Enterprises improve productivity and quality thanks to Kaizen

Kaizen has become extremely familiar and has become a guideline for many businesses in our country as well as helping more and more manufacturers to improve productivity and quality.

Nestlé S.A. is a Swiss multinational food and beverage company. It is the world’s largest food company by revenue, and ranked 72nd on the Fortune Global 500 list in 2014. Its products include baby food, health food, and bottled water bottles, cereals, coffee, tea, confectionery, dairy products, frozen foods, pet foods and snacks.

Waste reduction is Nestle’s constant and ongoing mission in all activities, in which the role of lean manufacturing and Kaizen is becoming increasingly important. At Nestle, Kaizen makes sure that continuous improvement is the duty and responsibility of everyone.

According to Kaizen, even the smallest improvements need to be done because later they can make a big effect. For example, to find out where the current factory can improve, Nestlé Waters used many techniques, such as Value Chain Diagrams (VSM) – a technique that shows material flows. Information needed for bringing the finished product to consumers. Such a process helps ensure their operations become more and more efficient.

Lockheed Martin is a US company specializing in advanced technology, aerospace, defense, security, operating on a global scale. The company is very supportive of Kaizen.

Normally, no one applies the lean principle to the production of military aircraft, however, in 1998, Lockheed Martin was ranked in the “Top 10 Manufacturing Plant” by Industry Week magazine. From 1992 to 1997, the company has achieved a lot of significant improvements, such as production costs decreased by 38%, inventory decreased by 50%, the defect rate was only 3.4 / an aircraft, transit time reduced from 42 months to 21.5 months.

Thanks to the application of Kaizen, in 2000, the company was awarded the Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing. During this period, a Kaizen project in the field of material management helped the company cut down the time it takes to transport materials to the warehouse from 30 days to 4 hours.

In Vietnam, many businesses have also succeeded by applying the Kaizen philosophy. With 18 years imbued with the Japanese Kaizen spirit, Nghi Son Cement is now one of the prominent brands in the market.

Mr. Hideaki Asakura – General Director of Nghi Son Cement Company acknowledged: “With the spirit of Kaizen, Nghi Son produces and provides market-oriented services, taking criteria to meet customers’ needs as a principle. Leading in corporate governance. Absolutely adhering to this principle, Nghi Son focuses on improving and managing the quality of products and services, aiming to the ultimate goal of maximizing customer satisfaction.”

General Director of Nghi Son Cement said, Nghi Son’s management in the spirit of Kaizen has outstanding features such as improving product quality, improving working conditions, promoting the operation of each department, collecting collect and transmit two-way information from leaders to employees.

Or after 6 months of implementing the Kaizen improvement project, Nam Ha Garment Joint Stock Company reduced the rate of defective goods from 8.8% to 8.1%, reducing 25% of inventory on the line and inventory compared to production capacity decreased from an average of 2.37 days to 1.34 days, the average daily output increased from 415 products to 899 products.

Productivity and Qualiy Office