Objectives:

1. Primary Objective:
 The primary objective of this study is Kaizen and its implementation in
Indian industry.
2. Secondary Objectives:
 To evaluate prospects of Kaizen in Indian manufacturing industry.
 To evaluate impact of Kaizen on operations of manufacturing industry in the
country.
 To seek to examine the challenges facing the implementation of Kaizen in the
country.
Introduction:

With ongoing globalization process, consumer markets end up creating high levels of
criticality, challenging the survival of organizations demanding better levels of productivity and
quality, putting in proof their management methods.

In manufacturing, the pursuit of excellence provides management with the target pointed to
waste of the production chain, defined as an activity that absorbs resources and creates no value. After
World War II the need for a competitive industry inspired the Japanese to develop a set of new
practices that would leverage its competitiveness.

These practices were called up as lean manufacturing techniques, where processes leading to
overproduction, waiting times (people and equipment); errors that require correction, unnecessary
inventories, and excessive transport of materials and movement of people are uniformed to continuous
improvement actions.

High levels of quality, productivity and competitiveness stimulated actions seeking

According to Correa and Vieira (2008), the representativeness of the results that the Lean
Manufacturing methodology or lean production, which had as precursors Eiiji Toyota and Taihichi
Ohno of Toyota Motor Company has been a recognition of movement in the Western world. The Lean
Manufacturing methodology became part of the organizations competitive strategy, providing
productivity improvements whose interest is to reduce costs, increase the availability of resources,
increase efficiency and reduce waste.

The work developed by Peinado and Graeml (2014) concluded that in practice of Operations
Management by the corporations analysed; among the most referenced topics in the contents of main
documents that direct to the production systems two of them stand out: quality management (20.3%)
and lean production system (with 15.8%) demonstrating the relevance of lean production in
production systems.

According to Imai (1996), the spread of Lean Thinking can be stimulated through Kaizen
events, setting up projects aimed at optimizing existing resources, speed in the implementation of
changes, active employee participation, small steps and continuous approach of the established goal.
These short-term results end up promoting the alignment of corporate guidelines with his cast through
compromise. Karlsson and Ahlström (1996) state that the Lean objectives address the reduction of
waste, improved quality, increased productivity, reduced setup times and reducing costs.

In the process of continuous improvement, what actually have significance is to choose the
moment of improvement even if it is the minimum possible, not how much should be improved. Any
process can be analysed in a different light undergoing positive changes every hour, day, week or
month, and the important thing is that some improvement has taken place, further improving the
processes and influencing the organization's maturity level.

However, the ability of continuously improve does not occur naturally, and requires
involvement from top management to operators, where the break paradigms include the absorption of
new values, specific skills, behaviours and actions aimed at continuous improvement, supported by a
philosophy dedicated to results. Gonzalez and Martins (2011) confirm that the simple implementation
of programs and tools for troubleshooting is not enough, it is necessary that organizations encourage
learning and cooperation among its employees through the development of human resources for such
improvement initiatives are in fact continuous.

In most manufacturing companies, the highest concentration of their capital is invested and
focused on the production sector, where productive resources (labour, machinery and raw materials)
require an increasingly mature management. The company granting the study created a need for
changing their behaviour so some strategic objectives can be met, such as increase of productivity,
attracting new consumer markets, increase of customer satisfaction and pursuit of industry leadership.
The choice of a lean production as a competitive strategy was given by the example of the method
efficiency applied to various sectors of manufacturing.

Kaizen philosophy:

Globalization era has affected the manufacturing industry worldwide. Stiff global competition
is one of the many challenges faced by the manufacturers due to the globalization. As a result,
manufacturers need to do something to ensure that they remain competitive in the market. One of the
strategies implemented by many companies to improve their competitiveness is to apply the
continuous improvement or Kaizen concept in their organization. The Kaizen philosophy is based on
the understanding that the way of our life requires a consistent improvement. Therefore, the best way
to react to this increase global competitiveness is for companies to conduct the improvement activities
continuously with the objectives to reduce wastes.

The word Kaizen is derived from two Japanese words “Kai” which means change and “zen”
which means for the better. Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy that promotes small improvements made
as a result of continuing effort. This small improvements involve the participation of everyone in the
organization from the top management until the lower level employees. The long-term improvement
is achieved by having the employees working gradually towards higher work standards. Kaizen
strategy has been successfully implemented by the Japanese industry after the World War II. Kaizen
was initiated as a response towards problem faced by the Japanese industry after the World War II
such as limited resources and difficulties to obtain raw material. Therefore, the Japanese companies
started to look into how to improve their production processes by minimizing waste and optimizing
process efficiencies. Initially Kaizen initiatives were led by Toyota Motor Company in their effort to
become a global automotive leader which tried to emphasize on incremental changes, low cost
solution, employee empowerment and the development of organization that holds continuous
improvement with emphasis on process improvement rather than the result.

According to Marie et al (2005) one of the best approaches that can help companies to
improve their performance is through benchmarking. This is because through benchmarking firms can
learn and adopt certain business process that they might consider as beneficial to be implemented at
their place. Therefore, many of the Kaizen activities, also known as Toyota Production System (TPS),
were benchmarked based on the initiatives done at Toyota Motor Company. The work of Kaizen
which involves incremental changes rather than radical changes has enabled people involved in the
Kaizen activities to be easily adaptable to those changes, thus, formalized those changes into their
daily routine activities. The Kaizen concepts was introduced by Imai (1986) and it consists of various
continuous improvement activities also known as Kaizen umbrella. Under this Kaizen umbrella
concept, various activities take place such as customer orientation, Total Quality Management
(TQM), robotics, Quality Control Circles (QCC), suggestion system, automation, discipline in the
workplace, Total Preventive Maintenance (TPM), Kanban, Quality improvement, Just-In-Time (JIT),
zero defects, productivity improvement and new product development. Imai (1986) further iterates
that there are three pillars to implement Kaizen which are housekeeping, waste elimination and
standardization. According to Wormak and Jones (2003), there are seven types of wastes that should
be eliminated. The wastes are overproduction, transportation, waiting, inventory, motion, over
processing and defects. To ensure success in implementing the three pillars for Kaizen success, three
factors should be taken into account which are visual management, the role of the supervisor and the
importance of training and creating a learning organization.