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Lean production, Toyota Production System and Kaizen philosophy: A conceptual

analysis from the perspective of Zen Buddhism
Andrea Chiarini, Claudio Baccarani, Vittorio Mascherpa,
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TPS and
Lean production, Toyota Kaizen
Production System and philosophy

Kaizen philosophy
A conceptual analysis from the 425
perspective of Zen Buddhism Received 27 December 2017
Revised 31 March 2018
Andrea Chiarini Accepted 11 April 2018

University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy and

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Chiarini & Associati, Ferrara, Italy

Claudio Baccarani
Department of Business Administration, University of Verona, Verona, Italy, and
Vittorio Mascherpa
Formazione Umana Globale, Grezzana, Italy

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to compare principles from the original Toyota Production System
(TPS), the Toyota Way 2001 and Kaizen philosophy with principles derived from Japanese Zen Buddhism.
The paper would also like to enlarge the debate concerning some lessons learnt from Japanese culture in order
to avoid Lean implementation failures.
Design/methodology/approach – The original English version of Taiichi Ohno’s book dedicated to the
TPS, the Toyota Way 2001 and other relevant papers regarding Kaizen were reviewed and analyzed. The
principles that emerged from the review of this literature were then compared with similar philosophical
principles from Japanese Soto Zen Buddhism. The literature concerning Zen philosophy was methodically
analyzed and categorized using the content analysis.
Findings – The results of this research show many theoretical parallelisms as well as lessons for
practitioners, in particular referring to principles such as Jidoka, just-in-time, waste identification and
elimination, challenge, Kaizen, Genchi Genbutsu, respect for people and teamwork.
Research limitations/implications – Analysis and results are mainly based on the literature that was
found, reviewed and categorized, along with the knowledge of authors on Zen philosophy. Results could differ
depending on the literature reviewed and categorized.
Practical implications – The results of this research bring food for thought to practitioners in terms of
lessons learnt from Japanese culture, Toyota principles and management style in order to avoid Lean
implementation failures.
Originality/value – This is one of the first papers which compares Lean-TPS and Kaizen principles with the
Zen philosophy to try to learn lessons for succeeding in Lean implementation.
Keywords Lean production, Kaizen, Zen philosophy
Paper type Conceptual paper

Introduction and motivation for the research

Lean production stems from the Japanese Toyota Production System (TPS); the theory of TPS
was introduced in Japan by Taiichi Ohno (Ohno, 1988; Holweg, 2007; Narayanamurthy et al.,
2016). The term Lean was first coined by the researcher Krafcik (1988) and the book The
Machine that Changed the World by Womack et al. (1990) made the term Lean known worldwide.
Although there are some differences between Lean production and TPS, mainly linked to
practitioners and scholars’ adaptations, they basically introduce similar principles and The TQM Journal
objectives (Chiarini, 2011). Vol. 30 No. 4, 2018
pp. 425-438
In the last decades, Lean-TPS has been implemented in western industry in different sectors © Emerald Publishing Limited
1754-2731
and organizations and interesting results have been achieved in terms of performance, especially DOI 10.1108/TQM-12-2017-0178
 TQM when we come to inventory reduction, customer satisfaction, lead time, and waste reduction in
30,4 general (Dora et al., 2013; Belekoukias et al., 2014; Fullerton et al., 2014; Ingelsson and
Mårtensson, 2014; Prashar, 2014; Teehan and Tucker, 2014; Gupta et al., 2016; Chahal et al., 2017;
Marodin et al., 2017). Lean-TPS tends sometimes to be confused with Kaizen principles and
philosophy (Chiarini, 2011), even if the term Kaizen was first introduced by Imai (1986) and more
related to the total quality management (TQM) movement.
426 Nowadays, Lean-TPS is so widely implemented that its implications extend beyond the
original boundaries of manufacturing and “seven wastes” reduction (Ohno, 1988).
Lean implementation has expanded from Lean production to Lean healthcare (Costa and
Godinho Filho, 2016) and Lean government (Suarez Barraza et al., 2009), and Lean has even
gone green and is used to improve environmental performance (Duarte and Cruz-Machado,
2013; Chiarini, 2014; Garza-Reyes, 2015).
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However, total implementation of Lean-TPS is not easy and companies can face many
difficulties and pitfalls during the journey. TPS offers many tools such as 5S, Kanban, value
stream mapping and more complex techniques such as single-minute-exchange-of-die
(SMED) and total productive maintenance (TPM) (Womack et al., 1990; Holweg, 2007;
Chiarini, 2011; Eroglu and Hofer, 2011; Monden, 2011). Sometimes techniques such as TPM
are so articulated that they are considered more of a philosophy than a technique
(Davis, 1995; Sharma et al., 2016). Probably, in an initial period, Lean-TPS was considered a
precise and mechanical management system based on such tools and techniques. However,
from many attempts of Lean-TPS implementation the managerial and organizational
culture dimension has emerged (Frahm, 2016). As a consequence, in western industries
Lean-TPS quickly progressed from the implementation of isolated Lean tools and
techniques to an integrated philosophy and culture (Bhasin and Burcher, 2006; Jørgensen
et al., 2007). However, Hall (2004) reported that the Lean production introduced in western
culture differed from the original TPS in which the development of people’s problem-solving
skills, people’s involvement, teamwork and respect of people are key elements. A number of
western authors analyzed the western Lean journey and reported that it can often lead to
complete failures or several attempts were required before some real benefits were gained
(Rubrich, 2004; Ortiz, 2008; Scherrer-Rathje et al., 2009; Rahbek Gjerdrum Pedersen and
Huniche, 2011). Other authors (Garrahan and Stewart, 1992; Williams et al., 1992) even
proposed that Lean was used in western industry to exploit and dehumanize workers.
Therefore, it can be claimed that in the conversion from the original Japanese TPS to a
western Lean system something has sometimes been missed: the interesting question is
whether the specific tools and techniques or the cultural and philosophical approach of the
original TPS.
In this light, this theoretical research investigates, through a literature review, the
cultural and philosophical issues that directly stem from Japanese culture and society and
how these issues can be related with TPS principles. Specifically, we compared the main
TPS and Toyota Way 2001 principles (Toyota Global Site, 2017) and Kaizen philosophy
with philosophical concepts derived from Zen philosophy and in particular Zen Buddhism.
We tried to evaluate how these issues could be the key of TPS success and implementation
rather than just a part of the Japanese culture. After a first analysis of TPS, the Toyota Way
2001 and Kaizen philosophy, in a separate dedicated section we analyzed Zen philosophy,
trying to make a comparison from a theoretical point of view. In our Conclusions section we
also try to enlarge the debate for practitioners and scholars regarding Lean-TPS, its
implementation and the lessons learnt from this theoretical comparison.

Background to Lean-TPS
There is plenty of literature dedicated to TPS and Lean production and many
subjects have been debated starting from Ohno’s (1988) book Toyota Production
 System: Beyond Large-Scale Production. To meet the objective of this paper, we referred to TPS and
the original thoughts of Ohno and other Toyota documentation; therefore, only a few other Kaizen
authors who dealt with the Japanese cultural environment of TPS and Toyota Way were philosophy
reviewed. Ohno’s book first appeared in Japan in May 1978 and was translated in English
ten years after its Japanese edition.
Ohno, in his book, described the history of TPS as dating back to the ideas and
practice of Sakichi Toyoda, the Toyota founder. Sakichi Toyoda invented the Five Whys 427
problem-solving technique used to find the cause-and-effect relationships for specific
problems to reach the real root cause.
The practical model behind TPS is based on just a few principles and tools and Ohno’s
(1988) book is more a narration than a real model or pattern. We summarized the main
principles in Table I. From this book it is well known that TPS is founded on two main
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pillars which are the jidoka or autonomation and the just-in-time ( JIT). The first one goes
back to 1902 when the entrepreneur Sakichi Toyoda invented a particular way of detecting
a broken thread that immediately stopped the automatic loom. That invention allowed one
operator to control the functions of up to 12 looms increasing the quality of the output.
The autonomation brought something more important than the simple mechanism of
automation. According to the Toyota Global Site (2017), this has led to the so-called
automation with human touch and the principle of stop and respond to every abnormality.
In this way TPS started introducing and fostering the principles of people involvement and
contribution, empowerment and self-responsibilities (Liker, 2004). The machine can stop
itself but the system needs people who are able to quickly respond to every problem in terms
of root-cause analysis. As a consequence, according to Ohno (1988, p. 128), teamwork is
everything and there is no reason to fear a line stop when a problem is detected. In this light,
teamworking in TPS quickly became a cornerstone of the entire system with the intent of
not making isolated islands, meaning that if workers are isolated here and there, they cannot
help each other (Ohno, 1988, p. 123). In order to enforce autonomation and a quick response
to each detected production problem, Ohno (1988, p. 129) also introduced the principle of
visual control or management by sight. This principle has to be applied throughout from
machines and lines as well as arrangements of products, tools and inventories and standard
work procedures.
According to Table I, the second pillar of TPS is the JIT principle. Ohno (1988, p. 123) in
his book attributed the principle to the Toyota’s founder Toyoda Kiichiro who thought of
the possibility of acquiring products at the time and in the quantity needed. Ohno enlarged
this way of thinking by starting from customer demand and its rhythm. Everything is
determined by the market demand and each process should pulse at the so-called takt-time
given by the customers. This production system is known as a pull system compared to the

Model Principle

Toyota Production System Autonomation/Jidoka Stopping the line

Teamwork
Five Whys
Just-in-time Takt-time and continuous flow
Kanban
Waste recognition and elimination
Toyota Way 2001 Continuous improvement Challenge
Kaizen
Genchi Genbutsu Table I.
Respect for people Respect Principles of TPS and
Teamwork the Toyota Way 2001
 TQM push system that originated from mass production principles. The push production system
30,4 is typically based on previsions rule and advanced plans for production processes. In this
way, Ohno started implementing a pull system from the machine shop of Toyota in 1953
inventing the so-called Kanban. The idea was, and still is, to create a continuous production
flow from customers to suppliers, leveling the processes in accordance with the takt-time. To
do this, Ohno used the idea of an American supermarket, viewing the earlier process in
428 production as a kind of store (Ohno, 1988, p. 26).
However, in order to create a continuous production flow leveling the processes,
according to Ohno there must be a total understanding of waste principle. All sources of
waste have to be detected and crushed (Ohno, 1988, p. 59) and production waste can be
divided into the famous seven wastes (Ohno, 1988, p. 129): overproduction, waiting,
transporting, too much machining (over-processing), inventories, moving, and making
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defective parts and products. Overproduction is considered to be the root of all the other
wastes and Ohno (1988, p. 129) stated: “It is not an exaggeration to say that in a low-growth
period such waste is a crime against society more than a business loss.”
During the 1980s and 1990s, TPS began to spread outside Japan and Toyota
demonstrated how the model can be implemented in the European and American context
regardless of the socio-cultural Japanese context (Holweg, 2007). At that time, Womack et al.
(1990) crowned TPS as the best system for operations, forging the alternative western term
Lean production.

Kaizen philosophy and Toyota Way 2001

Ohno in his book never used the term Kaizen which nowadays for many practitioners is
synonymous with Lean production and TPS. As later discussed, this fundamental term
represents in any case one of the most important principles of the so-called Toyota Way
2001. According to Suárez-Barraza et al. (2011), the term was first made known by Imai in
his book Kaizen – The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success (Imai, 1986); however, academics
and practitioners still show a certain degree of ambiguity and inconsistency when referring
to Kaizen (Suárez-Barraza et al., 2011). Chiarini (2011) claimed that the term is more
related to the total quality control-total quality management (TQC-TQM) movement and
Shewart and Deming’s studies concerning the continuous improvement principle.
The Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) is the most important TQM approach for introducing
Kaizen. In fact, the Japanese word Kaizen can be translated as change (kai) and good (zen),
meaning change for the better, but with no reference to something continuous. When Imai
(1986) made known the term, interest in the TQM movement was at its peak and the
influence of Deming and Juran’s thoughts is apparent in Imai’s book. According to Singh
and Singh (2009, p. 52), Imai put under the theoretical Kaizen umbrella many techniques
belonging to TQM or Lean-TPS such as customer satisfaction, Kanban, TPM, Six Sigma,
automation, JIT, suggestion system and productivity improvement. In this way, Kaizen is
seen as a philosophy which embraces both TQM and Lean-TPS. To the same results, came
Suárez-Barraza et al. (2011). However, the authors, even if they claimed relationships with
both TQM and Lean-TPS, indicated that Kaizen is displayed under three different
umbrellas, which include a different series of principles, tools, and techniques.
Toyota moved forward introducing in 2001 its new Toyota Way (Toyota Global Site, 2017)
which can be considered an evolution of TPS but not a substitution. According to the Toyota
Global Site (2017), Toyota’s principles before were implicit and now they represent values and
conduct guidelines that all Toyota’s employees should embrace all around the world.
According to Table I, the two key principles of the Toyota Way 2001 are continuous
improvement and respect for people, supported by other principles: challenge, Kaizen, Genchi
Genbutsu and respect and teamwork. Challenge is strictly linked with a long-term vision
rather than a short-term profit, while Kaizen is a way of improving business operations
 continuously, always driving from innovation and education. However, the practical spirit of TPS and
the Toyota Kaizen principle still remains in the Toyota Way 2001 and once again there is no Kaizen
definition and guide to it. Toyota’s Chairman Fujio Cho declared that he was aware of philosophy
different interpretations outside Toyota of the Kaizen principle (Suárez-Barraza et al., 2011);
however, he was just interested in spreading worldwide the Toyota Kaizen principle to Toyota
people. According to the Toyota website (Toyota Global Site, 2017).
“Kaizen is the essence of continuous improvement. It is a way of thinking which 429
encourages and empowers everyone to identify where and how even small changes can be
made to benefit the business, their team or their individual performance.” The precise
reference to continuous improvement and not just an improvement implies that Toyota’s
Kaizen is now affected by some TQM principles such as the PDCA approach.
Another Toyota principle linked to continuous improvement is the Genchi Genbutsu
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which can be translated as actual place, actual thing and going to the source or go to see. It is
considered similar to the go to Genba principles introduced by Ohno (Wakamatsu, 2007).
There are some similarities with the TQM PDCA and Plan-Do-Study-Act approaches, where
in the Do-phase people are supposed to go and see for themselves what is needed (Sokovic
et al., 2010). The Genba is the shop floor or the real place where things happen and where we
can really understand how problems arise and what their causes are (Liker, 2004). People
have to check the facts themselves, so they can be sure they have the right information for
making the right decision.
Lastly, the Toyota Way 2001 emphasizes respect for people, which is divided into respect
and teamwork. Whereas teamwork can be correlated with the original teamwork fostered by
Ohno (1988), respect for people is new and related to a broader vision. According to Toyota
(Toyota Global Site, 2017), respect is at the base of relationships with colleagues and with
others. It is important that everyone is respected both for what they contribute and for who
they are, which includes everyone’s ideas and cultural and personal beliefs. According to
Toyota (Toyota Global Site, 2017): “through respect we accept personal responsibility for
what we do and build mutual trust and understanding with those around us.”

Zen Buddhism in Japanese society

It can be said that Japanese society has been affected over the centuries by three important
philosophical/religious movements: Shintoism, Confucianism and Zen Buddhism. The latter,
according to Roosevelt Malloch (2014), contains the main principles that generate the
foundation of Zen philosophy and the Japanese TPS as we know it. Zen Buddhism was
introduced in Japan by two Buddhist monks named Eisai and Dogen (Morton, 2004) during
the Kamakura period from 1185 to 1333.
The term Zen seems to be rooted in the Chinese and Indian languages and it refers to the
meditation process (Morton, 2004). The Japanese Zen Buddhism is based on a rigorous
self-control, zazen meditation (sitting meditation) and the personal reflection of this process
in daily life, especially for the benefit of others and the context in which we live. In fact, the
term Zen in Japanese is often interpreted and translated in English as good or better and
does not exactly mean meditation.
Zen Buddhism spread across Japan until it directly influenced the imperial family. At the
end of the eighteenth century, Zen Buddhism was the second religion in Japan; it was
followed by all social classes and affected, in particular, workers, farmers and artisans
(Mascherpa, 2014).
Since the beginning, diligence and practical spirit have been among the
relevant characteristics of Japanese Zen Buddhism. A Zen monk would be devoted to
meditation as well as running the monastery, but with the difference that this hard work
was not required by the monastery community but considered a fundamental practice of
the religious movement. The figure of Buddha as the hard worker represents the central
 TQM figure of the Japanese Soto Zen tradition (Dumoulin, 2005) as well as the Buddha’s
30,4 truth of seeing reality unfiltered as it actually exists and seeking the mindful discipline to
improve oneself constantly and over time (Braguzzi, 2015). Undoubtedly other aspects of
Japanese society also created a natural environment for the growth of TPS as well as
TQC-TQM. For example, the fact that the Japanese tradition of craftsmanship pays
attention to detail, as in the practices of bonsai miniaturization, Ikebana and the
430 Chanoyu Tea Ceremony, could have made Japanese workers more receptive to
Ohno’s principles about reduction of waste and high-quality products. Likewise,
because a large number of Japanese people lived in a relatively small area, they may
have had a better cultural predisposition for teamworking than other countries, indicating
that some changes in the Lean-TPS implementation might be needed. Lastly, there is a
certain influence of Confucianism religion as well as the linked Bushido Samurai
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code (Baccarani et al., 2013).

Methodology
The comparison of principles from the Lean-TPS, the Toyota Way 2001 and Kaizen with
Japanese Zen Buddhism is mainly based on a content analysis methodology (Carley, 1992).
There are different types of content analysis; we chose the relation analysis which is based
on an exam of the relationships among concepts in a text. The text comes from the previous
literature review along with other related papers on the subjects. For relational analysis, it is
important to first decide the kinds of concepts to be explored in the analysis. For instance,
we decided to analyze the principles contained in Table I. In this way, the second stage is
simpler and more reliable for the content analysis where the researcher has to code concepts
from the text. In fact, concepts already belong to the TPS and Toyota Way 2001 models and
they can lead into coding the similarities with the other papers. According to Carley (1992),
generalization of the conclusions is very dependent on how the researcher determines such
concepts avoiding subjective interpretations.

Relationships between Lean-TPS, Kaizen and Zen philosophy

Ishikawa (1982) and Imai (1986) stated that Buddhism was one of the main factors that
affected Kaizen principles in Japan. In this light, Zen Buddhism can be seen to be more like a
practical religion or movement instead of a theoretical and abstract philosophy. According
to Herrigel (1989), the only way to understand Zen is to practice and directly observe the
phenomenon rather than following a path of explanation and reasoning.
In this very pragmatic introductive cultural scenario we can find a first parallel with a
first important Lean-TPS principle, the Genchi Genbutsu (go to source). Genba, Genbutsu and
Genjitsu mean actual place, actual thing and actual situation, and they represent the
so-called 3G approach (Hartley, 1992). The Genchi Genbutsu approach has allowed people
within Japanese factories to gain a much deeper understanding of everyday events and the
root causes of problems. Genba is not only the shop floor, it is the place where things happen
and people must go to the shop floor in order to observe and understand. Genbutsu refers to
the facts and to the direct verification at the source, of numbers and things on the shop floor.
Taiichi Ohno, the father of TPS, used to teach to Toyota’s employees that “you have to see
through numbers and only the shop floor can validate them” (Wakamatsu, 2007, p. 128).
When data and information are gathered from managers, analyzed and then reformulated
for the shop floor, managers can intentionally or unintentionally twist data and situations.
According to Wakamatsu (2009, p. 129):
[…] if management staff did not fully comprehend the shop-floor or lack the interest in analyzing
the real problems, it would be inevitable that a certain degree of their lies and biases would be
fabricated into their reports.
 In a similar way, one of the greatest fathers of the TQM-TQC movement, Deming, used to TPS and
say that: “every theory is correct in its own world, but the problem is that the theory may Kaizen
not make contact with this world” (Deming, 1993). In Soto Zen, similar concepts can be philosophy
found in the so-called Hishiryo consciousness or non-thinking (Deguchi et al., 2013). This is
the state of mind in which managers should go to Genba and start thinking; they should
renounce whatever kind of scheme or logic category they have in mind. According to the
Soto Zen master Dogen (2010): 431
Do not think “good” or “bad.” Do not judge true or false. Give up the operation of mind, intellect, and
consciousness; stop measuring with thoughts, ideas, and views. Have no designs on becoming a
Buddha. How could it be limited to sitting or lying down.

Similarly, from Dogen’s writings emerges the principle of Genjo Koan or the complete
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manifestation of the established truth (Fujita, 2017). According to Dogen, the place where
this happens is no other than everyday monastic activities.
According to Table I, another fundamental and well-known principle of TPS is
JIT. JIT can be explained simply as producing only the necessary products, at the
necessary time, in the necessary quantity (Shah and Ward, 2007). When a production
system is based on data from the past and an uncertain future, the factory could
produce large amounts of waste such as big lots size and a huge quantity of inventory.
This was experienced by Toyota in the 1950s; it nearly went bankrupt because of a
terrible mistake and an excess of inventory. This is reason why, according to
Ohno (Wakamatsu, 2009), overproduction is a crime and do not plan with numbers from
the past otherwise the same wastes will be inherited. In this way, JIT can be thought
of not just as a way for organizing the production system but first of all as a way of
thinking about time and how to act in the very moment when you receive a customer
order. This continuous focus on the present moment instead of the past and the future is
also inherited from Soto Zen Buddhism. According to Deshimaru (1982), the Japanese
Soto Zen Buddhist master who spread Zen Buddhism over Europe, the present is the time
where things happen and can be understood as well as can be changed while understood.
And similarly, from the words of the Indian Zen guru Osho (2001, p. 168) who taught
Zen also in Japan:
Zen lives in the present. The Whole teaching is: how to be in the present; how to get out of the past
which is no more and how not to get involved in the future which is not yet, and just to be rooted,
centered, in that which is.

With this reasoning, inventories belong to the past because they are linked to previous
decisions and at the same time they represent the future because they will affect
management of the production system and the approach to market. On the other hand, JIT
and pull system require alignment with the present, responding in real time to customers
and managing the takt-time or rhythm of the orders. JIT renounces inventories as rooted
in the past.
Connected with the JIT principle, according to Table I, in TPS there is the waste
recognition and elimination principle. Three kinds of waste can misalign a company from
JIT: muda (wastes), mura (unevenness) and muri (overburden). The Japanese way of
considering waste is not merely from an economic point of view; in TPS, first of all, people
have to be aware of the waste and give value to it. This is the reason why Taiichi Ohno,
seeing some small and apparently worthless washer on the shop floor used to say to his
workers (Wakamatsu, 2009, p. 8):
[…] what would you do if it was money? I am sure you would pick them up before anyone else.
Imagine how much money you could gather up at the end.
 TQM The English philosopher Alan Wilson Watts, who deeply analyzed and studied Zen
30,4 Buddhism, in his book The Spirit of Zen (Watts, 1936) reported a conversation between a
master and a monk which leads to the same principle of being aware of waste:
Do not spread any grain of rice, as they come from our good benefactors. No master I will not do it.
However, the master saw a grain on the floor and picked it up saying: do not underestimate this
only small grain because from it thousands can grow.
432
From both cases it can be learned that what is worth attention is not the value of the single
item, but rather discovering the principle of value in general. In this light, we can explain the
attention paid to each Zen art, such as martial arts, Ikebana Tea Ceremony and Japanese
calligraphy, as well as the attention paid to zero wastes and zero defects principles in
Lean-TPS. The principle of zero defects is also related with the TQM movement and
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TQC-TQM (Majstorovic and Sibalija, 2015).

Connected with being aware of waste and its consequences, in both Zen Buddhism and in
Lean-TPS, is the principle of respect given to people and their contributions and their
self-responsibility. In Buddhism, the future is open-ended and only we can affect and be
responsible for it. Buddhism intensifies the sense of respect for people, the self-responsibility
of a person for his or her own conduct (Teo, 1973) as well as discipline and perseverance in
their daily life. Similarly, in TPS, the necessity of self-responsibility is brought about by
Jidoka or autonomation.
An operator is responsible for a process and if a problem arises he or she is self-
responsible for stopping the process without asking a long chain of command for approval
(Liker, 2004). However, the stoppage of the process does not solve the problem; therefore,
workers have to work together to try to find the root cause and remove it. As show in
Table I, these principles belong to what has been named Toyota Way 2001, in particular, the
respect for people principle. Taiichi Ohno believed in people’s talent and respected their
contributions and he used to say to his managers (Wakamatsu, 2009, p. 109):
[…] humans are extraordinary beings. There is no limit to humans’ intelligence. Our responsibility is to
inspire people to use their intelligence to generate new ideas. That is why I always put them on the spot.

In the same way, Imai (1986, p. 40) affirmed that Kaizen is a means of continuing
improvement in personal and social life. Imai believed in people’s inherent desire for quality
and Kaizen and for Suárez-Barraza et al. (2013) this personal attitude should be referred to as
a personal Kaizen approach. According to Imai (1986), in any case management has to
understand that this attitude is going to be repaid in the long run. Furthermore, Imai
considered that the respect for people principle is based on teamwork; similarly, Ohno (1988)
affirmed, we do not have to create isolated islands, while Berger (1997) and Suárez-Barraza
et al. (2011), considered teamwork as fundamental for creating a whatever Kaizen
environment. Zen Buddhism has a specific practice called zazenkai or meditation in group
where disciples are encouraged to come together in quick meetings, sometimes without the
master, to improve their art of meditation (Fujita, 2017).
In view of this we can find another parallelism between managers and Zen masters.
According to Ohno (1988), the good manager is able to bring to light this intelligence from people
and foster it. If people in a factory do not produce any interesting ideas, it probably is not the
people’s fault but the manager’s. Similarly, according to Watts (1936), the good Zen master has to
lead the disciple to be aware of his or her “Buddha’s nature,” because the only difference between
a Buddha and an ordinary person is that the latter does not know of being a Buddha yet.
Lastly, we can find several similarities between Kaizen and the real essence of Zen
Buddhism. Kaizen, which has been often associated with the TQM continuous improvement
principle (Chiarini, 2011), can be considered one of the cornerstones of both Lean-TPS and
TQM and even other derived management systems like ISO 9001 certification
 (Chiarini, 2017). In western organizations, Kaizen has been frequently considered a goal to TPS and
achieve, in particular, in terms of continuous improvement of company performances, Kaizen
including economic and financial ones. Typically, all of a company’s efforts are applied to philosophy
improving the bottom-line at the end of a certain period and managers focus only on figures
and indicators. However, Table I indicates that the Toyota principle of continuous
improvement contains the challenge of the long term and Kaizen itself. The latter, according
to Imai (1986), is not some measurable goal to achieve, but it is a way that is intimate with 433
every day’s work. Therefore, Kaizen can be considered to be a day-by-day effort with an end
in itself and is not focused on reaching a precise goal. In Zen Buddhism we can find similar
teachings in particular in the so-called Mushotoku, which is the attitude of non-profit, of not
wanting to gain anything for ourselves (Deshimaru, 1991). This is also connected with
kyudo, the ancient art of archery, where the master teaches disciples to ignore the target and
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master the process (Herrigel, 1989). In fact, the main principle of the art is to do the process
correctly and ignore the target. In other words, the focus is entirely on the holding and
drawing of the bow, step by step, continuously improving all of them, because it is only the
correctness of the process and not the aim that allows the arrow to hit the target. This
important principle can be found also in the Japanese martial arts or Do, that literally can be
translated as the way. The way is a philosophy or system of thought applied to martial arts
such as Aikido, Judo, Karatedo or Karate, and this system of thought is often misinterpreted
in western society as a technique more than a philosophy; something only useful for
reaching a target. In this light, Gapp et al. (2008) compared the implementation of the TPS 5S
tool, both in Japan and in the USA, concluding that probably in western companies only a
balanced understanding of 5S as a philosophy or way and a technique could help in its
implementation. More generally, this can be easily compared with the approach of
identification and removal of all the wastes within a process.
Similarly, Imai (1986, p. 165), in his book dedicated to Kaizen, concluded that “If you take
care of the quality, the profits will look after themselves,” while Deming (1993, p. 63), back
from Japan, used to teach to American managers that: “we should work on our process, not
the outcome of our processes.” Deming also warned American managers not to be too
focused on profits in the short term but rather on the long-term challenge of introducing
continuous improvement. However, it has to be said that nowadays, in certain sectors were
product and process innovation are at their maximum speed, it is difficult to reason in terms
of fixed targets and long-term challenges. In these particular sectors the rapid innovation is
pushing companies into considering the moving target as the real quality to be achieved.
Table II recaps the main Lean-TPS principles analyzed in the previous section compared
with the main Zen principles and concepts that emerged from the literature review described
in this section.

Lean-TPS principle Zen philosophy principles

Autonomation/Jidoka Innate sense of self-responsibility in the person and his or her conduct
Just-in-time The present is the time when things happen. Zen lives in the present
Waste recognition and Focus on the perfection of the process rather than the outcome. The Do or way
elimination
Challenge Mushotoku: attitude of not wanting to gain anything for ourselves
Kaizen Zen and zazen: meditation and change for good or for the better
Genchi Genbutsu Hishiryo consciousness: renouncing whatever kind of scheme and logic category Table II.
we have in mind and go to the source Main similarities and
Genjo Koan. The complete manifestation of the established truth relationships between
Respect for people Innate sense of respect for people Lean-TPS and Zen
Teamwork Zazenkai: meditation in group philosophy
 TQM Conclusions, lessons learnt and avenues for further research
30,4 In the first section, we reported that in western society there are many cases of Lean-TPS
implementation failure that have been debated in the literature. Sometimes, the replication of
Lean-TPS tools and principles do not work in the west as they do in Toyota or other Japanese
companies. Why? What went wrong with the implementations in these western industries?
Did they fail to apply the tools and techniques in the right way? Did they omit something or
434 was their effort weak? And why are there also demonstrated cases of real success?
The results of this comparison between TPS and the Toyota Way 2001 and
Zen philosophy, in particular derived from the Japanese Zen Buddhism, could even lead
someone to believe that it is a matter of a different society, culture and religion. However, we
do not have to become more Japanese or more Buddhist to succeed in Lean-TPS
implementation. We have our own culture, society and religions and we cannot get rid of our
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heritage. To implement Lean-TPS we do not have to either copy a system of tools and
techniques or a different culture as a whole. We just have to change our point of view or,
better, what is called a frame of mind in managing company processes. We could call it
Lean-TPS philosophy and try to adapt our daily work to it. Therefore, causes might be
something entirely different from culture, more related to a certain management style. To
give a simple example from a completely different subject, let us suppose for a moment we
read an article about the high life expectancy in Japan and their typical food. We could
conclude from the article that we have to dramatically change our diet and mainly eat sushi
and sashimi. However, we might not like such dishes and completely reject such a diet. But
letting alone the Japanese cultural aspects, we could focus on the frame of mind behind this;
fish and rice are good for your health because they are not fatty. In this way, we could create
our own fish and rice dishes without forcing ourselves to eat raw fish. Taking a broader
view, we can see that changing our management style is much easier and possible than
changing our culture. Other authors (Imai, 1986; Kobayashi et al., 2008) came to similar
conclusions analyzing the Lean-TPS and TQM as a whole and from the point of view of the
single tools and techniques.
Moving on from this metaphor, practitioners can learn several lessons from the results of
this literature review. First, management has to take on the challenge of long-term
performance, in particular in terms of waste reduction, zero defects and customer
satisfaction. During the 1980s and before the so-called Lehman Brothers’ crisis many
western managers were focused on quarter results, but we all know how it ended up.
Managers and workers together have to follow the practical principle of going more often to
the shop floor to try to find out the source of problems rather than looking at periodical
reports. To succeed in this, the company as a whole needs an orientation to the present in
terms of alignment with the takt-time and customer requirements, avoiding future forecasts
based on past situations, especially when we come to inventory. The foundations of this new
approach are respect for people and teamworking activities. The single worker and the team
have to be encouraged to solve problems with no fear of potentially stopping the line or the
machine. Borrowing some principles from Zen philosophy and the art of archery, managers
and workers have to continually take care and improve all the processes rather than pursue
mere targets; because, according to the Kaizen thinker Imai, if we take care of the process
the profits will look after themselves.
The results of this research also open some important avenues for further research. In
particular, scholars should try to find a way to implement such principles. Can we depict a
complete and more structured theoretical model? What kind of management style does a
Lean-TPS company need? Can we exactly identify all the management characteristics? And
what about strategic management and deployment for Lean-TPS? We learnt that it has to be
less focused on long-term objectives and more on the processes. How could we better
combine strategies and a correct deployment? Moreover, how can we raise the awareness of
 the staff of principles like teamworking and personal contribution. Lastly, it could be TPS and
interesting to investigate whether, in some way, there is a sort of Western approach for Kaizen
implementing Lean-TPS based on the same tools and techniques but with different philosophy
principles more pertinent to our culture.

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Corresponding author
Andrea Chiarini can be contacted at: andrea.chiarini@chiarini.it

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