KAIZEN is a Japanese word that has become common in many Western companies; the word indicates a process of continuous incremental improvement of the standard way of work (Chen et al., 2001). The word came from the Japanese term Gemba Kaizen, meaning ‘continuous improvement’ (Yan-Jiang et al., 2006). It is a compound word involving two concepts: KAI (change) and ZEN (for the better) (Palmer, 2001). It is based on making small changes on a regular basis—reducing waste, continuously improving productivity, safety, and effectiveness (Cheser, 1998) and making significant reduction to production costs (Williams, 2001). To compete in this continuously changing environment, these companies must seek new methods to remain competitive and flexible, simultaneously enabling them to respond quickly to the new demands (Black, 1991). In a highly competitive environment, to be successful and to achieve world-class-manufacturing, organizations must possess both efficient improvement and effective manufacturing strategies. The effective integration of improvement function with engineering and other manufacturing functions in the organization can help save huge amounts of time, money and other useful resources in dealing with reliability, availability, maintainability and performance issues (Moubray, 1997). In order for these companies to remain competitive, retain their market share in this global economy, and satisfy both external and internal economies and customers, continuous improvement of manufacturing system processes has become necessary (Shingeo, 1988). Competition and continuously increasing standards of customer satisfaction have proven to be endless drivers of organizational performance improvements. The CI strategies constantly seek to identify and implement ongoing enhancements in a firm’s products, services and processes (Reid, 2006). Companies are therefore applying CI strategies to enhance their systems and operations (Malik and YeZhuang, 2006).
The nature of production technologies has changed tremendously because of the implementation of Total Quality Management (TQM), Just-In-Time (JIT) manufacturing and continuous improvement. However, benefits from these programs have often been limited because of unreliable or inflexible equipment (Tajiri and Gotoh, 1992). With increased global competition, attention has been shifted from increasing efficiency by means of economies of scale and internal specialization to meeting market conditions in terms of flexibility, delivery performance and quality (Yamashina, 1995). The changes in the current manufacturing environment are characterized by intense competition on the supply side and heightened volatility in customer requirements on the demand side. These changes have left their unmistakable marks on the different facets of the manufacturing organizations (Gomes et al., 2006). To meet the challenges posed by the contemporary competitive environment, the manufacturing organizations must infuse quality and performance improvement initiatives in all aspects of their operations to improve their competitiveness (Pintelon and Gelders, 1992). In an increasing global economy, continuous improvement of manufacturing has become a necessity to stay competitive.
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