what is kaizen 
kaizen is a japanese term meaning change for the better or continuous improvement it is a japanese business philosophy that concerns the processes that continuously improve operations and involve all employees kaizen sees improvement in productivity as a gradual and methodical process the concept of kaizen encompasses a wide range of ideas it involves making the work environment more efficient and effective by creating a team atmosphere improving everyday procedures ensuring employee engagement and making a job more fulfilling less tiring and safer understanding kaizensome of the key objectives of the kaizen philosophy include quality control just in time delivery standardized work the use of efficient equipment and the elimination of waste the overall goal of kaizen is to make small changes over a period of time to create improvements within a company that doesn t mean alterations happen slowly the kaizen process simply recognizes that small changes now can have huge impacts in the future improvements can come from any employee at any time the idea is that everyone has a stake in the company s success and everyone should strive at all times to help make the business model better many companies have adopted the kaizen concept most notably toyota employs the kaizen meaning and philosophy within its organization it esteems kaizen as one of its core values to improve its production system toyota encourages and empowers all employees to identify areas of potential improvement and create viable solutions 1toyota s process of identifying solutions is called kaizen blitz 