Lean Manufacturing and the Environment

I came across an article about Kaizen on the EPA web site that is excellent. It provides a good overview of Kaizen and includes some details, such as the "Five Whys", that I've not seen other other overview articles.

Although the article is relating Kaizen to the environment, the principles and approach is the same. This article concludes by saying something similar to this:

"At its core, kaizen represents a process of continuous improvement that creates a sustained focus on eliminating all forms of waste from a targeted process. The resulting continual improvement culture and process is typically very similar to those sought under environmental management systems (EMS), ISO 14001, and pollution prevention programs. An advantage of kaizen is that it involves workers from multiple functions who may have a role in a given process, and strongly encourages them to participate in waste reduction activities."

This article serves as a good introduction to Kaizen, and is also worth a quick read by those who have some experience with Kaizen. You'll find the article at: http://www.epa.gov/lean/thinking/kaizen.htm