Kaizen

JAY ERICKSON C. TIO

TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT

January 30, 2015

INNOVATION and KAIZEN

Innovation is the catalyst to growth in the fields of economics and business. The rapid advancements in transportation and communications over the past few decades have outpaced the old methods and economic model for today’s global economy. An economist by the name of Joseph Schumpeter argued that industries must incessantly revolutionize the economic structure from within, that is innovate with better or more effective processes and products, such as the connection from the craft shop to factory. Schumpeter is great contributor to the studies on innovation.

Entrepreneurs will always look for better ways to satisfy their consumer base. They can do this with improved quality, durability, service, and price. This improvements are the fruits of innovation with advanced technologies and organizational strategies.

In Japanese management, kaizen means “continuous improvement” involving the entire workforce from the top management to middle managers and workers. The origin of Japan’s kaizen movement was the quality control method imported from the United States (US) in the post-World War II period. Japan assimilated and developed this as its own management practice method which later even surpassed performance in the US. This method that will be later be known as “kaizen”, expanded exponentially among small and middle sized Japanese companies.

Kaizen means that improving the processing in any and all aspect of the business. This concept is a part of Total Quality management (TQM). It is used and applied in variety of businesses. These businesses include healthcare, tourism, educational institute, and banking and financial services etc. More importantly, Kaizen is a system of continuous improvement in quality, technology, processes, company culture, productivity, safety and leadership.

The word Kaizen means "continuous improvement". It originated from the Japanese words...