The Achievements and Challenges of Kaizen Implementation: A Case Study on Asela Malt Factory

Abstract

This study assesses kaizen implementation of Asela Malt Factory with respect to 5s, Deming cycle suggestion system, Fishbone Diagram, and Pareto analysis tools. Achievements and challenges encountered in the kaizen implementation are also addressed. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were employed and SPSS (Scientific Package for Social Science) tool were used to analyze and present quantitative data. Descriptive statistics tools such as frequency and percentage were used to analyze and present qualitative data obtained from questionnaire and interview. The results revealed that kaizen tools are inconsistently implemented in the factory. The study also shows that improvements are achieved in the factory with some variations. On the contrary, numerous challenges are discovered due to the inconsistency of kaizen tools implementation. Therefore, the factory should implement kaizen tools continuously to identify the root causes of the problems, prioritize the problems according to their severity and solve the problems step-by-step in order to further improve quality, productivity and profitability through proper design and innovation.