In its continuing effort to educate and inform the business community about quality and Service excellence, the Dubai Quality Award Secretariat at the Department of Economic Development (DED), has launched “Kaizen”, a comprehensive practical guide to implementing the world-renowned Japanese principle of total quality management (TQM).
“Kaizen demonstrates the concept of continuous improvement within an organization without recourse to significant monetary investment or the use of hi tech systems,” said Dr. Lway Nackasha, Advisor Quality and Service Excellence, DED. “It is all about making improvements by going to the real workplace (or GEMBA as it is termed in Japanese), thus collecting actual data, meeting real people, understanding the problems, devising a two-phased solution – first a quick solution to resume production and second a long term improvement following detailed study” he added.
“This book has been compiled by the DED with the objective of offering value added services to the business community in Dubai, by explaining the Kaizen philosophy in a simple manner. The case studies used in the book demonstrate the successful implementation of the principles of Kaizen in the workplace to result in improved performance and greater efficiency,” said Dr. Lway.
The book has been published by the Department with the permission of the Japan-based Kaizen Institute Ltd. while the text figures and photographs used in the book, have been provided by Dr.Masaaki Imai, the founder of Kaizen.
Kaizen, which was established by Dr. Imai in the late 1980s, is a fundamental management philosophy based on the concept of continuous improvement, adopted by many successful manufacturers such as TOYOTA, LEYLAND TRUCKS and INFOTECH. It emphasizes the idea of increasing productivity by reducing Muda (non-value adding activities) in the Gemba (workplace). “Kaizen,” which means continuous improvement, further highlights the idea of making speedy improvements in real time because it does not require extensive investment.
Divided into several chapters, the book explains at length the principles of Kaizen and also details the rules and forms of kaizen activities. Written in simple language, the book attempts to demystify the complex ideas of Kaizen and make them increasingly applicable by business organizations across the board.
