Kaizen Lit

Executive Summary

Abbott Laboratories is a US based company which focuses on discovering new drugs and technologies to manage people’s health. In Malaysia, Abbott Laboratories has been marketing healthcare products for more than 25 years. In recent years, pharmaceutical industries have become very challenging due to increase number of innovative players. The only way to sustain and outshine from competitors is through process of change. However, most employees, especially middle managements are resisting to change where it requires shaking and removing them from comfort zones. One way to initiating, leading and sustaining change in the company is to implementing continuous small improvement. This will lead to snowball effect over a period of time. Philosophy of Kaizen is introduced to be implemented in Abbott Laboratories Malaysia to remove the fear of change. The objective of this proposal is to implement Kaizen into Abbott Laboratories Malaysia as an initiative in change management. Kaizen is a Japanese word means continuous improvement. One of the activities of Kaizen is removing muda, which known as increase resources without value added to the operation. Kaizen methology as; approach that get involves of all employees of the organization; improving the process or methods of operation; improvements are small but incremental in nature; employees as vehicle to drive the incremental changes. The fundamental of Kaizen consist of 5s concept, defined by Japanese as a series of good customs from the traditional manner of behavior in their culture. There are Seiri (sorting), Seiton (systematic), Seiso (sweeping or shinning), Seiketsu (standardization), and Shitsuke (self-discipline). Furthermore, there are also several instruments that can be used to achieve continuous improvement, such as 5 why, 7 kinds of Muda, Andon, and PDCA. The implementation of Kaizen in Abbott Laboratories Malaysia is proposed to management. As conclusion, all the employees are expected to...