The "Lean Guru" and The Father of "Continuous Improvement" - Masaaki Imai

The Lean Guru and the Father of Continuous Improvement Masaaki
Imai
Biography Masaaki Imai
In 1955 Masaaki Imai obtained his BSc. degree from the University of Tokyo where he developed his
fondness for continuous improvement. In 1962 Masaaki Imai founded the Cambridge Corporation, the
international management consulting and executive recruiting firm. Until 1976, in the capacity of advisor,
he supported more than 200 organizations with recruitment and organizational issues. Between 1976 and
1986 Masaaki Imai was President of the Japanese Federation of Recruiting and Employment Agency
Associations.
In 1985 Masaaki Imai established the Kaizen Institute (also known as Kaizen Institute Consulting Group
(KICG) to help Western organizations. In cooperation with his colleagues, Masaaki Imai developed all
kinds of concepts, formats and system in which Kaizen (improving continuously) was the starting
principle. Kaizen Institute now has offices in more than 30 countries around the world.
Masaaki Imai published in 1986 his book Kaizen, The Key to Japans Competitive Success. The book
was an immediate global success because of which the Kaizen concept was introduced internationally
from Japan at corporate and management level. In the meantime, It has sold well over 300,000 copies
and it has been translated into 16 languages. In May, 1997 Gemba Kaizen, A Common sense, Low-cost
Approach to Management, and a sequel to Kaizen was published by McGraw-Hill in New York. The
French, Dutch, Portuguese and German translations were published simultaneously. The Spanish,
Indonesian, and Chinese translations were published in 1998.
Today, organizations and companies all over the world use the Kaizen philosophy to improve the
productivity, speed, quality and profit at minimal costs, time and effort to achieve the desired results.
Imais organization KICG supports organizations of all sizes in Europe, Asia-Pacific, Africa, the Middle
East and South America and in industries. They offer broad consultancy, training, certification (Kaizen
College), and benchmarking services.
He is still active and he is both an ambassador and a visionary of the organization. He travels all over the
world and takes part in all kinds of conferences to share his unique and convincing messages about
Kaizen and Lean. A convincing characteristic of the Kaizen philosophy is both top-down and bottom-up
approach because of which a sustainable and stately culture arises and develops.
Awards
In November 1998 he received the Asia-Pacific Human Resource Development Award in

recognition of his immense contribution to business efficiency and productivity through the
application of the philosophy of step-by-step improvement.
In addition he received the grateful appreciation for the positive and revolutionary impact that
his bestsellers KAIZEN and Gemba KAIZEN have made on the lives of millions of people
around the globe.
In June 1999 he received the Shingo Research and Professional Publication Prize for his
book Gemba KAIZEN.
MANAGEMENT
Definition and principles of Kaizen In the decade of 1980, management techniques

focusing on employee involvement, and empowerment through teamwork approach
and interactive communications and on improving job design were not new, but
Japanese companies seemed to implement such techniques much more effectively
than others .The business lesson of the 1980s was that Japanese firms, in their
quest for global competitiveness, demonstrated a greater commitment to the
philosophy of continuous improvement than Western companies did (1). For such a
philosophy the Japanese used the term Kaizen. Kaizen means improvement,
continuous improvement involving everyone in the organization from top
management, to managers then to supervisors, and to workers. In Japan, the
concept of Kaizen is so deeply engrained in the minds of both managers and
workers that they often do not even realize they are thinking Kaizen as a customerdriven strategy for improvement (2). This philosophy assumes according Imai that
our way of life be it our working life, our social life or our home life deserves to
be constantly improved (3). There is a lot of controversy in the literature as well as
the industry as to what Kaizen signifies. Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy for process
improvement that can be traced to the meaning of the Japanese words Kai and
Zen, which translate roughly into to break apart and investigate and to improve
upon the existing situation(4). The Kaizen Institute defines Kaizen as the Japanese
term for continuous improvement. It is using common sense and is both a rigorous,
scientific method using statistical quality control and an adaptive framework of
organizational values and beliefs that keeps workers and management focused on
zero defects. It is a philosophy of never being satisfied with what was accomplished
last week or last year (5) ,(6) . Improvement begins with the admission that every
organization has problems, which provide opportunities for change. It evolves
around continuous improvement involving everyone in the organization and largely
depends on cross-functional teams that can be empowered to challenge the status
quo. www.michailolidis.gr 3 Customer orientation Total Quality control Robotics QC
circles Suggestion System Automation Discipline in the workplace TPM Kamban
Quality improvement Just in time Zero defects Small group activities Productivity
improvement New product development Figure 1:aizen umbrella-concept
leadership Crossfuctional teams 5S Productivity Improvemetnt Process Focus
Discipline In the Workplace Teams Improvement The Kaizen Philosophy Figure2: The
kaizen constituents The essence of Kaizen is that the people that perform a certain
task are the most knowledgeable about that task; consequently, by involving them
and showing confidence in their capabilities, ownership of the process is raised to
its highest level (7). In addition, the team effort encourages innovation and change
and, by involving all layers of employees, the imaginary organizational walls
disappear to make room for productive improvements. From such a perspective,
Kaizen is not only an approach to manufacturing competitiveness but also
everybody's business, because its premise is based on the concept that every
person has an interest in improvement. The premise of a Kaizen workshop is to
make people's jobs easier by taking them apart, studying them, and making
improvements. The message is extended to everyone in the organization, and thus
everyone is a contributor (8). So, when Kaizen for every individual could be an
attitude for continuous improvement, for the company also be a corporate attitude
for continuous improvement . As presented by Imai ,Kaizen is an umbrella concept
that embraces different continuous improvement activities on an organization as
shown in Figure 1 (9) . Also Kaizen constituents are presented on Figure 2
www.michailolidis.gr 4 According to James Womack in his book The Machine That
Changed the World (1991), (10) with Kaizen, the job of improvement is never
finished and the status quo is always challenged. Kaizen techniques became famous
when Toyota used them to rise to world automotive leadership. Rather than
undertake large projects, Toyota's staff was encouraged to identify problems, no
matter how small, trace their root causes, and implement all necessary solutions.
Improvements through Kaizen have a process focus. Kaizen generates processoriented thinking, is people-oriented, and is directed at people's efforts. Rather than
identifying employees as the problem, Kaizen emphasizes that the process is the
target and employees can provide improvements by understanding how their jobs
fit into the process and changing it. The companies that undertake a Kaizen
philosophy place an emphasis on the processes - on the 'how' of achieving the
required results .A process emphasis goes beyond designing effective processes; it
requires the teams to understand why a process works, whether it can be modified
or replicated somewhere else in the company and how it can be improved. Table 1
,illustrates some of the major differences between a conventional and a processemphasis approach. Conventional approach Process-emphasis approach Employees
are the problem The process is the problem Doing my job Helping to get things done
Understanding my job Knowing how my job fits in the process Measuring individuals
Measuring performance Change the person Change the process Correct errors
Reduce variation Who made the error? What allowed tile error to occur? Table 2. 1:
improvements through kaizen: a process focus The starting point of a processemphasis approach is to map the process in order to understand the flow of the
product or service.
Van Vliet, V. (2009). Masaaki Imai. Retrieved [insert date] from ToolsHero:
http://www.toolshero.com/toolsheroes/masaaki-imai
http://www.michailolidis.gr/pdf/KAIZEN08.pdf

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The Lean Guru and the Father of Continuous Improvement Masaaki

In November 1998 he received the Asia-Pacific Human Resource Development Award in

Definition and principles of Kaizen In the decade of 1980, management techniques

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