Kaizen concepts are quite different from traditional management concepts. For example, one of the fundamental management concepts in traditional management is is known as Management by Exception. This is also known as the “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” approach. Given the way some Kaizen advocates paraphrase this, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” the backwoods and uneducated mentality of the MBE concept in conveyed through stereotype.  No matter how you phrase it, it means that if everything is running effectively, then why change the operations of the current system? However, kaizen management and lean manufacturing challenge these existing systems and continually strive to find ways by which the system can be improved.

Kaizen is one of the most important concepts in lean manufacturing. The meaning of the Japanese word “Kaizen” is continuous improvement. When it comes to Just In Time systems or lean manufacturing, the system must change continuously in order to deliver the value to customers. For example, lean manufacturing always wants to eliminate waste from the system. Finding and eliminating wastage from the system continuously is a Kaizen activity.

Another kaizen concept that is key is the trust of organizational employees to determine the improvements that would bring about the greatest improvements to the system. This process helps the organization in many ways. The employees who do the work, obviously know the processes that they follow in performing that work far better than anyone else in management could. As a result, they can innovate the best ways to improve the system and organization. Ultimately, when this change is finally imposed as a process improvement, there is far less resistance since the workers, themselves, originated the idea.

When a workplace is utilizing Kaizen techniques, the system is continuously improved through series of small, but impactful, improvements. This makes the system dynamic. Only the most valuable changes are brought about and the end impact is far less costly. Employees are generally far more motivated, by the Hawthorne Effect, at very least.

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