Kaizen

from the Perspective of Competitive Advantage

by
Edwin B. Dean

According to Imai (1986), "Kaizen means improvement. Moreover it means continuing improvement in personal life, home life, social life, and working life. When applied to the workplace Kaizen means continuing improvement involving everyone - managers and workers alike." He relates quality to Kaizen by stating that "In its broadest sense, quality is anything that can be improved."

Note that if something can be improved then, in some sense, a measure must exist by which improvement can be quantified. Hence the genesis of the concept of quality characteristics. The seven old tools were developed as a way of understanding and visualizing statistical process control. Taguchi methods determined specific engineering measures which could be analyzed statistically to greatly improve customer quality. Quality function deployment, based on the seven new tools, extended the measurement concept from implementation on the production floor to the design of the whole process to bring forth the product.

It is through Kaizen that the processes which bring forth or sustain the product are made more competitive. If customer satisfaction (the larger the better) and cost (the smaller the better) are chosen as the primary quality characteristics, then the focus of workplace Kaizen is to improve value, and hence competitive advantage.

Total Quality Control is the system to implement Kaizen.

References

Imai, M. (1986). Kaizen: The Key to Japan's Competitive Success, McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, New York NY.

Bibliographies

Kaizen Bibliography

Table of Contents | Quality Technologies | Use