Question

Kaizen is a Japanese term for continuous improvement in all aspects of an entity’s performance, at every level. The philosophy of Kaizen seeks to involve all levels of employees, encouraging suggestions for small incremental improvements across all areas of the business which over time have a major impact. In a manufacturing context, processes are standardized, assessed and then improved, with the ultimate result being decreased waste and increased productivity.

Deming suggested a cycle of continuous improvement called the PDCA, which was a result of the need to link the manufacture of products with the needs of the consumer along with focusing departmental resources in a collegial effort to meet those needs.

Th Juran Quality Trilogy developed an approach for cross-functional management that comprises three legislative processes: quality planning, quality control and quality improvement.

How do you think these three focus differ or coincide and how this adapts to the late and most modern quality philosophies?

Answer 1

The quality philosophies and approaches determine quality to be achieved by the Organization and not necessarily dependent on any one philosophy or approach. The philosophy of Deming is a 14 point programme for evaluating and implementing quality and philosophy of Juran emphasizes the importance of quality training for reduction in failure costs, higher productivity and emphasizes data collection and analysis. Whereas in Kaizen approach, the human processes are important, processes evolve by gradual changes; improvement is based on statistical and quantitative performance measurement, requires trust between managers and employees.

Thus in contrast whereas one of the approaches is a statistical tool,other approaches are basic principles on effective management and whereby they take advantage in being specific and distinct from the others, at the same time they lose more on grounds of effectiveness.

The approach of Deming and Juran impact if applied only when the Organization is ready to implement such programmes due to their traditional nature and the impact takes longer time to predict as both the philosophies have implentation problems.

Whereas for implementing the Deming programme in quality, the implementation and successful change management might take few years but once set there could be huge successes.

The Deming and Juran approaches imply greater reduction in costs and lead to higher cost efficiencies and scale of operations if applied for few years and having overcome the initial implementation issues. Whereas the Kaizen philosophy does not indicate costs reduction that easily since it takes time for trust and long term effectiveness to materialize.

Juran approach lead to greater increase in productivity than the Deming philosophy which is in short term only. Kaizen philosophy has more than required impact on enhancing competitiveness and productivity as it involves each and every manager and employee.

In terms of innovation, Juran philosophy is highly effective whereas Deming Philosophy takes time to implement. Kaizen philosophy has impacted innovations to a great extent yet the problem of long term applicability from human relations perspective has lessened it's applicability.