Kaizen – The Secret Weapon

KAIZEN – THE SECRET WEAPON
IN THE GLOBAL MARKET COMPETITION

VSC Young Talent Training Roadshow 2012
Nguyen Viet Dang Khoa, 10/ 20/ 12

The evolution process from Anthropoid to man

“It is not the strongest nor the most
intelligent of the species that survives,
but the one that is most adaptable to
change” Theory of Evolution - Charles Darwin

Do people really want change?
What is adaptation?

Do behaviors change?

Wet baby is the only person
who likes change most

DO WE SEE THE EVOLUTION IN OUR LIFE

The evolutionary process of science technology

INTRODUCTION: KAIZEN - A GLOBAL
CONCEPT

In Japanese, Kaizen comes from the kanji characters:
 “Kai” means "change“, or "the action to correct".

 “Zen" means "good".

 Kaizen is the most popular word used in multimedia channels and
social life.
 Kaizen means small and continuous improvement at all aspects of
work carried out by everyone in an organization. It is the process of
consistently discovering and eliminating waste in as little time as
possible at the lowest cost.
 Kaizen is interpreted by clear message: let’s do it better even it has
been good so far. Why? If you don’t do it, you cannot take the
advantages against your competitors.

WHERE’S “INNOVATION” COME FROM?

Japanese square watermelon? It’s
VN Gold bar watermelon: $160/ EA
over!

Reference: Google images

HOW DOES INNOVATION HAPPEN?
 How did these changes happen?
 What thinking methods caused these?
 Instant noodle: one of the most
valuable inventions in 20th century. It
was created by Ando who was not a
famous scientist.
 Ideas are free
 The invention of Velcro was made by
a man that noticed small burrs
attaching to his pants as he walked in
the forest.

RECYCLE KAIZEN FROM CLEANERS

Tissue Box Shelf

From wood
waste to: Baby Toys
•Collection boxes Ladder
•Shelves Chair
•Ladder chairs Chair
•Chairs
•Baby toys
•Toilet paper trays
Tissue paper
Chair Tray

KAIZEN VS. ROCKET SCIENTIFIC
BREAKTHROUGH
THE EAST VS. THE WEST

Lean Model: Kaizen
Efficiency

Traditional Model: Invention,
rocket breakthrough

Time

KAIZEN RULES
1. Everyone participates: there is no rank among team
members – one person, one vote. Do not feel of
inferiority; creativity does not depend on education level
or grade.
2. Possibility thinking: keep an open mind to change. Taboo
words – “Can’t”, “Impossible”, “No way!”. A closed mind
does not make things happen
3. Maintain a positive attitude: don’t blame anyone for
anything, respect one another
4. There is no such thing as a dumb question
5. Plans are only good if they can be implemented. Plans
succeed only if the gains are sustained

TEN PRINCIPLES FOR KAIZEN
1. Changing the face is to change nothing but facing the change is to
change everything.
2. Ten people move forward a step all the times is better than one
person takes ten steps at a time.
3. Throw out fixed ideas about how to do things.
4. Think of how to make the new ideas work, not excuse how it will not
work.
5. Do not invest too much money on improvements, solve problems with
brain power instead.
6. Don’t seek perfection – a 50% improvement is OK.
7. Correct mistakes the moment they’re found.
8. Problems are good in terms of brainstorming for improvement
opportunity.
9. Do not assume the potential causes; just ask WHY until we find out
the root cause.
10. Improvement has no destination

COMMON EXCUSE FOR NOT DOING KAIZEN: TABOO
PHRASES

Boss won’t be No time! I’m very busy It against policy Not enough
interested budgets

We have done this
way for 25 years!

It’s not We’ll just lose We don’t want people looking
Why change? It has
applicable to money! over our shoulder telling us
been good so far
our company what to do!

It’s your responsibility, not mine! It’s over our jurisdiction!

1ST KAIZEN SUCCESS STORY

“Let’s change everything, except
your wife and your
…
children”

Lee Kun Hee – Samsung
President.
Application: 5S, kaizen, PDCA,
TPM, Standardized Work, Cell line

SAMSUNG HISTORY

 1938: founded with 40 operators, specialized
in fruit and dried fish.
 1960: Samsung Electronics established and
specialized in electronics, petrochemical
industry, and shipbuilding.
 1983: still was not the well-known brand name
in Korea when they produced the first memory
chips.

1995: unique event
happened at Gumi factory:
2,000 workers gathered to
destroy the big batch of poor
quality mobile phones (worth
$ 50 millions)
2003: caught up Sony
2007: global biggest market
share (17%) of LCD, leader in
digital technology. Took over
No.1 position of Sony with
2007 parent company sales of
US$100 billion.

SAMSUNG TODAY
 World’s 10 most valuables companies.
 Samsung surpassed Apple Inc. as the leading seller of
smart-phones. The latest numbers from IDC show that
Samsung shipped 50.2 million smartphones in the
Q2’12, nearly double the 26 million iPhones shipped by
Apple.
 Samsung tops Nokia (which had been the market leader
since 1998) again as World’s Biggest Mobile Phone
Seller
 Sales hit $42.2 billion in Q2’12
 Key to success = Design revolution + stamp of
Korean culture + Kaizen  Attach every corner in
your house.

GEORGETOWN – TOYOTA FAIRY STORY
Toyota in North America:

 Nine years ago, Toyota Motor Corporation established the
chain of factories at North America and helped Toyota become
the biggest car manufacturer in the world.

 Toyota’s outward investment in U.S is increased rapidly: direct
investment capital in U.S was $16.8 billions.

GEORGETOWN – TOYOTA FAIRY STORY

Camry and Prius are two best-selling brands
at U.S because of economization on saving
but same quality compared with GM and
Ford.

Georgetown – Toyota fairy story
Georgetown – Kentucky
plant is the biggest factory
outside Japan and
produces Camry.
Defeating two giant guys -
GM and Ford - regardless
of their “home-court”
advantages - Toyota has
showed the effectiveness
of optimal weapon:
KAIZEN Kaizen.
7,000 OPERATORS WHO ARE
IS BUSINESS PHILOSOPHY OF
WORKING FOR TOYOTA FACTORY IN GEORGETOWN. IN THE
FACTORY, THERE ARE OVER 500,000 CARS PRODUCED/
YEAR, MAJORITY IS CAMRY.

A mfg. revolution: Tony Hendrichs – a senior worker
who has been working for Toyota for 18 years – is very
proud of Kaizen philosophy applied everyday in his
factory. Whenever problems/ opportunities arising from
production lines, every team members will gather and
try to improve it together. They call it Kaizen.

 Hendrichs is very angry with the complaint
among public opinion: he and his
colleagues betray their country to
Japanese.
 He affirm that “Made in USA” Toyota car
is the real American brand. Why? 85% of
accessories and parts are produced in
U.S. Definitely, he said: “Toyota drivers
are patriots”
 Georgetown citizens also have the same
thinking as Hendrichs. They are grateful
to Toyota for over $5 billions of
investment.

Before 1988
- Population: 8,000 - Development area
- Low education level - Famous with whisky
Bourbon

Now
- Population: 25,000; around 7000 people work full time
at its Georgetown Toyota plant
- All ten local enterprises are in well financial situation
thanks to Toyota
- One more school/ year
- There are much more Kindergartens and colleges
than any other cities.
- Hospital beds increased to four times.
- Prohibition of strong liquor from the year of 2000.

 Georgetown Mayor – Karen Tingle Sames is pro-
Japanese. She knows that her town is not as good as it
is without Toyota. “We have the best water supply and
traffic systems in the State of Kentucky”, said Karen.
 She’s absolutely right. 70% of income tax paid by
Toyota, 90% of business tax is from Toyota as well.
She often visits Toyota factory
because she can learn lots of things
there. In the 1st visit, they gave her
“The Toyota Way” book. After
reading, she applied the concepts in
her town management. The result was
very impressive.

HOW DOES TOYOTA BECOME WORLD’S LARGEST
AUTOMOBILE MANUFACTURER IN 2012?

Teamwork
&
There are three key workteam
factors those Toyota
develops to a high
degree:
Kaizen Practice
culture Economy

http://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/index.php?i=15139&a=11054&week=26

KAIZEN CULTURE
 Toyota employees generate over one million
process kaizen ideas annually.
 The more astounding number is the fact that
90% of those ideas are implemented.
 The so-called “secret weapon” is an open
secret: Toyota executives have created a culture
that encourages and rewards this behavior.
 Whether you are beginning or continuing
your journey in global supply chain
competition, the transformation to a kaizen
culture is vital to your success.

 According to Zawacki, one of the Toyota’s
secretes of success is reducing waste of
material. They try to recycle most of the
wastes.

 Localization is also a judicious policy. When
Toyota opened more and more factories in U.S,
everyone worried that the Japanese domination
could upset American labor market. Actually,
Toyota planned to Americanize their workforce/
management initially due to political reason.
(Wall Street Journal quoted)

 40,000 American
employees/ Toyota
factories
 400,000/ outside
vendors.
In the main entrance, the  5% Japanese only.
U.S flag flutters in the  Job security after
wind. military service.

REFERENCES
 Kaizen Event Implementation Manual - Geoffrey
Mika, Society of Manufacturing Engineers -
Dearborn, Michigan
 Lee-Dae – KIA economic Research Institute
 MGNT 7322 Managing operations for competitive
advantage – Georgia Southern University
 http://www.graphicproducts.com/tutorials/kaizen/kaizen-
at-sony.html

KEY TAKE-AWAY
 Imagination is more important than
knowledge because Knowledge is limited
and Imagination is infinite – Einstein
 THINK OUT OF THE BOX as Robert Noyce
said: Don’t Be Encumbered By History, Go
And Do Something Wonderful !
 Become a learning organization through
relentless reflection (Hansei) and
continuous improvement (Kaizen)

Kaizen: moving forward a step at a time…
all the time…

Thank You!

Kaizen – The Secret Weapon

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