Kaizen Continuous Improvement Team Building (I)

Continuous Improvement

Throughout our lives, we've often considered change — changing cars, jobs, language schools, our image, or even our partner. When we consider that change, we always feel a pang, because we don't want to make a mistake — as the saying goes, we always want to change for the better. In this post we reveal some secrets to achieving Kaizen continuous improvement within your company.

Today, this traditional philosophy of Kaizen continuous improvement, applied to the labour market and structured after World War II by Japanese industry, has turned the country into a global powerhouse and a benchmark for technological and industrial innovation.

However, applying it isn't as simple as "change for the better". Success is achieved through small changes that add up until reaching a noticeable evolution towards something better. Employee involvement — not just with their own work, but also with their colleagues, customers and the company itself — is essential. And for this recipe to succeed, a great deal of discipline is needed, along with a series of checking routines that minimise failure and help detect errors quickly without slowing down decision-making.

Kaizen continuous improvement helps employees better organise processes, which is why every company can benefit from it. The fundamental pillar of this Kaizen continuous improvement is raising the quality of the product/service to meet customer expectations.

Today, one consequence of market globalisation is customer demand — more knowledgeable and complex customers now know how to choose decisively. Companies must therefore respond with quality, design, service, innovation and price, as factors additional to the product itself.

What to Keep in Mind for Change (KAI) and Improvement (ZEN), or Kaizen Continuous Improvement

#1. Quality Control (TQC) and Total Quality Management (TQM) #2. Just in Time and its visual communication tools, like Kanban. #3. Zero Defects. #4. Practising group suggestions. #5. Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)

Over the coming days, we'll cover each of these topics. But if you can't wait for the next posts, you can always get in touch with Kaizen Team Building through this form.