Explore BrainMass

Explore BrainMass

    Kaizen

    Kaizen, in Japanese, means “good change,” and refers to any type of improvement, one-time or continuous. As a modern management term, kaizen refers to a Japanese business philosophy of continuous improvement, the philosophy that the Toyota Production System is known for. Kaizen is concerned with reducing waste, or “muda,” through increased productivity and improved quality. As a corollary, kaizen focuses on employee involvement in order to meet its goals.

    In the Toyota Production System, the production line is stopped each time there is a problem and employees are responsible for problem solving and coming up with better working practices and personal efficiency to improve quality, productivity and employee involvement. According to The Toyota Way 2001, Kaizen has three components: challenge (employee creativity and empowerment), improvement (a culture that encourages that people fix problems when they see them) and genchi genbutsu (a philisophy that suggests one must go and see for themselves to really understand any problem).

    Some challenges that kaizen may focus on include making tasks simpler and easier to perform, re-engineering processes to accommodate the physical demands on team members, increasing the speed and efficiency of the work process, maintaining a safe work environment, and constantly improving the product quality. Typically, the PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) Cycle, also known as the Deming Cycle or Shewart Cycle is used in implementing kaizen.

    Plan: Establish objectives and standardize business operations and activities. Design a system to measure the organization’s movement towards those objectives. What are your requirements?

    Act: Collect data to measure your operations. Determining useful information such as cycle-time, in-process inventory, or evaluate data using statistical techniques.

    Check: How does the information about your operations measure up against the requirements? Where can you improve?

    Do: Problem solve to meet requirements, improve quality, increase productivity and minimize waste. Move on to “Plan” again to standardize your new and improved operations, and set new objectives and requirements.

     

     

    Title Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

    © BrainMass Inc. brainmass.com March 19, 2024, 3:44 am ad1c9bdddf

    BrainMass Solutions Available for Instant Download

    Strategic issues of quality

    Based on strategic, structural, and cultural challenges, discuss the drivers of Toyota's accelerator crisis. Why was Toyota facing a recall crisis? How well are Toyota's management, employees, and external stakeholders able to support their corporate brand? Has Toyota effectively managed ethics and public relations in the

    Globalization of Business and Inventory Valuation Policy

    1. The globalization of business activity has resulted in which of the following? a. Increased corruption and unethical behaviour. b. FASB and IASB working jointly on a project to converge accounting standards. c. The requirement that major Canadian companies use International Financial Reporting Standards a

    Building an Idea Factory

    Based upon the attached information - Which companies in these examples appear to be the best pursuers of incremental innovation? Also, of breakthrough innovation? Does one approach seem to work better than the other? - How well would Apple's approach work at Toyota? How well would Toyota 's CCC21 approach work at Apple?

    Production Capacity and Site Selection

    A. The production of a good or service requires careful balance of orders with the capacity to produce that item. There may often be more labor hours available than orders needed to fill or orders that are backed up because they exceed capacity. Whatever the case there are many reasons for an imbalance in capacity and demand

    Lean Production System

    John and Tripp at HMC know that the workforce, including both hourly and salaried employees, need to be brought up to speed on the concepts of lean production for the upcoming production changes to be successful. They want to start having plant meetings as soon as possible. For this to happen, the CEO John Michael, has asked yo

    DeBono, Nihon Kyokai and Kaizen

    What is a foundational management philosophy? Describe the foundational management philosophies of DeBono, Nihon Kyokai and Kaizen. What are the perceived differences between the three?

    Case of Toyota in Japanese Management Accounting

    Write about how the development of Japanese management accounting has an influence to the contemporary development of strategic management accounting and management accounting information. Please write about how the case of Toyota - how does the development of Japanese management accounting and contemporary strategic managem

    Operation Management

    From the late 60's through the mid 80's a radical group known as the Red Brigades held Italy in a state of terror. These anarchists believed that Italy could only be saved through the total destruction of the society. Their core belief was that no amount of tinkering could correct the ills confronting the country. The only recou

    Performance Improvement: HPI/Gap Analysis

    1. On an airplane, you find yourself sitting next to an executive whose goodwill is important to you either as a client or as a senior leader of your company. The executive asks, "You said that you are performance improvement consultant. What exactly does one do?" You have less than 3 minutes (3 short paragraphs) to explain the

    Ethical Challenges and Agency Issues

    Analyze the ethical challenges as well as any agency issues. In the same paper, explain how the 1933, 1934, and SOX Acts were reactions to financial crises arising from similar challenges.

    14 practice management accounting questions

    1. Theft of raw materials is most likely to lead to a. Direct materials price variance b. Favorable direct materials price variance c. Unfavorable direct materials efficiency variance d. Favorable direct materials efficiency variance Use the following information for the next 4 questions. Welch Company budgeted the fol

    Importance of Standardized Protocol Systems

    A medical assistant is asked to work in a newly opened office that is also owned by the physician. The expansion has been discussed for many months and is well anticipated. The medical assistant has proven a good employee in the medical office A, and this is why she has been asked to work in the new office. The hope is that the

    Elements of lean process

    Briefly discuss some of the main elements of a LEAN process and how it helps the company be more effective and efficient?

    Strategic Management: Internal Analysis and SWOT (Toyota Case Study)

    Toyota: Keeping up with the Challenge In this case we will be looking inside the company in order to identify their strengths and weaknesses. It is important to consider how these factors will either help the company overcome the threats (or make them more vulnerable), or put them in a position where they can take advantage

    Effects of Quality Management on Domestic & Global Competition

    Compare and contrast quality management of two organizations in the same industry. One organization must compete in the domestic market and one in the global market. Consider researching the airline industry, the auto industry, the electronics industry, or the pharmaceutical industry. Include the following in the paper:

    Kaizen approach to activity-based budgeting

    Kaizen approach to activity-based budgeting Family Supermarkets (FS) has a Kaizen (continuous improvement) approach to budgeting monthly activity costs for each month of 2008. Each successive months, the budgeted cost-driver rate is 0.998 times January's budgeted cost-driver rate, and March's budgeted cost-driver rate is 0.9

    Reason and logic

    The term Conventional knowledge or epistemology to describe all theories about knowledge from ancient times to today, except for the ancient sophists and today's postmodernists. For instance, Conventional epistemology accepts logic or pure reason, as the last word on any intelligent discussion, while postmodernists reject it as

    Is performance based pay effective?

    Can you comment for the below discussion? Is performance based pay effective? There are evidences shows that pay incentives increase employee productivity. Many companies have implemented the salary that rewarded superior performance. In the ideal world, it may be true that if selection and placement decisions are made eff

    Structure, Controls and Culture of Toyota

    Look at the top management team at Toyota and analyze how they use structure, controls and culture to implement their strategy and fulfill their corporate mission. Read the following article: Norihiko Shirouzu. (2010, April 14). Inside Toyota, Executives Trade Blame Over Debacle. Wall Street Journal (Eastern Edition), p

    Toyota's Responsibility to Customer Complaints

    Customer complaints about Toyota cars suddenly accelerating were initially downplayed by Toyota Motor Sales in December 2009, which initially stated that it was caused by the driver's side carpeting getting in the way of the pedal. Toyota's announcements at the beginning of 2010, however, suggested that the real culprit was a d

    Toyota's Mission and the Needs of their Stakeholders

    Toyota is a company that has been in the news a great deal lately. Their mission is to Make Better Cars and Contribute to Society. But does this mission adequately guide the company's actions? Sometimes a company WANTS to be one thing but the actions take them somewhere else. And when this happens, who gets hurt?

    Organizational Development

    Please assist with the following: * Explain the process of organizational development - * Identify the theories associated with organizational development - * Describe the conditions necessary for successful organizational change and development - I have the definition below but don't understand the actual process

    Questions from the Management Philosophy Table

    I need assistance. Submit an analysis of the articles from the Management Philosophy Table assignment (attached). Include the following: Briefly summarize each articleâ??s contribution to your topic. Even though the articles belong to the same theory, the authors may have different opinions. Include the main theorist o

    Questions

    I need assistance. Choose an area of management philosophy. Locate four articles or books on your philosophy written by different management theorists and published in the past 5 years in academic literature. The articles or books may be theory articles, research articles, or a combination. Develop a table to identify similariti

    Kaizen Costing for Blade Runner motorized scooters

    Blade Runner produces regular scooters and motorized scooters. Blade Runner scooters are considered the most reliable in the marketplace. Deman has been volatile, with huge increases in demand during Christmas and Hanukah and just before university classes begin in the fall. In the past, the company filled demand by anticipat