150 SMEs benefit from Kaizen project

More than 150 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in three regions of Ghana have been selected to benefit from the first phase of the national implementation project on Kaizen.

Kaizen is a Japanese word which means continuous improvement. It is used to describe a company’s culture where each individual in an institution from the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to the front desk staff regularly evaluate their work to improve on their performance.

To implement the concept successfully, it is compulsory that all employees receive basic training and guidelines on what to do to enhance quality and productivity at the workplace.

The three regions are Brong Ahafo, Central and Northern.

At a three-day Kaizen Knowledge Sharing Seminar held at Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, the Executive Director of the National Board for Small Scale Industry (NBSSI), Mr Lukeman Abdul-Rahim, said the beneficiaries received technical training support and other assistance to expand their operations.     

Kaizen project

The project is a management philosophy developed by Japan to assist small businesses to grow and increase their quality of productivity.

It focuses on promoting creativity and ingenuity through changing an individual’s behaviour towards work and productivity.

Kaizen was developed in Japan in the 1960s and has since provided the foundation for Japanese prosperity. 

In Ghana, the Kaizen project was introduced three and half years ago by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and implemented by the NBSSI.

Mr Abdul-Rahim said four other regions would be selected for the second phase of the Kaizen project.

According to him, since Kaizen was introduced, there had been a tremendous growth in small and medium-scale businesses that benefited from the pilot scheme in the Ashanti Region.

He said a research conducted by the NBSSI revealed that SMEs that benefited from the pilot project had recorded 80 per cent growth.

Japanese government

The Chief Advisor of the National Kaizen Project, Dr Roichi Ozawa, said the introduction of Kaizen in Ghana was part of the Japanese government’s commitment to support the growth of small businesses in the country.

He said Ghana had the potential to become one of the best in Africa if more support and assistance was given to small and medium businesses.

Dr Ozawa, therefore, commended Ghana for the successful implementation of Kaizen and urged its implementer, the NBSSI to remodel the concept to suit the African terrain.