If you are looking for ‘continuous improvement’ then Kaizen is a well-established strategy that plenty of businesses like to rely on. It is a highly-efficient, fast-streamed addition to lean management strategies. This strategy encompasses iteration based approaches to gradual improvement that ripple through the entire workforce. For more information and a deepdive into Kaizen, read the following guide.
Table of Contents
What Is Kaizen?
Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy based on five key principles.
- Teamwork
- Personal Discipline
- Morale Boosting
- Trusted Circles
- Improvement Feedback
These principles work collaboratively to create an overarching approach that is specifically useful for production processes. However, it can and is also used in a range of industries such as finance, healthcare, banking, and even government agencies.
Potential Benefits of Kaizen
So, what is the point of it all? There are three big benefits worth mentioning that support the notion of effective impact.
Strong Communication
Strong communication is the key to any productive workplace. Without it, there can be no productivity or successful project outcomes. By talking, whether that is through regular team catch ups or one-to-one interventions, there is scope for constant improvements. That’s the whole point! By talking about the things that are working and the things that really aren’t, a company has a bigger scope for projecting forward.
Boost in Well-Being
It is often said that well-being is the key to productivity. Kaizen focuses on a flowing infusion of well-being amongst employees by focusing on moving forward at all times. People have each other’s back, and overall productivity is naturally enhanced.
Productivity Increases
This enhancement in productivity leads to a general increase throughout the whole organization. Increased productivity is usually because of better engagement and staff that want to be where they are while maintaining their professional development.
The Downsides
There are, as with any formula, downsides of Kaizen events to be considered as well. It is always good to look at both sides of the equation in order to find out what the most https://www.businessphrases.net/prodeg/efficient use of time is for a business.
Not Enough Time to Make Informed Decisions
Informed decisions are the cornerstone of any positive performance delivery. Though there is constant communication, that doesn’t necessarily translate into meaningful conversation.
Lack of Quality Assurance
There is also the question of quality assurance. Given that everything moves so fast, mistakes can be made and it’s easy to miss them!
Why You Might Need Kaizen
With all that weighed up, there is also the question of why you might need Kaizen events at all. This can boil down to several factors:
- Daily productivity not reaching its peak potential.
- Fixing a problem that is putting a thorn in successful operations.
- Diving into the whole team agenda and
As you can see, there are good parts and bad parts to Kaizen. It is always worth keeping it within the context of what’s at hand and remembering how useful it is as part of a wider lean management approach. Communication is an essential part of the process to facilitate optimal results, so even if the goal is continuous movement, there has to be space for conversation within that framework.