It is true that Kaizen practices alone cannot "reinvent a better way of doing business." But a
better way of doing business can be improved through Kaizen principles, as shown earlier.
Another benefit of utilizing Kaizen practices to supplement innovation is that the Kaizen
mindset of teamwork and a "can do attitude" will eventually absorb easily a radical change
introduced by innovation.
2.3 Kaizen and ‘’Humanware’’ parameters:
Teamwork approach ,Upper Management Commitment, Rewards.
2.3.1 Teamwork approach
Kaizen concept and strategy and its embraced tools emphasizes and revolves around
teamwork activities. So it is worthwhile to present from bibliography types of teamwork with
their characteristics that used in specific circumstances and can be adjusted or modified to
any company to promote kaizen activities.
Innovation Kaizen
Innovation
Kaizen
New Standard
New Standard
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Teamworks principles
One of the most compelling reasons for the movement toward implementing empowered work
teams is the fact that teams work . The basic rationale is that the use of teams allows an
organization to take advantage of the diverse, backgrounds, and interests of team members.
The team effort and cooperation often result in a motivated and entrepreneurial workforce .
Motivated employees take their team tasks very seriously, plan how they can complete them in
their jobs, take pride and have satisfaction in their achievements. They put effort to accomplish
objectives and reach company goals. Strong personal commitments to one another’s growth
and success are the key that distinguishes these high-performance work teams. The opposite
holds true for many non-team employees. These tend to be unmotivated employees who try to
do as little as possible (29).
An idea program can work well with teams, since everyone can participate on a team. The
idea program allows those individuals to still have a voice in the organization. Additionally, a
team member may have an idea that doesn't fit the current team's mission. This idea could get
lost without a process to track team ideas. Team efforts normally have management input into
their activities or focus whereas a suggestion system process taps any creative idea.
According to Laureau and Orsburn et al (30), a work team is a group of employees that is
responsible for activities on a "whole" work process that delivers a product or service to
internal or external customers. The product could be a chair or a service, such as a fully
analysis on a company’s health and safety claims. Work team members are people who have
the power to manage the work they do on daily basis . A work team typically consists of two to
ten highly trained workers
The philosophy underlying the creation of teams calls for a well-defined, planned process for
giving responsibility to a group of people who know how to do their job well at their level and
when to get other people involved.
Work teams consist of people who perform different and/or specific jobs that relate to the daily
work of the company. Sometimes is confusing to find a specific reason why a team forms and
the task it performs. The most common trouble with teams, in any form, is that many
companies rush out and form the wrong kind of team for the job. For example, in the early
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1980s ,Quality Circles were formed. Members of these teams took a few hours each week to
discuss very specific problems. These teams were cross-functional (a representative from of
various departments in a company who had a stake in the outcome) in nature and were
primarily responsible for solving problems. While these teams provided gains in productivity,
as evidenced by many studies, companies were looking for did not happen (31).
Team structures and characteristics
There are many different types of teams that can be found in organizations: however, the most
common that will be presented here are:
1.intact work groups,
2.problem-solving,
3.cross-functional, and
4.proactive or implementation teams.
5 small group as used in Japanese companies.
Any of these five teams types can contribute on continuous improvement (Kaizen) activities
and are presented in Table 7 through Table 11. On small group activities will be mentioned
especially the cross-functional teams and the quality circles as developed with their different
types shapes .Each team type has a definition, a purpose/function, member characteristics,
process/tools used and reward environment .