Hey everyone, welcome to this lecture introduction to Kaizen. Let's begin with the first question. What is Kaizen? Kaizen is synonymous to the term continuous improvement. The word Kaizen is a combination of two Japanese words, Kai and Zen. Chi means change and Zen means for the better.

So Kaizen means change for the better. Kaizen is a system that involves every employee from the grassroot level in the organization to the upper management level. Everyone is encouraged to come up with a small improvement suggestion on a regular basis. Why to use Kaizen? Kaizen teaches individuals skills for working effectively in small groups, solving problems, documenting and improving processes, collecting and analyzing data and self managing it In a peer group, it pushes the decision making down to the workers and requires open discussion and group consensus before implementing any decisions. These days the management of every organization looks for continuous improvement.

Identification and execution of a Kaizen and its recognition by the management allow a culture of continuous improvement to automatically set in the organizational population. When to use Kaizen, Kaizen is not a once a month or once a year activity is a continuous one. Kaizen is based on making little changes on a regular basis, always improving productivity, safety and effectiveness while reducing waste. Thus, it is process oriented. Kaizen opportunities may also be identified in your lean projects. These guys in portunities are low hanging fruits that can be implemented rather swiftly and the benefits could be approved.

A few points to remember, Kaizen is not simply turned on or off at the first sign of a problem. Continuous gradual improvement can only bring compounding effect. Kaizen is not a search of breakthroughs and quantum leaps, but it is something that should be used for incremental improvements.