Kaizen is the practice, or better said business philosophy of continuous improvement through small, consistent changes that will bring small results in performance, but with high impact on the long-term. This philosophy comes from Japan, and the main goal is to improve efficiency and quality in organizations. This article explains what Kaizen is, its origins, core principles, and how you can implement it for lasting success in your company.

What is Kaizen?

Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy that focuses on everyday small changes to improve organisational efficiency and effectiveness. At its core, Kaizen methodology is about continuous improvement through incremental process adjustments. Not disruptive, large-scale changes but small, manageable improvements that cumulatively lead to large results over time.

Kaizen, in such a way, boosts productivity in operations and creates a culture of continuous improvement as promoted by the Kaizen Institute, embodies the Kaizen philosophy.

A key element of Kaizen is quality across all business operations. Kaizen creates a culture where employees are motivated and feel empowered to improve their workplace practices. This cultural shift means constant vigilance for improvement opportunities by all employees. With the logic to engage everyone in the improvement journey, Kaizen ensures that improvements are driven by those who know the work best, not top-down directives. Organizations with a kaizen approach often experience higher employee morale.

Who will know better how the work is done than the people who do that job every day. So, somebody has developed processes, procedures, and manuals for that specific job, but there is always a place for improvement. And the person who uses all that processes each day can always find a better way to do the job. So, operational excellence with Kaizen starts at the bottom line of your organizational design.

The word “Kaizen” is derived from two Japanese words. “Kai” means “change” and “Zen” means “good”. So Kaizen means “change for the better” and that’s about making positive changes every day.

Also, small incremental improvements are at the heart of Kaizen. That’s the idea that even small improvements can add up to big results over time, leading to long-term success and sustainability.

The Origins of Kaizen

Kaizen originated in post war Japan, as a systematic management methodology focusing on employee involvement to improve quality. After the devastation of World War II, Japanese companies were in a rebuild mode and needed a way to improve productivity and quality without huge costs. This led to the creation of Kaizen, a philosophy of small steps, or incremental improvements. Kaizen was first practiced in Japanese businesses after World War II, influenced in part by American business and quality-management teachers.

Toyota made Kaizen famous by implementing it in their own production system, which became known as the Toyota Production System (TPS). Toyota’s success with Kaizen attracted other companies in Japan and globally to start implementing the same philosophy in their own production processes.

Masaaki Imai globally introduced Kaizen as a systematic management methodology in his book “Kaizen: The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success” in 1986. He is known as the Father of Kaizen and played a big role in popularizing the philosophy. As a young person, he represented the Japan Productivity Centre in the US

Imai’s work emphasized the involvement of all employees in the improvement process and provided practical tips on how to implement Kaizen. His work had a lasting impact on the adoption and success of Kaizen in many industries.

Many companies replicated Toyota’s success by focusing on quality improvement and employee involvement. With the strong focus on quality and employee involvement, companies can easily improve productivity in their production processes. In such a way these companies become more productive and competitive.

Widespread adoption of Kaizen made Japan competitive and made it one of the pillars of total quality management and lean manufacturing.

Core Principles of Kaizen Philosophy

There are several key principles that underpin Kaizen. Let’s briefly look at all of them.

1. Continuous Improvements Through Small Improvements in Short Periods

As we discussed above, the first principle of the Kaizen philosophy is continuous improvements through small improvements in a short period of time.

KAIZEN aims to continuously improve the company’s operations. This improvement is not achieved with some fundamental or disruptive large-scale plans, but in this philosophy, the improvements are small (they could be expressed as 2-3%). But what is essential in this philosophy is that these improvements are continuous (permanent) and if they are considered over a longer period of time, they will certainly bring high leaps in improving productivity of the processes and quality of the products or services.

The KAIZEN philosophy also encourages people to make small changes in short periods of time. These small changes lead to small-scale improvements.

2. Involvement of All Organizational Members

Since the goal of Kaizen philosophy is improvement, which is a certain built-in characteristic of all individuals, all organizational members must be involved in improving organizational performance.

Ensuring management commitment and strong leadership is key to building a culture of Kaizen. So, Kaizen needs managers that are leaders who actively find and fix quality control problems. Some practices such as Gemba walks where managers observe the work and root cause analysis are essential to find the gaps. Immediate action on small changes by leaders shows they are committed to Kaizen and sets the tone for the rest of the team.

Related: The Ultimate Guide to Effective Root Cause Analysis (RCA) Process

Everyone is not only obliged to improve and with each subsequent execution of the task to perform it better than the previous time, but also has the characteristic of wanting to have better results from the work they do. Therefore, KAIZEN is a responsibility for all members of the organization.

3. Without Significant Capital Investments

Since KAIZEN leads to small improvements in small periods of time through individual inventiveness of organizational members, it does not require large investments in the change process. This is also due to the fact that KAIZEN improves existing processes in the company, and does not replace them with completely new processes.

4. Focus on Business Processes

A characteristic of KAIZEN is that it is not oriented towards results but towards processes, that is, it improves processes, and with better processes, better results will be obtained. Even though everything started with the focus on a production process, then operations that are wider than production, each function, process inside the organization is there because it must bring the value to customers. So, the application of KAIZEN philosophy is not limited only to production processes, but also marketing, sales, customer support, maintenance, etc.

5. Suggestion Systems

Since improvement in its own meaning is solving visible or invisible problems that exist in the company, and problems appear at all levels of the hierarchy, and managers are not able to discover and solve them at the bottom line. Therefore, KAIZEN involves employees through their suggestions on what needs to be changed and how to improve. Simply, KAIZEN encourages teams to analyze and standardize new methods to prevent the recurrence of problems.

So, KAIZEN builds such suggestion systems that encourage employees to openly give their opinions on problems and their solutions by assisting supervisors, thus generating as many suggestions as possible.

Kaizen Tools

Because KAIZEN aims to improve all business areas, it uses various tools, methods and techniques that are characteristic of the Japanese way of doing things.

Let’s look at some of them:

1. PDCA Cycle (Kaizen Cycle)

The Kaizen process is a structured approach to continuous improvement, emphasizing incremental changes involving all employees to drive significant changes over time. So, the PDCA cycle (Plan, Do, Check, Act) is a key component of all your Kaizen efforts, providing a systematic framework for implementing changes and verifying their effectiveness.

Plan Step

The “Plan” step in Kaizen process is about planning improvements through defining the objective and the strategy for achieving them. Effective Kaizen implementation includes collecting data to inform decisions about alternative solutions and assess the impact of changes. The best solutions will continue in the next “Do” stage.

For example, one of the solutions is to implement a quality control process inside a business process that produces the most defects. So, we have several alternatives of this solution, such as putting quality control after the second, fifth, or the last subprocess.

Do Step

In the “Do” stage, solutions are tested on a small scale to verify their effectiveness before broader implementation. This approach allows you to evaluate the potential impact of changes without significant risk to implement them.

For our example above, here I usually make simulations and calculations based on them that will tell me the cost efficiency of all alternatives. So, I can take the most cost-effective alternative and implement it in a small scale to test it efficiency before we start implementing improvements.

The focus of the “Do” step in Kaizen is to implement the plan (first step) on a small scale and adjust as needed.

Check

The “Check” step aims to evaluate results and find specific improvement opportunities. This phase is crucial for assessing the effectiveness of implemented changes. Evaluations in the “Check” step compare actual results against desired objectives we select in the “Plan” stage to determine success or identify areas for implementing improvements.

These evaluations inform future adjustments and strategies for continuous improvement within the Kaizen framework.

Act

In the “Act” phase, adjustments based on evaluations refine processes. This step ensures continuous improvement and operational efficiency. Successful improvements identified during evaluations should become standardized work to maintain consistency. In such a way the improvements become standardized work that is clearly included inside Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to ensure not only successful implementation of the change, but also to ensure that these improved practical solutions will be used by organizational members in the future.

So, standardized improvements become integral to operations, leading to sustainable performance enhancements.

2. Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)

TPM stops defects and downtime of the equipment by getting all employees involved in the maintenance process. TPM minimizes small stops and defects and promotes a culture of continuous improvement. Getting all departments involved in maintenance means equipment is maintained proactively, not reactively.

2. The 5S Practice

The 5S methodology creates an organized workspace, essential for maintaining efficiency and safety through.

This practice encompasses five steps:

1. Sort
2. Set in Order
3. Shine
4. Standardize
5. Sustain

By having an organized and clean work environment, we can reduce waste, and find areas for potential improvement to increase productivity, and have a safer workplace for all employees.

5S is a foundation of Kaizen, for continuous improvement and operational excellence.

Related: What is the 5S Lean Methodology and How to Use it to Improve Your Workplace Organization

7 Wastes (7W)

This technique is used to identify, eliminate or reduce waste in the processes. Anything that does not contribute to increasing the value of the product or service is considered waste. This technique refers to the detection of waste in all areas of the organization, not just in the production processes. The name of this technique itself says that 7 wastes occur through:

1. Over-production
2. Waiting
3. Transportation
4. Over-processing
5. Excess inventory
6. Motion waste
7. Deffects waste

Related: The 7 Wastes: A Guide to Eliminating Waste in Your Company

Just-in-Time Inventory Management

JIT inventory management is a Lean manufacturing method in line with the principles of Kaizen, continuous improvement, minimising waste and efficiency.

The principles of JIT are:

1. Pull Production: Production is driven by actual customer demand not forecasts, no inventory build up.
2. Kanban: Visual tool that signals when inventory or materials are needed, preventing over production and smooth workflow.
3. One Piece Flow: Products move through the process one at a time, reducing lead time and quality.
4. Takt Time Alignment: Production is aligned to customer demand, no overstocking.

Kaizen Event (Kaizen Blitz)

Kaizen events, also known as Kaizen blitz, Kaizen burst, Kaizen workshop, are intensive, short-term projects aimed at rapid improvements. A Kaizen event typically lasts for five days, focusing on achieving significant improvements in a short period. As you can see, such Kaizen events are designed to address specific problems within an organization, combining the principles of Kaizen (continuous improvement) and Blitz (rapid action) to achieve quick, impactful results.

The primary goal of such Kaizen event is to achieve significant advancements in a short period, resulting in visible benefits within weeks. Unlike traditional Kaizen, which focuses on incremental changes over time, Kaizen Blitz condenses the improvement process into a few days or weeks, leveraging cross-functional teams and simple tools to analyze problems and implement solutions rapidly.

Effective Kaizen events need a clear target, adequate resources, and team members who understand process improvement principles, often utilizing a kaizen blitz approach.

Many times I have helped my clients to conduct a Kaizen blitz. For example, in one factory we have conducted a three-day blitz to reduce cycle times in its production subprocesses.

On the first day, we identified inefficiencies using Lean manufacturing tools such as the 5 Whys to find the root cause of the problem. On the second day, we work on possible solutions, and on the third day, on their implementations. The solutions were really small, like bringing raw materials and tools closer to processes and operators, also we eliminate waste using 7W, which have resulted in almost 50% reduction in cycle time—from 43 minutes previously to 23 minutes.