Kaizen (改善): improvement. The Daijisen dictionary defines it as correcting what is bad and making it better. It adds that the word is known around the world as a symbol of Toyota’s production system.
Yokoten (横展開): horizontal deployment. A business glossary defines it as taking a case that succeeded in one department or business, with the know-how and technology gained from it, and applying it to other departments or fields.
When the Tōkaidō Shinkansen opened in 1964, its top speed was 210 kilometers per hour. In 1992, with the new 300 series trains and the first Nozomi service, the top speed rose from 220 to 270 kilometers per hour. On March 14, 2015, it was raised again, to 285 kilometers per hour. It was the first increase in 23 years.
Kareta gijutsu no suihei shikō, lateral thinking with withered technology, is the phrase most associated with the Nintendo developer Yokoi Gunpei. The online encyclopedia Nico Nico Pedia explains kareta gijutsu as technology that has already spread widely and is fully mastered.
The same encyclopedia says that the Game & Watch was born when small LCD screens and semiconductors, overproduced during a sales war over electronic calculators, were put to use for play. A Japanese toy industry site tells the story the same way.
In 2002, Japan created by law the kōzō kaikaku tokku, special zones for structural reform. The system is meant to put the original ideas of a region into practice. The government’s basic policy sets the next step as a principle: measures judged to have caused no particular problems are to be extended quickly to the whole country, zenkoku tenkai.
JR East began developing an IC card system for tickets in 1987, the year the company was founded. Through the 1990s, it repeated development and testing. On November 18, 2001, the Suica card went into use at the automatic ticket gates of 424 stations in the Tokyo area.
In many Japanese schools, teachers improve their lessons together. A teacher plans a lesson with colleagues from the same grade or subject. The lesson is then taught as a kenkyū jugyō, a research lesson, while all the teachers of the school, or those of one grade or subject, watch.
Afterwards, the observers discuss it, in groups or all together. A paper from the National Institute for Educational Policy Research notes that this lesson study is voluntary training and demands a great deal of work.
On June 26, 1962, trial runs began on the Kamonomiya model line of the Tōkaidō Shinkansen. The section was about 30 kilometers long. It was built so that prototype trains and new equipment could be tested in real conditions before the whole line was finished.
On March 30, 1963, a test train reached 256 kilometers per hour on the model line. In February 1964, the model line became part of the Tōkaidō Shinkansen.
In October 2004, Suzuki Ichirō broke the major league record for hits in one season. Afterwards he said: Chicchai koto o kasaneru koto ga, tondemonai tokoro ni tadoritsuku tada hitotsu no michi nan da na to, ima, kanjite imasu. “Now I feel that piling up small things is the only way to reach an extraordinary place.”
Sources give his words in slightly different forms.
Mainā chenji (マイナーチェンジ): minor change. A small revision, especially a partial model change of a car.
Furu moderu chenji (フルモデルチェンジ): full model change. A complete change of a car’s model, together with improvements in its functions.