Kaizen is an industrial engineering and management method built around continuous, incremental improvement, in which small, frequent changes to a process, often suggested and implemented by the workers who perform it, are used to steadily reduce waste and improve quality, safety and efficiency, rather than relying on occasional large-scale overhauls. The Japanese term, meaning change for the better, became closely associated with the Toyota Production System, where structured kaizen events bring cross-functional teams together to analyze and improve a specific process over a short, intensive period. The approach spread from Japanese manufacturing to industrial engineering and management practice worldwide from the 1980s onward, particularly through Masaaki Imai's writing on the subject.
Facts
Core PrincipleKaizen asserts that significant positive results may be achieved due to the cumulative effect of many, often small (and even trivial) improvements to all aspects of a company's operations. 1 Sources
1. Kaizen (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia Foundationen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen, lead section
asserts that significant positive results may be achieved due to the cumulative effect of many, often small (and even trivial) improvements to all aspects of a company's operations
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen, History section
Edgar McVoy was instrumental in bringing Lowell Mellen to Japan to properly install the Training Within Industry (TWI) programs in 1951.
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