Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A business management system or philosophy aimed at producing ongoing incremental improvements throughout an organization, especially in quality and efficiency.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun a
Japanese business practice ofcontinuous improvement inperformance andproductivity - noun
continuous improvement in a general way
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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It is what we call kaizen or continuous improvement.
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The Lean Promotion Office should be small, except for periods when excess employees from line jobs are being redeployed and put to work on short-term kaizen projects.
Lean Thinking James P. Womack 2003
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To fully explain the Japanese term kaizen (kigh-zen), or "continuous improvement," requires as many as a thousand words or more (there is a whole book on the subject).
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This is often referred to as kaizen … a Japanese word for improvement.
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Baby Boomers who have been in business are familiar with the Japanese word "kaizen", which when used in the context of Western manufacturing and other industrial and business processes is usually translated as "continuous improvement": Tony Robbins re-badged "kaizen" as CANI - "Continuous And Never-ending Improvement."
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What Toyota has realized is the difference between merely having a process for kaizen a Japanese word for “improvement”, and a culture with a kaizen attitude.
Egonomics David Marcum 2007
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He spoke of kaizen, the Japanese word for “endless improvement and innovation.”
The Elegant Solution Matthew E. May 2007
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The system demands that workers be multi-skilled and active team members who constantly look for ways to streamline the production system in what is called the kaizen (improvement) system.
IOL: News 2010
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The system demands that workers be multi-skilled and active team members who constantly look for ways to streamline the production system in what is called the kaizen (improvement) system.
IOL: News 2010
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The system demands that workers be multi-skilled and active team members who constantly look for ways to streamline the production system in what is called the kaizen (improvement) system.
IOL: News 2010
lampbane commented on the word kaizen
"Continuous improvement."
March 26, 2009