FYI
Having been employed for 20 years by a major conservative high tech Japanese company, one needs to understand the concept of KAIZEN in Japanese culture.
“Kaizen is a system of continuous improvement in quality, technology, processes, company culture, productivity, safety and leadership.
Kaizen was created in Japan following World War II. The word Kaizen means "continuous improvement". It comes from the Japanese words 改 ("kai") which means "change" or "to correct" and 善 ("zen") which means "good".
Kaizen is a system that involves every employee - from upper management to the cleaning crew. Everyone is encouraged to come up with small improvement suggestions on a regular basis. This is not a once a month or once a year activity. It is continuous. Japanese companies, such as Toyota and Canon, a total of 60 to 70 suggestions per employee per year are written down, shared and implemented.
In most cases these are not ideas for major changes. Kaizen is based on making little changes on a regular basis: always improving productivity, safety and effectiveness while reducing waste.
Western philosophy may be summarized as, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." The Kaizen philosophy is to "do it better, make it better, improve it even if it isn't broken, because if we don't, we can't compete with those who do." ” By Steve Stephenson
The problem with KAIZEN is, when your competitors make a quantum leap in technology and/ or quality control, there is a catch up period and at times it never happens.
Sounds to me like the CANON culture.
