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