What is Kaizen?

• The word ‘Kaizen’ has been adopted from a Japanese phrase, meaning ‘change for the better’, or ‘continuous improvement’
• The Kaizen philosophy is that your people are empowered to improve the processes they operate or are responsible for
• Kaizen teams use the Lean methodology to plan, execute and review their changes as a continuous part of their everyday roles
• As Lean focuses on eliminating waste,  applying Lean through Kaizen improves process efficiency
• However, Kaizen at it best is much more than this - it is also a fantastic way of promoting cultural change, by encouraging people to take an interest and then make positive changes to the things they care about!
• It is highly effective at improving poor to moderate business processes. However, good processes also benefit from Kaizen,  as its many tools, techniques and philosophies lay the foundations for process excellence
• A variation of Kaizen is the ‘Kaizen Blitz’, also known as ‘Kaikaku’, which is Japanese for ‘instant revolution’
• As the name suggests this is a very quick improvement exercise, which can result in step change
• Best of all, Kaizen is fun, exciting, challenging and addictive!

Why we get results

• We have substantial experience deploying Kaizen
• We can help you specify the best approach for your business (see Diagnostics for more details), or simply provide whatever consultancy, training and coaching you require
• We’re practical and pragmatic - our focus is always on getting results (we’re practitioners - not just trainers!)
• We tailor our services and approach to meet your needs (please see methodology deployment requirements diagram below)

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There are three basic levels to deploy any methodology:

• At a basic level a methodology can be used to solve a specific problem
• Methodologies can also be deployed strategically to resolve strategic issues across the business.  Generally, this involves developing capability within the business to achieve this
• Often, businesses decide to apply a uniform approach to business improvement across their entire business.  This, ‘total immersion’ approach, involves developing a 'critical mass' of capability within the company, with support structures to ensure that it is self-sustaining
• We can help you, whatever deployment model you choose - please contact us to discuss your requirements

Capability Development

The level of capability development is an important factor in Strategic and ‘Total Immersion’ deployments

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• Training provides knowledge, but real understanding is only developed by doing
• We offer a range of coaching services, to guide capability development and ensure that results are achieved
• Beyond having people that can do, you’ll need your own, sustainable, support structure to ensure the continued growth and success of your capability - we'll help you create, or develop, your infra-structure to achieve this

Training, Coaching & Support

Besides full deployments, we also offer the individual components, to support and supplement existing programmes:

• Kaizen training: bespoke and ’off-the-shelf’, from awareness and champions training, through to detailed courses for practitioners and train-the-trainer courses
• Kaizen coaching:  a range bespoke of support options to ensure that both personal capability and business results are achieved.  These range from providing a full-time support team to remote support options, as appropriate
• Kaizen community infra-structure: Bespoke services to design, develop and install appropriate capability support and development infra-structure

Please contact us to discuss your requirements

Next Steps

We’d be glad to provide more details, or discuss your requirements with you. Please contact us

Related Tools, Techniques & Methodologies

We offer consultancy (diagnostics, project definition, projects, deployments, training, coaching and results with the following Lean related tools, techniques and methodologies:

Please contact us to discuss your requirements