Dankotuwa rewards 'Kaizen Suggestions'

Dankotuwa Porcelain PLC which has an ongoing Kaizen Suggestion Scheme recently had a special Kaizen Suggestion promotion on energy saving Kaizens. The response by the workforce was very encouraging with 102 Kaizens received. An award ceremony was held recently and the best implemented Kaizen suggestors were given certificates.

Picture shows the recipient of the 1st prize receiving the award from Chairman/Managing Director, Sunil G Wijesinha. Dr U Farook, General Manager (Technical) the coordinator of the Kaizen programme is in picture.

Kaizen is a Japanese concept where every employee, especially at Non Executive level, is encouraged to constantly think of small improvements, suggest to the immediate superior, and implement. Kaizen comes from two Japanese words where "Kai" means change and "zen" means better. Therefore it is especially a change for the better. Kaizen was made popular worldwide with the publication of the book Kaizen-the secret of Japans competitive success by Masaaki Imai. In many Japanese companies each employee gives several suggestions a month, and in some companies it works out to an average of one suggestion per day.

According to Masaaki Imai, while technological improvements are done by Scientists and Engineers, there are thousands of improvements that can be made by the workers in the factories, offices and shops and that it is this thousands of improvements that have made Japanese products more competitive.

Kaizen focuses on very small improvements that require little or no money, which can be implemented very quickly and the benefit from each improvement may not be very great.

However the collection of all such improvements on a daily basis can be significant, and also keeps the employees motivated.

Dankotuwa has been a pioneer in introducing many Japanese style management techniques and was one of the first in the country to introduce 5S, Quality Circles, Kaizen and TPM.

In March at the National Quality and Productivity Convention organized by the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Quality and Productivity, several Dankotuwa Porcelain employees won awards for Kaizen, poster and slogans.

Dankotuwa Porcelain PLC is a subsidiary of Environmental Resources Investment PLC (ERI). ERI group strives to be a socially responsible business entity which firmly believes in the positive and far reaching effects of good governance policies and providing financial management, strategic guidance and strong management discipline to help re-structure companies and make good companies even better.