   , japanese for "good change". it has been applied in healthcare, psychotherapy, life-coaching, government, banking, and other industries. when used in the business sense and applied to the workplace, kaizen refers to activities that continually improve all functions and involve all employees from the ceo to the assembly line workers. it also applies to processes, such as purchasing and logistics, that cross organizational boundaries into the supply chain. by improving standardized activities and processes, kaizen aims to eliminate waste (see lean manufacturing). kaizen was first implemented in several japanese businesses after the second world war, influenced in part by american business and quality management teachers who visited the country. it has since spread throughout the worldeurope japan centre, kaizen strategies for improving team performance, ed. michael colenso, london: pearson education limited, 2000 and is now being implemented in environments outside of business and productivity. == overview == the sino-japanese word "kaizen" simply means "good change", with no inherent meaning of either "continuous" or "philosophy" in japanese dictionaries or in everyday use. the word refers to any improvement, one-time or continuous, large or small, in the same sense as the english word "improvement". however, given the common practice in japan of labeling industrial or business improvement techniques with the word "kaizen" (for lack of a specific japanese word meaning "continuous improvement" or "philosophy of improvement"), especially in the case of oft-emulated practices spearheaded by toyota, the word kaizen in english is typically applied to measures for implementing continuous improvement, or even taken to mean
Japanese_business_terms Lean_manufacturing