Kaizen

• Kaizen

Kaizen  Japanese for "improvement", or "change for the better" refers to philosophy or practices that focus upon continuous improvement of processes in manufacturing, engineering, and business management.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen

• What Is Kaizen?

In business management, kaizen is a Japanese tradition which is now used internationally, modified by each culture to best suit their own business environments. A literal translation of kaizen could be "to become good through change". At its most basic the concept of kaizen is one of restructuring and organizing every aspect of a system to ensure it remains at peak efficiency.

Kaizen is founded upon five primary elements:

    Quality Circles: Groups which meet to discuss quality levels concerning all aspects of a company's running.

    Improved Morale: Strong morale amongst the workforce is a crucial step to achieving long-term efficiency and productivity, and kaizen sets it as a foundational task to keep constant contact with employee morale.

    Teamwork: A strong company is a company that pulls together every step of the way. Kaizen aims to help employees and management look at themselves as members of a team, rather than competitors.

    Personal Discipline: A team cannot succeed without each member of the team being strong in themselves. A commitment to personal discipline by each employee ensures that the team will remain strong.

    Suggestions for Improvement: By requesting feedback from each member of the team, the management ensures that all problems are looked at and addressed before they become significant.
   
    Unlike many Western management techniques, which treat employees as numbers to be crunched for maximum efficiency, kaizen takes the opposite outlook, proposing essentially that a happy employee is a productive employee.
   
    http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-kaizen.htm#