Japanese hair salons keep a kokyaku karute, a customer chart, for each client. It records the cut and the color, the products used, the hair type and any allergies. It also records the customer’s preferred style, lifestyle, what was talked about, and treatments the customer dislikes.
A guide for salon owners says the chart makes it easier to suit each customer and gives a reason to come back.
In 1982, Kōdansha published Kikubari no susume (Advice on Consideration) by Suzuki Kenji, a former announcer of the public broadcaster NHK. Kikubari means attentiveness to others. The book became one of the great bestsellers in the history of Japanese publishing.
It also drew criticism, because it treated kikubari as a technique.
In May 1965, NEC launched what it named the ZD undō, the Zero Defects movement. Its president, Kobayashi Kōji, had seen the ZD mark during a visit to Hughes Aircraft in the summer of 1964. ZD stood for a slogan about doing work without defects.
Kobayashi wanted more than a movement against defects. He also wanted to awaken a sense of participation in the company among ordinary frontline employees.
For a handwritten rirekisho, the standard Japanese résumé form, the job site doda gives clear advice about mistakes: “Correction tape and correction fluid are absolutely not allowed. Rewrite it from the beginning.”
The career site of Mynavi agrees: “Basically, correcting a résumé is not acceptable. As a rule, rewrite it whenever possible.”
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 Japanese kitchens and workshops, newcomers are told waza o nusume, steal the skill. The expert does not walk the newcomer through the know-how step by step. He keeps working where the newcomer can watch, and expects the newcomer to master the skill over a long time. Cooks, craftsmen and technicians are among the trades that train this way. Sushi chefs say meshitaki sannen, nigiri hachinen: three years cooking rice, eight years shaping sushi.
In 2023, a debate on social media asked whether the method is outdated. A worker in the shipping industry wrote that those who say it do not teach because they have no theory of teaching.
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.
Ishibashi o tataite wataru (石橋を叩いて渡る): to tap on a stone bridge before crossing it. Even a bridge that looks solid is checked for safety first. Doing things with caution on top of caution.
Sonae areba urei nashi (備えあれば憂いなし): if prepared, no worries. A person who is always ready for an emergency need not worry when one happens.
Nen ni wa nen o ireyo (念には念を入れよ): add care to care. In important matters, take great care that no mistake happens, and then check once more.
Before the space probe Hayabusa2 first touched down on the asteroid Ryugu, JAXA ran a series of touchdown rehearsals. In one, on October 14 and 15, 2018, the probe descended to about 22.3 meters above the surface to check the accuracy of its navigation and guidance. This test had been planned for an earlier rehearsal, but a sensor failed to switch modes.
In the next rehearsal, from October 23 to 25, the probe fed its laser range measurements back into its control. The first touchdown was postponed to January 2019 or later.
Taiichi Ohno, the former Toyota vice president regarded as the father of the Toyota Production System, published Toyota Seisan Hōshiki in 1978. In it he wrote that by asking why five times and answering each time, one can find the chain of cause and effect and the real cause hidden behind a problem.
Toyota employees are drilled in the method from their first days as new hires.