Since 2012 , the Ethiopian Kahizen Institute has saved 2.46 billion Birr through providing capacity building and bringing performance improvement at various public enterprises,service sectors and other firms.
In his recent interview with The Ethiopian Herald , the Institute Public Relations and Information Head Muluken Kassahun said that apart from saving money, it has played peerless role in motivating workers, raising productivity and maintaining quality of products .
He indicated that before offering training to enterprises and public institutions, the institute makes use of methodologies such as reorganizing ,assessing,supporting and sustaining with a view to identifying the enterprises that are in need of capacity building.
According to him, the objectives of Kaizen philosophy is to raise workers efficiency and productivity without utilizing additional inputs such as human resource,capital,technology and management.
"At the very beginning ,the Kaizen philosophy tells the enterprises to know their human and material assets. It only adds little knowledge and utilizes all the already available resources to the maximum level." He also said most enterprises fail to understand their inherent capacity and to utilize it for the better.
As to Muluken, the Kaizen philosophy can go inline with change tools such as Business Process Reengineering (BPR),Business Score Card (BSC) and Developmental Army.
Discussion between workers and management with regard to meeting the mission of the organization helps workers to feel belonging to the organization and to own the job, he adds.
He also said the very essence of Kaizen is to bring change on the way of thinking for improving the working habit by reducing the influence of the already existing way of thinking and culture.
To inculcate new thinking on the society, the institute has begun to implement its program from the kindergarten to the university level.
With regard to incentive to motivate workers, he said : " It has a positive role, but before selecting strong workers for a given award , the enterprise has to carryout strict and objective evaluation on the efficiency. Otherwise , irrational reward might bring a demotivating impact."
