Kaizen is often translated as “continuous improvement” and identified as one of the core themes in lean. Today I’m pondering the question: Can kaizen ever be bad for an organization?

In order to go deeper on this question, first we have to define kaizen as a focused improvement activity. The question at this point is whether we are optimizing the process. Merriam-Webster defines optimization as: “an act, process, or methodology of making something (as a design, system, or decision) as fully perfect, functional, or effective as possible.”

In my opinion, kaizen does not mean to optimize the process to 100-percent perfection. My point of contention on this is that kaizen should not be about local optimization. Local optimization means to make a process fully functional without taking the whole system into consideration. This leads to tremendous waste. The local improvement should not cause a problem in an upstream or downstream activity. My best analogy is to work out the upper body without taking the lower body into consideration. This leads to a disproportionately developed body.

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