Abstract

The Japanese lean initiative, kaizen, is a great tool for continuous process improvement. Process improvement is very useful, especially in the manufacturing industry, to cut down on costs and deliver quality products or service to customers. However, if improvement is not maintained, it can easily decay. Metcam Inc. set out to achieve continuous process improvement with the use of kaizen and saw productivity and financial gains almost immediately. Initially enlisting the help of consultants, Metcam shifted to their own managers running the kaizen project and sought employee buy-in to increase the project's success.