Continuous
Improvement
(Kaizen)
Type of quality
system

Kaizen is a system that concentrates on
small but frequent improvements on every
aspect that the production passes.

All members of the workforce will be
invalid

Employees are encouraged to work in
Kaizen groups

Improvements can take place at any level
of the hierarchy

Requires highly motivated and committed
workforce

A vital component of total quality in order
to improve the quality of the production
process.

It Strengthens teamwork through solving problems together as a
team. It strengthens bonds between employees and gives a fresh
perspective and sense of belonging within the company.

It improves leadership skills with team leaders responsible for
the organization, coordination and implementation of the event.

Improved efficiency, cuts out waste of current processes or
procedures ensuring that efficiency across all departments. This
eliminates any unnecessary procedures from a work process.

Improved best practices as Kaizen is constantly improving and
looking for improvement to train new employees and measure
current employees performance.

It improves employee satisfaction allowing for greatly affected
things like productivity, quality of work and retention rates.
Advantages of
the quality
system

Change is hard because it means changing an existing
system and the management may not agree with
changing something that has “worked before so can
work again”.

Additional training would be required in order to
adopt the Kaizen method and to implement the new
methods identified. This may interrupt the normal
workflow of employees who attend the training.
Disadvantages
of quality
system

Toyota – They have used the Kaizen method by slowly and constantly making
small and gradual adjustments as to how things are done.

Nestlé – They have greatly used kaizen as the food industry is one of the most
important firms worldwide. Nestlé have made great improvements in the
reduction of waste by lowering the time and materials wasted on their
processes.

Mayo Clinic- a nonprofit medical practice and medical research group,
following the steps of Toyota, was able to help the complex manufacturing
operation to improve practices. The industry of medicine is very complex,
therefore marginal changes can revolutionize healthcare organizations
worldwide.

Lockheed Martin- a famous American global aerospace, defense, security and
advanced Technologies company. They were able to notably reduce its costs
of manufacturing while lowering their defect rate to 3.4 instances per plane;
and also lower their order to delivery time from 42 months to just below 22.
Another notable accomplishment was in the area of material management,
where they were able to reduce the time to move parts from receiving to
stock from 30 days to just four hours.
Example of
scenario where
quality system
can be
implemented.
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