Continuous incremental improvement in all functions involving all employees.
Toyota's practice, and the part that resists import: kaizen requires that improvement suggestions come from the people doing the work and that most be implemented, which requires ceding control.
In practice
- A factory where the line worker can stop the line produces better output than one where improvement flows from an engineering department.
- A hospital ward where nurses can change the handover format improves it monthly; one where the format is set centrally does not change for years.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Organizations & Bureaucracy
- Essay
- Rules for running organisations, and for pressing them