Track: Doctoral Dissertation Competition

Abstract

Kaizen is a broad concept of management philosophy which integrates production and quality management methodologies to achieve organizational excellence, success and competitiveness. It is implemented by many organizations including manufacturing, service and commerce industries. However, there is no exploratory study investigated its application and effect with the context of Ethiopian manufacturing industries. So, exploration of Kaizen practices is significant for the improvement of policies and strategies. Therefore, the purpose of this study is initially to explore the practices and effect of Kaizen, then developing a framework, and finally, identifying drivers (social and technical factors) experienced and barriers faced with the context of manufacturing industries of Ethiopia. Conducting extensive literature review and adopting methodologies, reviewing reports and developing SWOT analysis table, exploring practices, developing framework, identifying drivers and barriers using charts, diagrams and graphs, proposing wayforward and implications from the study are the research approaches used in the study. The findings of the study demonstrate companies are implementing Kaizen following structured framework. The implementation enables to organize working places and achieved quantitative and qualitative results. As a result, the execution consequences in saving and gaining a total of 158777469.7 ETH Birr and 44431.92 Meter Square free spaces. Moreover, the mediocre achieved improvements of net profits, sales volume, productivity, delivery time, production volume, defect rate and customer satisfaction is 26.33, 33.02, 22.90, 33.98, 69.65, 49.29 and 67.92% respectively. Since, there is no previous study exploring Kaizen practices, therefore, this is the very first research provides valuable insights for company managers, practitioners, academicians and government.