Disseminating knowledge related to productivity and quality: Kaizen – Continuous improvement

Post by: Yến Hoa Ngô Kiều - Post date: Wednesday, Sep 4, 2024 | 6:20 - View count: 26

Within the framework of the Program to support the establishment of Productivity Club for students at universities and colleges, on September 4, 2024, Commission for the Standards, Metrology and Quality (STAMEQ) organized a virtual training session with the theme “General overview of Productivity.” Ms. Tran Thi Thanh Huong, member of STAMEQ Youth Union, was the speaker for the session.

Attending the virtual training session were Mr. Pham Le Cuong – Deputy Chief of STAMEQ Office and nearly 100 lectures, students from 15 universities, colleges and members of STAMEQ Youth Union.

Sharing about topic “Kaizen – Continuous improvement” at the virtual training session, Ms. Huong started the session with an example to help students have an overview of today’s topic. After that, the meaning of term “Kaizen” was shown up.  Kaizen is a Japanese term meaning continuous improvement. The Kaizen approach is based on the belief that continuous, incremental improvement will add up to substantial change overtime. It is also a Japanese business philosophy which can involve all employees. Kaizen is well-known as a key to the success of Japanese businesses in the global competitive strategy.

Kaizen is not only about organizing events focused on improving specific areas within a company, but also about building a culture where all managers and employees -regardless of level in a company, are actively engaged in suggesting and implementing improvements to the company. The Kaizen approach can bring a number of benefits to individuals, teams, and organizations, such as Increased efficiency, Enhanced employee engagement, Improved communication, Cost savings, Continuous improvement culture.

In order to reach the goals, Ms. Huong mentioned 5 key steps involved in the Kaizen method:

– Identify areas for improvement: It consists of gathering data, analyzing work processes, and communication to understand where problems exist and where the organization can improve.

– Develop solutions: It can involve brainstorming ideas, analyzing data, and collaborating employees and stakeholders to identify solutions.

– Implement changes: It can involve testing new processes, procedures, or products on a small scale before implementing them on a larger scale.

– Measure and evaluate results: The Kaizen method emphasizes the importance of measuring the results of changes and assessing the effectiveness. The results can be used to identify others for improvement and continue the continuous improvement cycle.

– Sustain improvements: It can involve creating a culture where employees are encouraged to continuously seek out and implement improvements.

With the aim to help students have better illusion about applying principles of Kaizen, the speaker gave numerous examples in real life as well as in production.

The virtual training session kept attendees engaged and received lots of interesting questions and all questions have been satisfactorily answered.

It can be said that the success of today’s training session is an essential premise for the following topics. From there, it will provide students of colleges and universities across the country with basic knowledge about productivity while aiming for a higher goal of improving thinking about productivity and turning thinking into action.

The “Overview of Productivity” training session is the first in a series of 10 training sessions on productivity improvement presented by the STAMEQ Youth Union’s trainers, including 5S, TWI, 7 Wastes, Kaizen, Lean, QCC, MFCA, TPM, KPI.