There’s been a lot of buzz recently about Kaizen, the Japanese word for “improvement” or “change for the better”. It’s a business process that was first implemented in Japanese businesses after World War II, and has since gained worldwide popularity. It’s been adopted by enormous corporations (like Toyota) and now smaller businesses are catching on. After it was mentioned in a March 2010 “This American Life” episode, it’s been appearing increasingly in blogs and forums.
What is Kaizen, and why should you consider teaching it as part of your learning management system training? Here are five facts about Kaizen that might help you decide whether or not to adopt it for your company.
First, Kaizen refers to the Japanese business practice that emphasizes continuous improvement of processes in manufacturing, engineering, supporting business processes, and management.
Second, Kaizen creates efficiency. It also eliminates waste–and not only material waste. Kaizen helps to create efficiency in a business and eliminates the waste of time.
Third, Kaizen is a day-to-day behavior that extends beyond simple productivity improvement of a business. It’s a process that humanizes the workplace and eliminates overly difficult work. According to Bunji Tozawa, “The idea is to nurture the company’s human resources as much as it is to praise and encourage participation in kaizen activities.”
Fourth, Kaizen refers to activities that continually improve ALL functions of a business. It’s a philosophy that involves all employees, from the CEO down. This makes it vastly different from the “command and control” improvement programs of the mid-twentieth century. Kaizen methodology involves a company-wide practice of making changes and monitoring results, and then adjusting. Large-scale pre-planning and extensive project scheduling are replaced by smaller experiments, which are able to be rapidly adapted as new improvements are suggested. Who can suggest? Anyone.
Fifth, A pay-per-use learning management system allows for the same continuous improvements–updates and upgrades, content and tool addition, etc.–to the actual training program that the Kaizen philosophy allows to happen on a daily basis on the ground level of a company.
Coggno is now offering a free trial for training program creators on its learning management system. Create an online course for free, either for internal use, for inclusion in Coggno’s E-learning Marketplace, or for outside syndication on hundreds of websites.
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