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STATE MINISTER OF JAPAN VISITS MARU METAL INDUSTRY EMBRACING KAIZEN PROJECT |
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On the occasion of his visit to Ethiopia to attend the 18th Ordinary Session of the Summit of the African Union, H.E. Mr. Ryuji Yamane, Parliamentary Senior Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan took the opportunity to visit Maru Metal Industry P.L.C on 27 January 2012. The company is one of the twenty-eight private companies embracing the ‘kaizen’ project. Since 2010, the companies have been supported by the Government of Japan with advice and training from Japanese experts on how to improve management and to make production more efficient using the kaizen method. During the visit, Ato Dayan Maru, the General Manager of the company welcomed H.E. Mr. Yamane. Subsequently, he gave a brief presentation about his company and explained how its product quality and productivity had improved, using the kaizen method. H.E. Mr. Yamane on his part, appreciated the work done to date and underlined the importance of quality and productivity improvement to compete in the global markets. He also noted that it was worth introducing kaizen to Ethiopia in general and to his company in particular and urged for maximum efforts to benefit much more from kaizen. Kaizen is a philosophy. The word "kaizen" means "continuous improvement". It comes from the Japanese words; ("kai") meaning "change" or "to correct" and ("zen") meaning "good" and “virtue”. It is a method to ensure continuous improvement in quality, productivity, technology, processes, company culture, safety and leadership. Yet, the most important is a philosophy of kaizen or mindset to pursue constant improvement, which involves every employee - from upper management to the lower levels. Everyone is encouraged to come up with suggestions for small improvements on a regular basis. This is not a once in a month or a once in a year activity. It is continuous. In most cases, these are not ideas for major changes. Kaizen is based on making little changes on a constant basis: always improving productivity, safety and effectiveness, while reducing waste. Suggestions are not limited to a specific area such as production or marketing. Kaizen is based on making changes anywhere that improvements can be made. The history of kaizen in Ethiopia started from the request of H.E. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi for a timely and critically important introduction and application of the kaizen philosophy to Ethiopia, together with a policy dialogue on industrial development, which was started in 2010. Accordingly, when the pilot phase of the kaizen project was completed successfully, bearing fruits of transferring Japanese know-how to Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Government established the Ethiopian Kaizen Institute within the Ministry of Industry last autumn to help maximize the benefits of kaizen. Now the kaizen project is in its second phase to scale up the kaizen initiatives on a nation wide scale. It is to be recalled that Japan and Ethiopia have a long standing bilateral relationship. These countries have been working together in various social, economic and cultural aspects. The relationship they established long ago has also now been further consolidated. True, Ethiopia can draw a number of important lessons from Japan. As part of the increasing Japanese assistance for a number of socio-economic interventions, its efforts in the provision of technical support for the success of the plan for the industrial sector set in the five-year Growth and Transformation Plan [GTP] is imperative. In this regard, Japan’s introduction and implementation of the kaizen project with a high level policy dialogue on industrial development are deemed to help Ethiopia be competitive in the world market.
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