| Abstract: | Kaizen originated in Japan to be applied in the improvement of productivity, quality, efficiency and, all in all, business excellence. Though it has been an internationally recognized tool for continuous improvement, it is of a short age to be practiced in Africa, in general, and in Ethiopia, in particular. The Government of Ethiopia introduced Kaizen as one of the change tools and directed some 30 organizations to apply it at the beginning. However, not much has been done to assess its effectiveness and challenges encountered in the implementation process. The purpose of this paper was to find out the effectiveness of kaizen implementation in Wonji Sugar Factory and provide the factory and other interested party with the result of the study and improve and/apply its implementation process. It has, therefore, studied the achievement of Kaizen, the linkage between Kaizen implementation with the Strategic Objectives of the factory, the improvements of employees' behavior and working environment, the technical and social outcomes, productivity improvement and the social system outcomes with continuous improvement, in Wonji Sugar Factory, one of those organizations which have been applying this technique for more than three years, as a purposive sample technique survey questionnaire, interviews and direct observations have been applied based on different performance indicators related to inputs, outputs and process of Kaizen implementation techniques. The respondents for the questionnaires have been involved from different departments of the factory each using simple random sampling. Interviews were made with Kaizen Steering Committee and observations were also done the researcher through paying visits to the factory. Accordingly, it has been found that Kaizen implementation in Wonji Sugar Factory has been found successful in terms of minimization of waste and, as a result production cost reduction, increasing efficiency, creation of good relationship between employees and management, increasing employees’ attitude towards teamwork, facilitation of the factory's conducive working environment and improving work commitment. However, teams' problem-solving cultivate and intra - team relationship has been observed to require further improvement. |
