{"id":8071,"date":"2015-07-26T18:00:26","date_gmt":"2015-07-27T00:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/?p=8071"},"modified":"2015-07-20T10:28:50","modified_gmt":"2015-07-20T16:28:50","slug":"businesses-find-the-evolutionary-path-to-profitability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/articles\/starting-or-growing-a-business\/businesses-find-the-evolutionary-path-to-profitability\/","title":{"rendered":"Businesses Find the Evolutionary Path to Profitability"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"By<\/a>

By Claudia Infante, Projects Coordinator, New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership<\/p><\/div>\n

One obstacle to improvement in a typical American company is the assumption that change requires months of planning, major expense and a work stoppage or slowdown. Then there\u2019s the fear that old habits and practices will slowly return as people forget what they learned amid the pressures and demands of running a business.<\/p>\n

Even when the need for change is obvious, such companies often resist fixing something until it\u2019s utterly broken.<\/p>\n

An alternative, nonreactive view embraces change as a continual process of incremental improvements and tweaks \u2014 not as an exercise in obsessive compulsion but as an adaptive approach to reducing waste-related costs, eliminating inefficiencies and optimizing competitiveness.<\/p>\n

That perspective is the Japanese system of kaizen.<\/em><\/p>\n

Change is Good<\/strong><\/p>\n

As the Japanese rebuilt their economy from scratch after World War II, they invested heavily in their manufacturing and banking sectors and in the education and training of a disciplined, sophisticated and technically savvy workforce. Their manufacturing sector became so efficient that it challenged America\u2019s status as the world\u2019s largest economy in the 1980s.<\/p>\n

The philosophy of kaizen was central to Japan\u2019s breathtaking rebound. And it\u2019s at the heart of the various tools, techniques and practices of \u201clean manufacturing\u201d used today by leading manufacturers around the world \u2014 and by any business that wants to improve its profitability and efficiency and lower its operating costs while winning loyal customers who appreciate high quality products.<\/p>\n

Kaizen begins by setting high standards for quality and organization and then continuing to elevate those standards by encouraging ideas and suggestions from every employee about how safety and productivity can be improved and waste can be reduced. It also assures the training, supervision and resources employees need to work and achieve at higher levels.<\/p>\n

Many companies that operate on kaizen principles expect each employee to contribute a set number of suggestions each year about gaps that need closing and inefficiencies that need to be overcome. Each idea is documented and shared, and the best ideas are implemented quickly \u2014 sometimes on the same day they\u2019re heard.<\/p>\n

Employees participate in these activities voluntarily because their ideas are respected, and they get the personal satisfaction of seeing how their suggestions benefit the companies that employ them. Rather than being perceived as boat rockers and troublemakers, these workers are celebrated as agents of positive change.<\/p>\n

The Kaizen Connection<\/strong><\/p>\n

The kaizen philosophy gave birth to quality circles and total quality management, among many other business improvement models of the past few decades. It\u2019s at the root of kanban<\/em>, an information-sharing technique that mimics just-in-time \u2014 the practice of delivering raw materials when the production line needs them \u2014 and the \u201cline balancing\u201d of workstations to eliminate bottlenecks and down time.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also the foundation of many of the continuous improvement tools offered by the New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership. This statewide nonprofit organization sponsors workshops on lean manufacturing and other processes that can increase the competitiveness of small and medium-sized businesses. New Mexico MEP\u2019s Innovation Directors work with businesses one-on-one to change mindsets and transform companies into lean and efficient engines of growth.<\/p>\n

For more information about services offered by MEP, call 505-262-0921 or visit www.newmexicomep.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Download 408_Businesses Find the Evolutionary Path to Profitability<\/a>\u00a0PDF<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One obstacle to improvement in a typical American company is the assumption that change requires months of planning, major expense and a work stoppage or slowdown. Then there\u2019s the fear that old habits and practices will slowly return as people … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8071"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8071"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8074,"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8071\/revisions\/8074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financenewmexico.org\/sandbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}