an organization and it’s approach to managing work in an effort to develop efficiency and increase production. Two classical approaches to management are Taylor’s scientific management theory and Weber's bureaucratic management theory. Both men are considered pioneers of in the study of management.
Improvement in the quality is a continuous process; by discontinuing the continuity will shatter the business competitiveness in the market. Generally, six sigma, lean and Kaizen are being used for continuous improvement by the companies. But in case of manufacturing companies, they need to be more calculative and carful in the continuous improvement is essential but the company should be cautious in not investing in destructive research. It is not possible for implementing the TQM in all process (Ashkenas, 2013).