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Discussing a problem with others is
a more effective way to come up with
solutions. Consulting people from other
parts of the business brings different
viewpoints and a wider range of options.management that workers would
have a job for life with the company.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s
this was the case at Sony. During
economic downturns, when sales
fall, most companies try to protect
their profit margins by making
layoffs that are designed to cut
costs. Sony rejected this approach
because it felt that laying off its
own workers would break the bond
of trust needed to make kaizen
work. According to Sony’s
co-founder, Akio Morita, “The most
important mission for a Japanese
manager is to develop a healthy
relationship with his employees,
to create a familylike feeling within
the corporation, a feeling that
employees and managers share the
same fate.” During the boom years
Sony used the productivity
increases made possible by kaizen
to increase output, enabling the
company to branch out into
new markets.Kaizen heads west
In the fall of 1984, following
US concerns at the growing
dominance of the Japanese car
industry, the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT)
undertook a five-year, $5 million
research program into the global
car industry. The study produced a
new way of looking at production,
a new buzzword, and a best-selling
book—The Machine That Changed
the World, authored by James
Womack, Dan Jones, and Dan Roos.
The study confirmed the US car
industry’s worst fears; Japanese car
producers led the way in terms ofDELIVERING THE GOODS
minimizing the assembly hours per
car, the amount of stock held, and
the assembly defects per 100 cars.
The book attributed Japanese
success to a process called “lean
production”—a vital component
of which was kaizen.
Managers that had read The
Machine That Changed the World
tried to incorporate the kaizen way
of thinking into their business
model, and gradually the kaizen
philosophy spread to North
America and Europe. One of the
early British adoptors was Rover.
Under the guidance of Honda, who
at the time held a 20 percent stake
in Rover, the company introduced
gemba walks at its Longbridge
factory in 1991. Under Rover’s
gemba program, managers,
supervisors, and assembly-line
workers walked along the production
line together, at least once a week,
in order to look for inefficiencies,
and to find solutions to the
problems they had identified.
Gemba walks were designed ❯❯We will try to create the
conditions where persons
could come together in a spirit
of teamwork, and exercise to
their heart’s desire their
technological capacity.
Akio MoritaExcellent companies don’t
believe in excellence—only
in constant improvement
and constant change.
Tom Peters
US management writer (1942–)