BEING INNOVATIVE - KAIZEN Flashcards
What is Kaizen
Kaizen is a management philosophy that involves the whole workforce in making small, consistent changes to improve the quality of products or processes
What does Kai and Zen stand for
Kai = Change
Zen = Good
How does Kiazen work in comparison to western improvement methods
The western method is to massively change randomly in the future, but the Kaizen method is change consistently over time (constant improvement)
What does Kaizen invlove
Regular staff meetings
Workers encouraged to put forward ideas for innovation
Making small, consistent changes to the production process
Team working
Genuine empowerment of workers
Creating and moving away from a management centred approach
Substantial training costs
What are the benefits of Kiazen
Workers involved in the day to day production of products tend to spot problems first and can solve them beofre they become a major issue
Improves motivation
Reduces wastage and production costs
Small changes require less capital investment
Small changes tend to be easier to implement