// ROBOTICS AND SMART FACTORIES TERM
Kaizen
A Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement, involving small, incremental changes made regularly by everyone in an organization.
TECHNICAL DEFINITION
Kaizen is a Lean management philosophy advocating continuous, incremental improvement across all organizational levels, focusing on eliminating waste (Muda), enhancing processes, and fostering a culture of problem-solving and innovation.
BACKGROUND
Kaizen is a Japanese vocabulary word that outside of Japan has been adopted as a concept in business studies which asserts that significant positive results may be achieved due to the cumulative effect of many, often small improvements to all aspects of a company's operations. Kaizen is put into action by continuously improving every facet of a company's production and requires the participation of all employees from the CEO to assembly line workers. Kaizen also applies to processes, such as purchasing and logistics, that cross organizational boundaries into the supply chain. Kaizen aims to eliminate waste and redundancies. Kaizen may also be referred to as zero investment improvement (ZII) due to its utilization of existing resources.
READ MORE ON WIKIPEDIASYNONYMS & ALIASES
- Continuous improvement
- incremental improvement
- lean improvement
- process enhancement
USAGE NOTE
Kaizen events are structured workshops focused on making rapid, targeted improvements to specific processes.
DEVELOPERS
Organizations developing technology related to Kaizen.
Develops a continuous improvement software platform designed to help organizations capture, implement, track, and measure improvement ideas, directly digitizing the Kaizen methodology.
Provides a no-code manufacturing app platform that empowers shop-floor workers to create digital workflows, work instructions, and data collection tools, enabling bottom-up continuous improvement in line with Kaizen principles.
Specializes in Digital Visual Management software that digitizes Lean and Kaizen tools like Kanban boards, A3 problem-solving reports, and performance tracking, facilitating collaborative continuous improvement.
Offers a suite of digital manufacturing solutions, including the MindSphere IoT platform and Opcenter MES, which collect and analyze production data to identify inefficiencies and opportunities for incremental improvements.
Develops the ThingWorx IoT platform and Vuforia augmented reality solutions, which enable data-driven insights and AR-guided standard work instructions, supporting the 'Plan-Do-Check-Act' cycle of Kaizen.
Through its Plex Smart Manufacturing Platform, it provides cloud-based MES and QMS solutions that offer real-time visibility into production, enabling data-driven decision-making for continuous process optimization.
Develops the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, which includes DELMIA for creating virtual twins of manufacturing operations, allowing companies to simulate and validate process improvements (Kaizen events) before physical implementation.
Provides a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform for Enterprise Architecture Management, which helps companies understand and optimize their processes and IT landscape, creating a foundation for continuous improvement initiatives.