For the professional manager or student of management, a comprehensive handbook of 16 Kaizen management practices that can be put to work. KAIZEN uses more than 100 examples in action and contains 15 corporate case studies.
I learnt what is continuous improvement. Quality should be designed from top and implemented from bottom, It is both ways . We get a perspective on what is Just-In-Time and Just-In-Case.
Books about Japanese management have become kind of a cottage industry, from Theory Z ( LJ 5/1/81) to The Art of Japanese Management ( LJ 8/1/81) and The Mind of the Strategist ( LJ 6/1/82) to Kaisha: the Japanese corporation ( LJ 12/85). This volume covers some of the same groundthe current superiority of Japanese management stylebut approaches things from a different perspective. Essentially, Imai contends that the Japanese edge can be found in a philosophical orientation captured in the concept of Kaizen. Kaizen management is anchored in the notion of perpetual improvementeven if all is going well. In contrast to U.S.-style management, it takes a longer-run view and is process-oriented rather than geared to immediate results. Importantly, the Kaizen philsophy is also quantifiable , rooted in the mathematics of quality control theory.