What is kaizen?
Also called: kaizen event, continuous improvement
Last updated
Kaizen is a Japanese word for improvement, used in lean management for the practice of making small, continuous improvements to how work is done, led by the people who do it. A kaizen event is a short, focused workshop, often a few days, in which a team studies one process and changes it.
In more detail
Kaizen is a habit as much as a method: everyone is expected to notice waste and suggest small fixes, every day. Kaizen events add focus. A cross-functional team maps the current process, measures it, finds the waste, tries changes on the spot and agrees a new standard.
The common failure is the gains fading after the event. Writing the new way of working into the process documentation and checking it in the following weeks is what makes the improvement last.
Example
A three-day kaizen event on order picking finds that pickers walk back to a printer for every label. The team moves a printer to each aisle, updates the picking instructions and checks the time per order each week for a month.
Kaizen in CheckFlow
In CheckFlow a kaizen event can run as a checklist for the preparation, the workshop and the follow-up, with measurements recorded in fields and actions raised as attached tasks. When the event changes a process, the template is updated and every save is a new version.
Related terms
Templates with a live demo
Each one opens as a live checklist you can try without signing up.
Run your next process as a checklist.
Build it once as a template, then run it with owners, due dates and a record of every step.
14-day free trial, no credit cardFull refund in your first 30 daysUS hosting, EU on request