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.
In professional shogi, the two players usually examine the game together after it ends. This review is called kansōsen, the battle of impressions. Winner and loser both take part.
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.
In 1951, Toyota began an activity in which employees submit creative ideas for improvement. Today it is called the sōi kufū teian seido, the creative idea suggestion system. In March 1953, Toyota adopted the company slogan Yoi shina, yoi kangae, good products, good ideas.
The cumulative number of suggestions passed one million in 1974, ten million in 1984 and forty million in 2011.
Hiyari hatto is the experience of a situation that could have led to an accident, or the discovery of such a situation.
Japanese guides to workplace safety explain it together with Heinrich’s law. Behind one serious accident lie 29 minor accidents, and behind those lie 300 irregularities.
In April 1962, the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers launched a magazine for the factory floor, Genba to QC. In its first issue, Ishikawa Kaoru introduced the QC circle, a small group in one workplace that carries out quality control on its own initiative.
The definition describes managing and improving the workplace continuously, with everyone taking part.
Hansei (反省): reflection on one’s own conduct, with regret for what went wrong.
Hanseikai (反省会): a reflection meeting, held after an event or project to review it.
Nanakorobi yaoki (七転び八起き): fall seven times, rise eight. Recovering each time, however many failures come.
On March 27, 2003, the Japan Science and Technology Agency released a trial version of its Failure Knowledge Database. It held about 560 cases of accidents and failures in four fields of science and technology.
The project collected and analyzed such cases and organized their lessons as knowledge to be shared. It was supervised by the engineering professor Hatamura Yōtarō.
In October 2014, TV Asahi began broadcasting Shikujiri Sensei: Ore mitai ni naru na!! (Teacher of Blunders: Don’t Become Like Me!!). In each episode, a celebrity who once failed badly teaches a class in a mock school.
The guest teacher explains the lessons drawn from that failure, so that the students can avoid making the same mistake.