The kaizen exercise involves the same set of personnel over and over again. The
participation is strictly voluntary. The improvements to be reported are by and
large the result of self motivation and commitment to the organization.
Therefore, it is likely that the kaizens reported by the same individuals in some
period may have some bearing on that reported by the same individuals in the
preceding periods. That is, the number of kaizens being reported may form a
time series with serial correlation. It has been envisaged to carry out suitable
experiments to investigate this issue. Two different studies have been carried
out, and the salient details are as follows.