toyota kaizen case study

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The Diversity and Reality of Kaizen in Toyota

First Online: 06 October 2018

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Shumpei Iwao 5

Part of the book series: Evolutionary Economics and Social Complexity Science ((EESCS,volume 12))

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In the existing literature, kaizen (continuous improvement) has often been conceived of as the accumulation of similarly small, mutually independent, incremental process innovations that are conducted by workers, work teams, and their leaders. This chapter attempts to observe continuous improvement in a certain factory for a certain period and to show the diversity and reality of kaizen in Toyota. Through longitudinal observations, seven case studies are examined, showing that (1) kaizen consists of a series of innovations with various scales, such as number of stakeholders, amount of investment, and economic outcomes (e.g., cost reduction effect); (2) kaizen sometimes induces small changes in product design and affects the organizational activities of production design as a small-scale product innovation; and (3) kaizen activities sometimes influence other kaizen activities. With regard to these characteristics of kaizen, this study implies that (4) kaizen management needs organizational design. For example, in Toyota’s case, not only work teams but also product/process design engineers contribute to kaizen, and shop floor engineers play a vital role in coordinating between shop floors and engineering departments on the basis of the staff-in-line structure of organizations.

This chapter originally appeared as an article in Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review (EIER) Vol. 14, No. 1 (Iwao 2017 ).

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The Use of the Toyota Kata Approach: A Literature Review and SWOT Analysis

This article uses the word kaizen as an uncountable noun.

Boer and Gertsen ( 2003 ) define continuous innovation as process and product innovation, but they also think of continuous innovation as relatively small and numerous changes.

Womack et al. ( 1990 ) also studies Takaoka.

Following D’Adderio ( 2011 ), an organizational routine change was deemed to have occurred when an explicit operating procedure was altered.

For example, operational improvement, process/production engineering, product/design engineering, etc. could be included in kaizen projects as innovations.

This is calculated as 12 times 0.5 = 6.

100 yen was equivalent to approximately US$1 in 2015.

Takt is a Japanese-English term used in factories. Takt time means the time needed to assemble one unit.

The hood is the hinged cover over the engine.

The side panel is also called the “side member.”

Of course, a factor not to be overlooked is that the weighted scope of coordination is a kind of investment.

Based on these cases, we can say that kaizen consists of a variable scale of innovations, and we can measure this by the scope of coordination, in addition to the amount of investment and cost reduction effects.

Of course, it is doubtful whether Toyota can always determine the exact extent of coordination needed for kaizen.

The term “line” here means both organizational positions: line and production line.

Mintzberg ( 1980 ) calls an organization resembling staff in line “the Divisionalized Form organization” (p 335). However, here the staff in line is nearer the plant floor than in Mintzberg’s model and is unique in serving two roles.

Interview conducted on February 13, 2014.

The scale of innovations (and variability thereof) is also a function of the scope of innovations because innovative activities in this context are organizational in nature and require coordination.

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Faculty of Economics, Meiji Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan

Shumpei Iwao

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Graduate School of Economics, The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-Ku, Tokyo, Japan

Takahiro Fujimoto

Faculty of Engineering, Information and Systems, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

Fumihiko Ikuine

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Iwao, S. (2018). The Diversity and Reality of Kaizen in Toyota. In: Fujimoto, T., Ikuine, F. (eds) Industrial Competitiveness and Design Evolution. Evolutionary Economics and Social Complexity Science, vol 12. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55145-4_9

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55145-4_9

Published : 06 October 2018

Publisher Name : Springer, Tokyo

Print ISBN : 978-4-431-55144-7

Online ISBN : 978-4-431-55145-4

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