I recently received an email where a Latin American professional who is residing and working in the United States of America told me about his views on Kaizen, after having read one of my articles published on the Internet on this subject. It seemed to me, and it still seems to me, that the position of this person represents the thinking of many Latin American professionals, managers and entrepreneurs in everything related to Kaizen or other systems aimed at improving quality and productivity levels.
For this reason and keeping the secret as to the author of said letter, I first state how the message in question was received, proceeding a posteriori to expose the response sent by me to said person.
I found your article very interesting, I do not know how old the article is, but it does not depart from the same line of generalities that everyone proclaims about the Kaizen philosophy, everyone talks about the benefits of this Japanese philosophy and some even this instance of identifying it for what it is; a philosophy and as such… if the culture does not exist to carry it out… it only remains in tedious and frustrating techniques that nobody can really implement because they do not adhere to the culture and social environment and only remain in beautiful and ideal stories out of context… no one has really dedicated himself to presenting these concepts in such a way that they adhere to the American and / or Latin American culture… two totally different societies trying to be forced into a totally out of context philosophy.
I have worked for both cultures and I really realize that this Kaizen does not work in either of the two; for the United States, what is sought is a method of generating the fastest possible return on investment and with minimal effort… accustomed to a good salary and a life full of comforts that do not understand where that need to reduce costs comes from, just to fatten the portfolios of the ambitious investors who every day want more and more regardless of who they are involved… there is no longer the pride of producing good quality for the simple fact that if it is well done it is because It was made in America… they are already more concerned that their work will cease to exist at any moment because their product went to China, India or Mexico,With regard to Latin America… it is so involved in political and social problems that there is no time to enter a factory and live a continuous improvement that is very far from the social reality that is lived day by day, we spoke to quality improvement people without thinking that this person returns home to face problems of extreme poverty, family dysfunction, filth, disorganization, hunger, need, drug addiction, vagrancy, etc. and that this improvement that we try so hard to inject… has no place in its social reality in a country full of corruption without national pride… except for football, but with a corrupt government that is not interested in continuous improvement.How can there be improvement if the high command is sold to the highest bidder and many of the problems are fixed with a bite?… but on the other hand we want people to work with a moral ethic far above their reality.
My point; This philosophy is very beautiful but it does not work in these two contexts, the challenge is to exploit their strengths and weaknesses in each of them and provide them with the tools that are appropriate to their social reality and that serve to activate their need for personal improvement, but not With Kaizen, this is for the Oriental who has a totally different culture.
The United States managed to be the greatest power on the planet… under what principles did it achieve it? I think those are being lost or have not evolved with today's modernity, most of the new large companies exist in America today, they do not provide anything, they are only a way to generate money… You Tube..Google… Digg… My Space… etc., Etc. And there American creativity is exploited… nothing to do with Kaizen, won't that be the right path for America?
In Latin America… I think first things first, as long as there is no social identification and a restructuring of their governments… talking about Kaizen is just wasting time…
What would be your approach?
Dear XX
First of all, I clarify that I am not merely writing or talking about kaizen, I dedicate myself to it, I make a living from it, I have put it into practice in a great variety of companies, both due to their types of activities and their sizes and results. they have been very good so far.
I do not know how many works you have read about me, nor what the titles were, because I have written more than 200 articles in which I exposed on the issues that you highlight so much, especially regarding the cultural question and the differences between countries.
I am going to briefly explain the various aspects that I believe you should take into due consideration:
1. I have implemented Kaizen in Argentina and other Latin American countries with excellent results. This does not imply that all companies have an appropriate cultural framework that allows them to implement 100% of the methods and instruments. On the other hand, they have absolutely nothing tedious, quite the opposite. The different systems and methodologies are applied tailored to the needs and characteristics of each organization, in addition to the restrictions and potential that each one of them presents. There is nothing that prevents improving the processes or procedures of maintenance, order and cleaning (Five "S"), total quality, raising productivity levels, among others.
2. Regarding which companies apply it: those that operate in competitive frameworks, those that are suppliers of companies that require supplies and parts free of failures and with lower costs every day. And those others that discover in kaizen a possibility to increase their profits, or the opportunity to provide better services with greater profitability (sanatoriums, hotels, restaurants, tourism companies, transport companies, etc.).
3. As always, when an industry is highly protected there is less interest in developing new techniques. In any case, many professionals or businessmen are unaware of the existence or characteristics of the system, and therefore are interested once it is known.
4. The success of the application of kaizen or any other methodology depends: First on a correct diagnosis of the capacities, culture of the company and its socio-cultural framework. Second, based on the results of said diagnosis, create an appropriate system for said company (which is called a socio-technical system).
5. There is a convergence of various science and theoretical frameworks towards the continuous improvement system. The Japanese will call it Kaizen, but the Americans, as well as the Germans, the English, the French, among others, have been developing it under other methodologies and with very good results. There are always companies that fail, but this happens even in Japan (you can find out more about it by consulting Karatsu's book "CTC-Japanese Wisdom"). In the United States, prestigious consultants of the value of Tompkins and Harrington advise not only companies in that country, but also companies from different continents. You can't forget about the Six Sigma System either. And within the same framework, a good number of companies have implemented and do implement the High Performance Labor System (SLAR),which participates and shares many of the fundamental ideas that Kaizen has about management.
6. You must rethink your paradigms. Remember that what you said about Japanese culture today used to say the opposite. Example: Japanese products were considered to be of poor quality (that was the Western point of view, both American and European). And it was that paradigm that did not allow them to see how the Japanese industry was advancing on an immense number of activities, from electronics, automotive, watchmaking and others. What I am telling you is something that you can verify yourself by reading authors like Ohno (creator of JIT) or Ishikawa (one of Deming's greatest disciples in Japan). Since I name it, it should be clear that Deming and Juran are the consultants on whom much of the new Japanese ideas about management have been built.Just keep in mind that Japan's highest quality award is called the Deming Award.
7. Regarding the applicability of kaizen ideas in the West, it can only be said that the entire automotive industry is currently founded on it, to a greater or lesser extent. The salient point is the reference to the rapid change of tools, which is based on the ideas of Shigeo Shingo, which has made the current production of such a varied range of automobiles by brand feasible.
8. Today a large number of Western companies work on the basis of Just in Time or the Kanban System. It is true that they are a minority, but it is precisely those that do not apply it that have the most problems as a result of the loss of competitiveness in relation to those that do apply it.
9. Among the North American companies that apply the principles of Kaizen are: John Deere & Company, Harley Davidson Motor Company, Westinghouse-Asheville and Nucor.
10. A paradigmatic case is that of NUMMI (New United Motor Manufacturing Corporation), a company resulting from the alliance between General Motors and Toyota. It operates with the same North American workers (Latinos, Anglo-Saxons, Afro-Americans, among others) with whom traditional American management had failed, but with a new and competitive management such as the Japanese, it managed to reach practically the same levels of Toyota in Japan).
11. There is a clear difference between the paradigms of companies considered traditional and those considered highly competitive. A good way to expose it is through what I have come to call the "Fosbury Effect." Until the Olympic Games in Mexico City in 1968, the high jump was performed with what is called roller jump, suddenly in that game an Englishman with the last name Fosbury appeared who surprised everyone by jumping back to the pole, beating the Olympic and world record of the specialty and conquering the gold medal. My question is, is there any athlete in the world today who wants to compete at the highest level not by jumping like Fosbury? The answer is no. No matter what your race, nationality, if you are Russian, American, Brazilian, Italian, or Chinese, they all jump the same style today.Perhaps with slight variations, but jumping like Fosbury after all. In industrial matters, the same happens, organizations tend to converge to highly competitive systems (you can consult authors such as Fukuyama "The end of history" or Schonberger).
12. Authors who endorse the cultural and paradigm shift in industrial matters that you can consult are: Robert Tomasko “Rethinking the Corporation. The Architecture of Change ”; Jeffrey Pfeffer "The Human Equation", and Robert Bell and John Burnham "Managing Productivity and Change".
13. The Japanese Murata applied kaizen to a battery factory in Wales adapting the Kaizen system to the socio-cultural environment, achieving levels of quality and productivity similar to those of its parent company in Japan, which is why said company was awarded timely with the Quality Award in Great Britain.
14. Recently Ford Motors of the USA is studying an agreement with Toyota of Japan to exchange strategic capabilities: Ford's marketing in exchange for Toyota's waste disposal systems (muda in Japanese).
15. Although you work in the Latin American and American culture, I do not work for all your companies, you worked in some, which because they are more of the traditional type of culture and management does not imply that it is valid to apply the same concept to all Latin American companies. I can assure you that I have also seen companies like the ones you mention, but I can assure you that I have also worked in Argentina, as well as in Chile, Mexico and Brazil, and even in Peru and Colombia, for model companies, of a level of development. in terms of direction, management and staff behavior, and first-rate improvement capacity.
16. The desire to want to learn and apply new work methodologies in Central American and Caribbean countries is truly amazing; even a country like Cuba with all its limitations and problems for ideological, economic and political reasons, or precisely because of it. Their economic limitations force them to improve day by day to continue subsisting.
17. What you mention regarding the departure of companies to China, India, Malaysia, and other Southeast Asian countries, is for other reasons that have nothing to do with kaizen. Without further ado, the same top-tier Japanese companies (Sony, Sanyo, Toshiba, etc.) are manufacturing a large number of their products in China. But this is more a matter of competitive capabilities. See Porter's work: “The competitive capacity of nations”. A country must dedicate itself to those activities that generate greater added value or in other words "to those activities in which they have absolute or relative competitive advantages", and must do so by continuously improving their levels of costs, quality, productivity, time delivery and customer satisfaction, whether it is the production of goods or services.
18. In relation to the inclination to focus on results rather than on medium and long-term processes of American companies, this is what, according to their own consultants, has made these companies lose competitive capacity in relation to others. But as I explained before, this is not applicable to all companies, and many of them through continuous improvement of their processes have known and been able to face their Japanese competitors such as Xerox (in relation to the advance of Canon), Motorola, Caterpillar (in relation to Komatsu) and Harley Davidson (in relation to Honda, Suzuki and Yamaha), among many others.
19. Regarding fraudulent behavior and corruption as factors contrary to continuous improvement, this is the middle ground, leaving aside the extremes, public service companies or companies linked to the State, but not companies that compete at a high level.. That there are corrupt businessmen does not mean that all are. I understand and agree with you that corruption is a factor that often makes it easy to achieve profitability. But there are companies that, due to the activities in which they participate, must constantly improve yes or yes.
20. Neither what you say about the workers living in a miserable state, although it exists, is not typical of all Latin America. You cannot generalize personal experiences, making them look like something that is typical of most of the inhabitants of this continent.
21. To further clarify the issue, keep in mind that the world's most competitive countries include Norway, Sweden, and Finland. And these are not eastern countries. They are first among those with the greatest transparency, competitiveness and quality of life.
22. What often makes a country uncompetitive is not the capabilities of its workers, but the laws within which they operate, and the wage and living standards they intend to achieve or maintain. But sooner or later, and as Karl Marx clearly stated, the technological base will end up bringing down the old paradigms and superstructures of the previous productive framework.
23. To say that Kaizen is for the Oriental is a serious mistake. Kaizen was largely drawn from Western experiences. Moreover, a work on organizational behavior states that a study carried out in 1948 in a mining company in England (dedicated to the exploitation of coal) clearly exposed the application of the same principle, although with other names in that company.
24. Regarding what you refer to in relation to so-called Dot Com companies, it should be said firstly that their market capitalization has nothing to do with the profits that you are actually generating, secondly that the economy continues to require the production of food, machines and clothing among others. Not all of the United States will be in this type of industry. But the United States will continue to retain a significant number of companies and activities in which it has high-level comparative and competitive advantages. Example: machinery, aircraft, computers, medical instruments, drugs, chemical products, among many more. On the other hand, the American service industry is in first place in the world and is the main advisor in new productivity systems,quality and continuous improvement of companies based in Eastern Europe, and South and East Asia.
25. Americans may not focus as much on continuous process improvement, but they do focus on continual improvement of their products, many of which are top-of-the-line in quality. And in terms of process improvement, there is not only an interest in it, but also a clear academic and professional inclination to improve processes day by day, although more approached from the point of view of Industrial Engineering.
26. Regarding your last paragraph, it should be noted that I am one of those who most insist on the need to apply continuous improvement to governance, but this does not imply that companies cannot reap good benefits using Kaizen. In addition, kaizen does not ensure success, it only makes possible the possibility of competing with greater possibilities. In Argentina the level of corruption is high, but this does not imply that companies for which I work, such as producers of auto parts, components of agricultural machinery, among others, improve day by day and are exporters and suppliers of components to first-rate European companies. level, among them none other than Mercedes Benz or BMW. Even more,the Center for Business Development in the Argentine city of Rafaela (Santa Fe Province) encourages the application of kaizen among its associates and regularly brings Japanese consultants such as Imai to give lectures and seminars.
27. Continuing with what was stated in the previous point, it is no less important to mention the case of SEMCO, a group of companies dedicated to the manufacture of components, auto parts, machinery and electronic items. In it, under the ideas of Ricardo Semler (Brazilian) and with Brazilian workers, a true management revolution has been operating for a long time with self-managed groups, and employees who qualify their supervisors, among many other differences with the traditional administration.
28. His position is clearly what Douglas McGregor called Theory X in terms of motivation, insofar as it represents a paradigm by which workers tend to be seen as disinterested in improving, being more productive, and therefore having, than to be subjected to an authoritarian direction.
29. Finally, and given the needs and limitations of resources worldwide, production systems will have to improve day by day to be more efficient in the use of materials, energy, and be less polluting.
I want to make it very clear to you that when I started working in the consultancy I shared a lot of what you put forward, for this reason I understand it. But I thought of the famous story of the two men who were sent by a businessman from the shoe industry to Africa. The first one who returned to Europe told the businessman that it was impossible to do business because in Africa nobody wears shoes. The other arrived exultant with joy and said: "magnificent, everything is to be done, we have a continent to sell shoes to." How you can see, it all depends on what glass you look at.
Undoubtedly, both the form and the methods to be implemented must be adapted to both the type of society and the characteristics of each company. Dogmatisms are useless, neither in the matter of kaizen, nor in any other methodology. I believe that everything happens to understand the philosophy of the system, and the practical results that can be achieved with it.
From now on I remain at your entire disposal and I thank you for getting in touch, I always consider that criticism and the opposite or different point of view is a way of questioning myself my approach and paradigms, and of trying to see other points of sight.
Best regards.
Mauricio Lefcovich
