Advantages:
1. It is process centered. It is thus able to identify exactly where things are going wrong and change the processes so that mistakes do not occur. Wasteful processes are reduced, and this in turn reduced waste of resources.
2. All people who participate in it get certain responsibilities, thereby giving them more purposefulness. Further, since it puts people on the forefront, employee morale increases tremendously.
3. There is reduced need for inspection since there is less scope for error.
4. Teamwork increases tremendously as a result of it and people are able to think beyond the needs of their specific department.
5. Customer requirements are placed at the forefront of company efforts and all products and services are geared to the needs of clients.
6. The long term and short term goals of the company are identified easily and there are systems to ensure that these goals are achieved.
Even though the advantages of kaizen are numerous and widely acknowledged, it has to be admitted that this style of managing a business has a few disadvantages as well. These drawbacks can be quite serious if a company pays only lip service to this management concept and implements it without really understanding why or how.
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