Three Lean Tools To Nurture Continuous Improvement [Kaizen, Kaikaku, Kakushin]

“When you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” 

Abraham Maslow was right. While the hammer is a very useful tool, employing it for every task isn’t always helpful and can sometimes be destructive. 

Lean thinking is all about creating needed value with fewer resources and less waste. But did you know that it’s made up of three different and complementary tools that, when used together, can solve problems more effectively than on their own? 

They are known as Kaizen, Kaikaku and Kakushin – three terms that originated from the manufacturing sector in, you guessed it, Japan. When used together, they can help propel you to business success.  

Kaizen, for example, is the foundation: pursuing continuous improvement (CI) relentlessly. But depending on the changes in the market and new customer requirements, it may be necessary to add building blocks on top of it, using Kaikaku or Kakushin.  

Here we walk you through these three lean complementary tools so you can better understand the CI concept. 

Kaizen: change + good – change for better, continuous improvement

• Identify waste in the processes and remove it. Repeat it continuously until it nears perfection.  
• Focus the work on where value is created (shop floor). 
• Improvements take days or weeks to be delivered. 
• Delivers high quality at a low cost. 
• Requires real-time, good quality data for identification and resolution of problems. 

Kaikaku: change + revolutionary = radical change, transformation

• Applied when a significant impact is needed.  
• Involves a radical change such as new production technology, a new piece of equipment or new materials. 
• A specialised team, such as engineering, makes the improvement. 
• Improvements take months or years to be delivered. 
• Delivers high quality at a higher cost. 
• Requires access to recent historical data and analytics tools. 

Kakushin = new + revolutionary = innovation, reform, renewal

• Applied when radical, disruptive innovation is needed.  
• Substantially changes the product or working processes, rupturing the existing principles.  
• Impacts the current established market. 
• Improvement actions demand intellectual effort, high curiosity, and intensive research in research, development and innovation (RD&I) areas.  
• Improvements take months or years to be delivered. 
• Delivers innovative or disruptive products or services. 
• Requires good historical data and careful agile planning to minimise uncertainty and risk. 

Regardless of the initiative, three aspects are critical to making a digital sustainable continuous improvement program (SCI). 

• People’s mindsets, behaviours, and discipline. 
• Strong work processes for capturing, valuing and tracking initiatives .
• Tools which help accurate data driven decision making.

Have you implemented lean thinking in your organisation’s toolbox? Let us know in the comments.