Continuously Improving Processing In An Organisation:What Is The Difference Between Kaizen and Lean Management?
Many of us are naturally motivated to improve processes with each of our organisations, whether that be improved customer service, or increasing profitability by reducing waste.
Kaizen™ and Lean Management are two key structured approaches/beliefs which have been successfully adopted by major organisations to bring about positive changes in the quest of efficiency and improved productivity. What are the differences, which one should you consider using and why?
What is Kaizen™?
Kaizen™ originated in Japan over 30 years ago by Masaaki Imai and means change (kai) for the better (zen). It is globally recognised as a strategic approach to continuously improve business processes everyday by adopting 5 fundamental processes:
Know Your Customer
Target Zero Waste
Follow the Action
Empower People
Be Transparent
This video from Kaizen™ explains more:
Video courtesy of Kaizen™ Institute.
What is Lean Management?
Lean Management is focused on the elimination of waste, increasing productivity and added-value for the client with the goal of a perfect process with zero waste. A typical Lean process also has five steps:
Identify Value
Map the value Stream
Create Flow
Establish Pull
Seek Perfection
This video from the Lean Management Institute explains more:
Video courtesy of Lean Enterprise Institute.
What Are the Differences Between Kaizen™ and Lean Management?
Although both strategies focus on continually improving processes within an organisation, the two major differences are about inclusivity of people and the pursuit of perfection.
People
The Kaizen™ approach recognises the value of the insight the worker can provide to help improve the processes of which they are involved with and believes including people in the cycle of continuously improving such processes can also lead to improved commitment to the business, their role and HR benefits of improved staff retention levels.
Perfection
The approach of lean management suggests you continually pursue the strategy for perfection but with Kaizen, the belief is everything can continuously be improved. The Kaizen approach may make more sense from a marketing perspective as non-controllable external factors in a marketplace such as changing technology levels, availability of skills on-demand, political and natural forces continuously change the Physical Environment, meaning at best you may experience a temporary optimum period before the market changes, and a series of small adjustments needed to bring back this optimum focus.
Examples Where Kaizen™ has Been Used
Lockheed Martin is a widely cited example of a business that fully embraced Kaizen. A full report ‘The Lean Enterprise – A Management Philosophy at Lockheed Martin’ from Defense Acquisition Review Journal makes very interesting reading.
Example of where the LEAN Technique Has Been Used
The most cited and highly regarded example of where Lean management has been used successfully to improve processes, is Toyota where the JIT (just-in-time) approach has been adopted by many companies around the world.
Hybrid-Approach
Instead of choosing between the approaches, a third flexible option may be a hybrid approach where Lean may force a number of larger changes over a shorter period of time, followed by a Kaizen approach which focuses on the people’s insights to drive further improvements at a more granular level.
Adopt Best Practice for the Best Outcome
Using CORE in a construction management project can support your approach to improving processes within your organisations by providing staff the data they need to empower them to make informed decisions on site, reducing duplication of tasks, streamlining communication and accessibility of documents as well as many other features such as visual indicators and easy to understand dashboards which all support both Lean and Kaizen principles. Test it out here for yourself.
Before implementing any strategy, it is always best practice to measure the cultural sensitivity of your team(s) to new ways of working, especially with IT to ensure training needs are noted and responded to. Failure to do this correctly, could reverse your business situations and operations even before the strategy begins.
Advance planning, good communication, team building sessions and introducing consultants who can demonstrate they clearly understand your business and business culture to key team members are all great ways to mitigate day-to-day problems.
