Is a Kaizen Event really Kaizen?

[duecesevenOS]

This confuses me a little.

All of these reference books describe kaizen as a continuous improvement or improvement toward perfection. Then they immediately start talking about a 4 day event that will solve all of your problems. How is that continuous? I don't doubt that a kaizen event is useful. I think that any time you take a good long look at all the wastes in your process it will have good results. This doesn't seem to be the idea behind kaizen however? There is a lot of information out there about these seemingly straight forward kaizen events. Finding test cases about implementing long term kaizen where operators are continually improving their own process is almost impossible to find?

Is the thinking that the kaizen event will lead to a kaizen friendly environment?

duece

[Randy]

Flavor of the month...............

[Bill Pflanz]

If you are an ASQ member, you may want to look at the postings of Akio Miura in the ASQ Discussion Board. He is well known in international quality and has spoken at great length on Kaizen. Muda and other Japanese terms that are widely misused. He is definitely not a cheerleader for various quality methodology associated with Japan and continually credits what he learned from the 1950's books on quality and industrial management and from U.S. good management practices. His opinion is very blunt and describes things like Kaizen as being used by companies that are not trained and knowledgeable in good management practices.

The discussion board is not as user friendly and functional as the Cove but it does have some good discussion. It is more open to ASQ members but you may be able to read most of his postings in the public forums that are available.

Bill Pflanz

[Duke Okes]

Originally Posted by duecesevenOS

This confuses me a little.
All of these reference books describe kaizen as a continuous improvement or improvement toward perfection. Then they immediately start talking about a 4 day event that will solve all of your problems. How is that continuous? I don't doubt that a kaizen event is useful. I think that any time you take a good long look at all the wastes in your process it will have good results. This doesn't seem to be the idea behind kaizen however? There is a lot of information out there about these seemingly straight forward kaizen events. Finding test cases about implementing long term kaizen where operators are continually improving their own process is almost impossible to find?
Is the thinking that the kaizen event will lead to a kaizen friendly environment?
duece

There is a significant difference between kaizen and a kaizen event. Kaizen is a philosophy of continual, incremental improvement carried out forever, and involving everyone in the organization. A kaizen event is a typical American bastardization of the concept, trying to do it in a week or less. The fact that many companies who do kaizen events don't succeed at lean in the long run indicates the difference between the two. A kaizen event is just a project.

[Coury Ferguson]

Originally Posted by Bill Pflanz

If you are an ASQ member, you may want to look at the postings of Akio Miura in the ASQ Discussion Board. He is well known in international quality and has spoken at great length on Kaizen. Muda and other Japanese terms that are widely misused. He is definitely not a cheerleader for various quality methodology associated with Japan and continually credits what he learned from the 1950's books on quality and industrial management and from U.S. good management practices. His opinion is very blunt and describes things like Kaizen as being used by companies that are not trained and knowledgeable in good management practices.

The discussion board is not as user friendly and functional as the Cove but it does have some good discussion. It is more open to ASQ members but you may be able to read most of his postings in the public forums that are available.

Bill Pflanz

I have copied some excerpts from one of the many posts that Akio-San wrote and here it is:

“Kaizen” is originally a Chinese word meaning “making bad things good”. There are many companies in Japan who are boasting of doing lots of kaizen. I think they are very rich of bad things. If they need to do kaizen continually, it means that they are no good eternally. Most of them do not know the true meaning of kaizen even in their own language and doing it just wrong way. This needs kaizen, indeed.

If you need to make any improvement, waste reduction or some necessary change, you should first use common sense. You can do most of them only with common sense or traditional (scientifically validated) techniques, without using tools of kindergarten level people. Process mapping is good but you can do it only with common sense of high school level.

Akio Miura"

This is available on the ASQ Public Boards and there is more information from Akio-San.

[Govind]

Originally Posted by duecesevenOS

This confuses me a little.

All of these reference books describe kaizen as a continuous improvement or improvement toward perfection. Then they immediately start talking about a 4 day event that will solve all of your problems. How is that continuous?
....
duece

You are right.
Kaizen means 'continuous improvement'
" Continuous improvement is often contrasted with radical improvement, Business Process Rengineering, redesign, etc.
The benefits of Kaizen include controllable improvement and maintaining the attention of the workforce on quality. In times of hyper competition, Kaizen may not be enough to keep up, and more radical approaches may be necessary

What you are referring here is technically called “Kaikaku”.

“Kaikaku is radical improvement of any activity, in particular to remove waste (or 'muda'). Thus, when approaching a problem situation, it might require radical improvement to start with (kaikaku), then be continuously improved (kaizen).”

-Ref:The improvement Encyclopedia

In the United States, “Kaizen” and “Kaikaku” are interchangeably used. Practitioners called Kaikaku as Kaizen event or Kaizen Blitz.

Regards,
Govind.

[Bill Pflanz]

I don't know if Govind has had time to read all of Akio's postings since he is so prolific but his feelings about muda are even more blunt. In his opinion, some of the Japanese terms are lower class terms used by people who do not understand quality. Although Coury copied out one of the postings, the totality of Akio's thoughts can best be appreciated by looking at all of his hundreds of postings. I have been very fortunate in receiving personal emails from Akio with attachments of his formal writing on the history of quality in Japan.

Bill Pflanz

[Coury Ferguson]

Originally Posted by Bill Pflanz

I don't know if Govind has had time to read all of Akio's postings since he is so prolific but his feelings about muda are even more blunt. In his opinion, some of the Japanese terms are lower class terms used by people who do not understand quality. Although Coury copied out one of the postings, the totality of Akio's thoughts can best be appreciated by looking at all of his hundreds of postings. I have been very fortunate in receiving personal emails from Akio with attachments of his formal writing on the history of quality in Japan.

Bill Pflanz

Bill, I only chose that one because it gave an opinion from Akio, regarding how the term Kaizen is used and its meaning from one which has always had my respect in his postings. I read Akio's postings on a daily basis (at least the ones I have access to), and I do have to say, he knows his stuff very well.