Kaizen

EUROPALCO has started an internal process improvement project with the support of the Kaizen Institute Portugal.

Kaizen (in Japanese: kai = change + zen = better), for those who don't know, is a practice of continuous improvement. Kaizen was originally introduced to the Western by Masaaki Imai with his book "Kaizen: The Key to Japan's Competitive Success" in 1986. Today Kaizen is recognized worldwide as an important pillar of long-term competitive strategy for organizations.

Kaizen is continuous improvement based on certain guiding principles such as:

• consistent processes lead to desired results;
• see for yourself to understand the current situation;
• talk to data and manage based on facts;
• take steps to contain and correct root causes of problems;
• work in a team;
• Kaizen applies to everyone;
• and much more!

One of the hallmarks of Kaizen is that the big results come from small changes accumulated over time. However, this can be misunderstood, as if Kaizen were equivalent to small changes. In fact, Kaizen means everyone is involved in the improvement. Most of the changes may be small, but Kaizen's biggest impacts are led by management on transformational projects, or by cross-functional teams.