Understanding KAIZEN practice in Japanese overseas manufacturing: a framework

Abstract

The ultimate purpose of KAIZEN is to assure that a company becomes stable with long perpetuity. While findings from existing research are broad and meaningful, none of them has focused on the explanation of how an environment can be created for successful KAIZEN deployment. Furthermore, it is unclear if companies studied by the prior research are still operating or not. In this paper, we collected data from seven Japanese overseas manufacturing subcontractors that have continued their long-term operations with KAIZEN since their founding year. We present a framework to interpret that two necessary and complementary factors, secure climate and collective mato, must co-exist to stimulate voluntary contributions that are essential to KAIZEN success, which may not otherwise occur if either factor is missing. From this study we present propositions that yield insights into KAIZEN's overseas applications along with a theory that deserves further study and validation.