Masaaki Imai - Gemba Kaizen

Its exciting to see an updated version of a classic book, Gemba Kaizen, which shares a wealth of new healthcare examples and case studies from around the world. A true sensei and master of kaizen, Mr. Imai shares sage and timeless advice on engaging all team members in process improvements and radical redesigns which are deeply meaningful to all stakeholders. The methods in this book will help you improve quality and safety, reduce waiting times, and improve the long-term financial position of your organization. Highly recommended!

Mark Graban, author of Lean Hospitals
and co-author of Healthcare Kaizen

Every business faces the iron triangle of quality, cost, and delivery. Conventional thinking claims you cannot have all three. Not only does Mr. Imai turn that thinking on its head, but he shows you in Gemba Kaizen exactly how to do it.

Matthew E. May, author of The Elegant Solution
and The Laws of Subtraction

Masaaki Imai has done it again. The second edition of his famous book Gemba Kaizen not only describes all the tools necessary for any type of business to implement a lean strategy but also includes a large number of excellent case studies. These show how kaizen can be used to improve hospitals, supermarkets, airport management, a bus line, and even software development. This is a must-read for the leadership of any business.

My first exposure to lean [the term hadnt been invented yet, we called it Just-in-Time or the Toyota Production System] was at the beginning of 1982, during my first General Manager job at the General Electric Company. We created a simple kanban system between one of my plants and one of my suppliers. We dropped raw material inventory from 40 days to 3 days and got a lot of unexpected side benefits in the areas of productivity, quality, freed up space, 5S improvements, etc. Professor Schoenburger later did a story on this where he said that this was the first real lean activity at The General Electric Company. In late 1985 I joined the Danaher Company as one of two Group Executives. One of my company presidents, George Koenigsaecker, and I began introducing lean to Danaher in 1986. One of the things that really helped us improve our knowledge of lean at the time was Masaaki Imais first book, Kaizen. This was the most definitive work on the subject and was a great help. Imai helped us even more in early 1987 when he ran a seminar in the Hartford, CT area [just down the street from Jake Brake]. Imai used a Japanese consulting firm, Shingijutsu, to help run his seminar and be responsible for the hands-on factory kaizen part of the week. The three principals of Shingijutsu all had spent years working for Taiichi Ohno, the father of the Toyota production system. Koenigsaecker and I agreed that getting Shingijutsu to help us at Danaher would be a home run for us and George worked diligently the rest of the week convincing them. We became their first, and for four years, only American client and our lean knowledge increased dramatically.

In 1991, I left Danaher to become CEO of The Wiremold Company, also in the area. I, of course, brought Shingijutsu along with me and by 1996 Masaaki Imai was back in my life as he included a chapter on Wiremold and what we had done in his new book, Gemba Kaizen. We have stayed in touch over the years and Imai has become a true leader in the lean movement throughout the world through his Kaizen institute. He clearly understands that lean is a strategy, not just some manufacturing thing and that it can apply to any business. He and I have discussed why is it so difficult for most business leaders to understand this and to embrace lean. Unfortunately there is no simple answer to this other than the fact that most people just dont like to change and implementing lean is massive change (everything has to change) if you are to be successful. This latest edition of Gemba Kaizen goes a long way to helping to solve this problem. First of all, it lays out the lean philosophy and tools in a very simple way so that executives should not only understand them but more importantly, not be afraid to try them. More importantly however, Imai makes the case that lean is a strategy and that it can be applied to any business. His case studies of non-manufacturing companies where lean has had a dramatic impact really help to make the point. Every leader of any type of organization should read this book and follow what it says.

Art Byrne, Operating Partner at J W Childs Associates, LP
and author of The Lean Turnaround

More than any other business authority in the world, Masaaki Imai has championed the concept of kaizen over the past three decades in thought, word, and action. Mr. Imai is considered one of the leaders of the quality movement and a pioneer of modern business operational excellence. Mr. Imai is an international lecturer, consultant, and founder of the Kaizen Institute, a leading continuous improvement consultancy with offices worldwide. Mr. Imais first book, Kaizentranslated into 14 languagesis the reference on the subject. Gemba Kaizen picks up where Kaizen left off, introducing real-world application of continuous process improvement methods in production and service businesses. The second edition is fully revised with brand-new case studies, updated chapters, and current references. In 2010 Mr. Imai was honored for his lifetime of achievement with the first ever Fellowship of the Quality Council of India, the apex quality body of the government of India.

Copyright 2012, 1997 by the Kaizen Institute, Ltd. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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MHID: 0-07-179036-5

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