This book completes the trilogy of kaizen on corporate strategies.
In the first book, Kaizen: The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success
(published in 1986), I introduced the unique Japanese concept of the term
kaizen, which means “change for the better” in English, for the first time in
the world and advised that kaizen is crucial in understanding unique
Japanese management practices compared with traditional approaches used
elsewhere.
As Kaizen Institute gained the client base in various countries to help its
operations, my second Kaizen book, Gemba Kaizen: A Commonsense LowCost Approach to Management (published in 1997, revised in 2012), was
published. Companies were inviting me to speak at board meetings, various
seminars, and corporate events. I was still feeling the strong need to show
how management can lead better and fully utilize the benefit of kaizen.
In this book, Strategic KAIZEN™: Using Flow, Synchronization, and
Leveling (FSL™) Assessment to Measure and Strengthen Operational
Performance, the flow concept is adopted as one of the highest pillars of the
lean production system. Under the flow concept, the work sequence is
designed so that each workpiece flows between processes without
interruption and stagnation.
The last chapter of this book involves the key subjects of kaizen, gemba,
customers, and top management’s indomitable decision-making to cast
away the traditional management system and arrive at the last and the
highest mission of the lean company.