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Kaizen, Kaikaku and Kakushin are three approaches within Lean which have their roots from Toyota. They work well together and have different areas of focus and magnitude of impact/risk. The table below provides differentiation and tips for their implementation. Kaizen - Kai – Change, Zen – Good Kaikaku – Radical Change Kakushin – Innovation Definition Evolutionary change for better focused on incremental improvements Revolutionary change focused on radical improvements Innovation, transformation, reform and renewal Focus Area Continual improvement of their processes Transformation of their organizational culture Bringing something new into existence People All levels including workers Executives and top management Top Management Risk / Impact Low Medium High Steps / Tips / Techniques · 5 S o Seiri – Sort out o Seition – organize o Seiso – shine the workplace o Seiketsu – standardization o Shitsuke – self-discipline · 7+1 Wastes o Transportation o Inventory o Motion o Waiting o Over-processing o Over-production o Defects o Skills under-utilization · Look for ways to make maximum contribution to ideal state – “What would be ideal customer experience” · Search for opportunities for radical improvements · Apply 80-20 rule to do more with less · Creative problem solving · Challenge assumptions · Ask What and why questions – think differently · Brainstorm creative solutions · Know how to sell radical ideas – overcome resistance · Think positively and act promptly · Follow radical improvements with continual improvements (Kaizen) · Attribute listing · Biomimicry · Brainwriting 6-3-5 · Challenge assumptions · Osborn checklist · Harvey cards · Lotus Blossom Technique · Redefinition · Reverse Brainstorming · Systematic Inventive Thinking · COCD Box · Force Field Analysis · Six Thinking Hats · Follow it with radical and incremental improvements Eg. · Reduce production time by implementing 5 S · Usability improvement in software that’s allows people to enter data with reduced no. of values to enter · Introduce new lighter material for vehicle body - reform production processes · Upgrade software with new technology which allows faster development, better performance and more features · Make simplified cars by cutting the number of parts in half · Extending software on multiple media allowing ease of access and seamless collaboration and eliminates duplication throughout the supply chain Conclusion: All the three techniques have different role in the lean journey and allows organization to identify and implement changes at different levels and magnitude of impact. Each of them are necessary and must be run in tandem for an organization to be truly lean and successful cause by just being innovative, a company may not be successful in long run as it may lose out on efficiency nor by just being a company which is strong on efficiency sustain itself in long run as lack of innovation will allow competitors who are innovative to beat it down in market.

Kaizen : It is a combination of two Japanese words , kai and zen . Kai means “Change” and Zen means “for the better” resulting in the meaning as “Change for the better”. It refers to any continuous improvement done in workplace, using small incremental changes Kaikaku: It is the Japanese term for ‘ radical change’ . It talks about the fundamental cum radical changes that we make to the system, in which we are working Kakushin: In Japanese it means ‘Innovation’ . It talks about the fact that changes done in the system (that we work upon) can sometimes lead to a paradigm shift in the working of the system such that that we need to realign our thinking to be more innovative S.No Kaizen Kaikaku Kakushin 1 Focuses on elimination of waste (Muda), Productivity improvement and Over hard working of employees (Muri ) with small continuous improvements Focuses on radical or revolutionary changes with big improvements Focuses on Breakthrough ideas /products /services 2 Cultural change is slowly imbibed into the working DNA of the employees . Cultural change happens explicitly and drastically changes Cultural change happens consciously due to focused thinking 3 Participation(involving in the activity) of all workers normally happens as kaizen activities deals with process kaizen (Individual workstands)and flow kaizen(material and information) Not necessarily all workers need to be involved Not necessarily all workers need to be involved How do they complement each other ? Kaizen is the base . Its the building block on top of which Kaikaku and Kakushin can be done. Objective is to remove any non-value adding work by doing a kaizen and then see what needs to be done. When too many Kaizen activities are not yielding any results , then we go got Kaikaku. This is akin to DMAIC and DMADV. If we think that DMAIC is not going to work, then no point in trying to improve the existing process. So we opt for DMADV as we think old process cannot be improved. Same way, we move to Kaikaku and hence that becomes a radical shift in our approach (again think of DMADV for analogy). Now this is done . What next ? What if we find a better way to optimise our benefits . Our system then should be in a transformed state with our thought process realigned with innovative approach. So Kakushin comes into picture . This is akin to DMAODV in Six Sigma parlour. Conclusion:All the three are a must so that an organisation can stay competitive in the market. What would a company lose if one of these as a concept was not utilised? Case 1: If Kaizen not utilised: If thats the case, it would be like building a house without a strong base. Kaizen helps in setting up individual standards and also helps in eliminating waste/non-value added activities. Also it helps in controlling the over work of employees. By not having Kaizen, the disadvantages would be a). Impact of other two type of improvements may not be effective as still the processes would be weak because non-value added activities would be present because those 2 improvement types may not have addressed this aspect b). Kaikaku and Kakushin focus on system improvements primarily and will not focus on individual standards unlike Kaizen . As a result, employee focus would be missing c). Employee morale may go down as cultural challenge is thrusted upon and as there is no Kaizen which speaks about Muri . Employee might spend long hours to adapt to the cultural changes brought by other 2 types of improvement Case 2: If Kaikaku not utilised: 1. 1. Potentially it could happen that small changes might keep on happening eternally for ages with not much impact 2. Management/Key stakeholders may not be able to take decisions on issues/problems Case 3: If Kakushin not utilised: 1. 1. The Organisation will not be competitive in its business 2. 2. Difficult to grow in niche market 3. Business growth and hence revenue will be stagnated 4. Morale of top management will go down Example for Kaizen, Kaikaku, Kakushin: Assuming we are in a primitive age of IT , explaining the concepts of Kaizen, Kaikaku and Kakushin Problem Statement Before Kaizen Kaizen Results Often multiple developers working on same code/functionality creates instability and also delays deployment of files Code written by one developer is inadvertently overwritten by another. This happens at times on the delivery date creating customer escalation Have a Version Control System which will alleviate the problems Version control eliminates overwriting. Latest code is always used for delivery and right file is deployed eliminating customer escalation Now Version control available . Next issue. Problem Statement Before Kaikaku Kaikaku Results As more than one developer working on same file and multiple files, changes need to be frequently deployed in the code repository which is not happening Due to time pressure , code deployed in the code repository throws error while testing the application . Tester would not be able to test in such a case Do a Continuous Integration (CI). Have an Integration Server which can seamlessly integrate all codes and provide a build (compilation of the code –ready for consumption by the users) and also intimate whether build is failed or passed Tester and Developer can get notification about the success or failure state. It makes easy for testers to test In today’s environment , Time to Market is the key. So the sooner we make the changes , the faster we should deploy it in the production environment . Else business would be lost. Now as we frequently make changes and deploy it in our local environment and test the application, do we have the capacity to deploy those changes in real time(production environment?) Problem Statement Before Kakushin Kakushin Results As frequent changes are done to the code and tested in local environment , it becomes difficult to deploy the changes everytime in production as the environments are different and we need to make changes in various places including code so that northing gets broken in production Takes 2 days of effort to do the manual changes . Also the stress in doing these changes (staying at office for long hrs) takes its toll on the health of the individual . More SMEs required to do this job since its for more than 1 day Automate the deployment part Avoids manual effort for deploying the changes 1 SME who knows automation is alone required If automation sequence is done properly, no mental stress or boredom will happen

Kaizen refers to small improvements in work place. Most popular methodology for Kaizen is Quality circles or Small Group Activities. Kaikaku refers to a larger revolutionary change. it could be an enterprise wide ranging project, that brings in a large savings or improvement to the process or product. Kakushin refers to an innovative change of a higher order than the above. it could be a total newly conceptualized product. As explained above, each of the three terms refer to change, but at significantly different order of change and usually carried out by different levels of employees. They are connected to one another in the sense that to have the innovative spirit evolved in the organization, it is important to have the thinking process at all levels. At any stage, Kaizen may be encouraged and driven in the organization and it applies to all employees at all levels. Kaikaku could be a good BlackBelt type of project that brings a major process change, and could be impactful enterprise wide. While Kaizen would apply basic tools like the 7 QC tools, Kaikaku projects would need more advanced tools for data analysis and process analysis. Kakushin calls for " out of the box" thinking and could lead to discovering new product or disruptive game changers. What would a company lose if any one of them is not practiced? Absence of Kaizen will leave process to stagnate and erode competitiveness. More important, it will deprive the employees from using their brains to improve their own work place and could leave them demotivated. Absence of Kaikaku will deprive the organization from opportunities of simplifying processes, such as lean application, major Quality improvements and customer value adds. it may also be noted that the absence of Kaizen and Kaikaku could potentially leave the company unprepared for Kakushin. Kakushin leads the organization towards being an industry leader and radically changing its market position.