Is a Kaizen Event really Kaizen?

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

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

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

duecesevenOS said:

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

Click to expand...

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.

Bill Pflanz said:

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

Click to expand...

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.

duecesevenOS said:

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

Click to expand...

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.

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 Pflanz said:

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

Click to expand...

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.

Duke Okes said:

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.

Click to expand...

I would argue that whether or not they hold "events" is irrelevant to the successful transformation to a "Lean" organization. That is largely dependent on the level of commitment by management.

Kaizen and kaikaku are just terms at the end of the day which people have grasped onto because they read it somewhere, or maybe participated in an “event”. It is the underlying concept and principle that is important. It is kind of like a person walking into a dojo and asking how much it will cost for a black belt. They aren’t really interested in the years of hard training, sweat, aches and pain. Eventually they may attain their black belt, only to be told that the real journey can now begin.

I won’t digress on the number of garbage martial art schools out there, but it does have a real parallel to some self-labeled “Lean” consultants. They come in, hold and event and cherry pick. Maybe it is a set-up reduction, perhaps the plan is to do some 5S. They didn’t employ any earth-shattering methods, but they showed some improvements. Yet don’t ask some of those people to drive and lead a transformation to Lean.

In perspective, for companies like Toyota or Danaher, their “kaizen” would likely be viewed as “kaikaku” to a company that has been in business for 80 years and never once seriously organized a manufacturing area.

A “kaizen” event can be a great way to engage people and get people thinking. It is a way to break down barriers and offer some visible results versus just a bunch of items listed on a whiteboard during a brainstorming session. Yet the journey to change the mindset of an organization has to begin with a first step, why not do it out in a workplace with a diverse group of people?

At the end of the day, if your particular organization has gained benefit from whatever you want to call it, does it really matter what it is named? Let’s face it, “truffle” sounds so much more appealing than “fungus growing below the ground”. To the foodie, it is something that is flavorful and tastes very earthy, yet to others it is totally unappealing.

Do what works for your organization, learn from it, refine it and let it spread throughout the workplace. Then, once you think you have it nailed down, bring in the newest hires and let them rip it apart. After all, they are unlikely to be “tainted” by any preconceived notions.

Wayne

Through the ASQ Discussion board, Coury Ferguson invited Akio to participate in this discussion on the Cove but he declined. He is aware of the Cove and has read threads from it in the past. Since I have been fortunate to have personal communications from him, I know that he is very busy helping others to understand quality including volunteering his time on many discussion boads, publications and other communications. There is a limit to what can be done by one person without making too much work and Akio has decided he did not want to start looking at another board.

My interpretation of Akio's thoughts on the various Lean buzz words is that they have become fad words that have been misattributed and misused by Lean proponents. Kaizen happens to be one Lean concept he is very outspoken on and he does not like. There are many lean methods that he does like even if he dislikes the associated Japanese term used for it. With decades of experience and knowledge, he learned the same methods through books written in the 1950's by Americans including the military and those teaching operational research. In his opinion, they are not new and have sometimes become corrupted in their use in Japan. There is something to be said for going back to the original sources and understanding the theory behind the methods. It is harder to do than just taking the latest course that might be taught by a hack but the effort has value. Although it is possible for the older theories and methods to be improved over time, it is also possible that all that has been added is just junk methods and terminology.

Peronally, I am glad that I got to know Akio. He may be the closest thing I have found to the masters like Juran, Deming and others from the quality past.

Bill Pflanz