Gemba Kaizen
Masaaki Imai, the founder of Gemba Kaizen, also established Cambridge Corp, international relations. He had already assisted more than 200 hundred foreign and joint venture companies in Japan which includes the fields of recruiting, executive development, personnel management, and organizational studies. He had also served as president of the Japan Federation of Recruiting and Employment Agency Associations for several years. Imai established Gemba Kaizen Institute in 1986 to help the Western companies to introduce the concepts, systems and tools of kaizen. He has also published several books that talks about Kaizen and Japanese management.
Gemba Kaizen is an expression used in Japan that conveys commitment and continuous improvement of practices and processes as a business philosophy. “Gemba” means shop floor and “kaizen” means continuous improvement. This prepares organizational members to actively participate in implementing on-going, world class manufacturing activities that are necessary in keeping the company’s global competitiveness in the mean time and in the future.
One of the most attractive feature of Gemba Kaizen is its independency from technology, complex procedures or equipment. Gemba Kaizen focuses on techniques like total quality management, just-in-time, total product maintenance, and visual management in order to deliver maximum quality. Some companies havehave used Gemba Kaizen as the leading philosophy for implementing “lean thinking” in their processes and products. In effect, these companies have eliminated waste elements such as money, materials, effort, and etc. Instead, they have earned more improvements in their financial performance.
The process of Kaizen Gemba is that on the first day, the consultant will simply observe the day-to-day operations at the organization’s workplace. Within an hour, the experienced consultant will immediately identify the areas that need improvement. This will help the logistics or production managers to see the problem that had occur which they haven’t seen or aware of before. After that, the consultant will begin analyzing the processes. It can be tedious because the consultant will look on every detail, even the measuring time, moving distance, moving status, and etc. These details are important because it can negatively or positively affect the productivity. Relaying these problems on this level can make a difference in the success of the organization.
Reflection:
After doing this piece of writing, I can’t help to think about the hostage drama that happened recently in Quirino Grandstand. I think our country has to eliminate a lot of factors that would help in improving our system. I am talking in general status of our country. Maybe Gemba Kaizen is not a solution, maybe yes, but I think that this approach is extremely effective and efficient if we at least look on each small detail that needs improving in our country. Or just simply imagine how easy and least costly is it if we use Gemba Kaizen approach in eliminating or waste, then I think our environment would somehow improve a lot better.
by: Kathy Chang
http://qualitygurus.com/gurus/list-of-gurus/masaaki-imai/
http://www.finishing.com/121/40.shtml
http://www.shingijutsu-global.com/gembakaizen.html
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