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Thought Leadership
The Kaizen Paradox
Courtesy Modern Materials Handling
How incremental improvements can impede innovation.
KAIZEN IS a Japanese word that literally equally important: Kaikaku, which means
means ‘improvement’; in industry and ‘radical change’. It describes the other side
business it refers to small, continuous steps of improvement: a radical transformation or a
to better processes, synonymous with major leap forward. Kaikaku is a less famous
improvement in organisations around the but equally important part of the Toyota
world. Production System, and is often overlooked
Japanese businesses developed Kaizen by organisations in their rush to embrace
practices around the 1950s, most notably Kaizen.
Toyota as part of their Toyota Production
System. After studying why the company was The Kaizen Paradox and the issues it
so successful at high-volume production of creates
high-quality vehicles in the 1960s, Masaaki By focusing exclusively on small
Imai wrote several books on Kaizen and improvements, an organisation may miss an
formed the Kaizen Institute, spreading the opportunity to gain a competitive advantage
knowledge and practice around the globe. in costs and customer service. If competitors
However, there are times when Kaizen is take a big leap, an organisation will be left
not enough. Worse still, a small improvement behind. Small improvements also commit
can often hold an organisation back, perhaps resources that could be better spent toward
even stifling significant development. This is a larger step forward in performance, or
the Kaizen Paradox. with more strategic planning, could have
In the 1980s, author and business contributed to a major change.
professor Oren Harari famously pointed out Finally, when a Kaikaku opportunity exists,
that not everything that exists could have the Kaizen path weakens the Kaikaku return
been developed by continuous improvement on investment and productivity can plateau
alone. This idea is captured in another at a lower level. This is the Kaizen Paradox at
Japanese word that is less well known but work.
Manual warehouse Mechanised warehouse Automated warehouse
Person-to-goods (trolley) Person-to-goods (conveyor) Goods-to-person (robot/
shuttle)
One picker processes One picker processes One picker/robot processes
between 50 and 100 OL/hr between 100 and 150 OL/hr between 500 and 1,000 OL/
hr
To process 20,000 OL: 40 to To process 20,000 OL: 20 to To process 20,000 OL: 0 to 5
50 pickers for 8 hours 25 pickers for 8 hours pickers for 8 hours
To store 20,000 SKUs: To store 20,000 SKUs: To store 20,000 SKUs:
5,000m 2 5,000m (+ mezzanine) 1,000m 2
2
10 May 2018 | Logistics News