This book is a companion to The Idea Generator - Quick and Easy Kaizen and teaches the importance of submitting and implementing improvement ideas at work. When you are empowered to make your own work easier, more interesting and to please your customers through your own ideas the workplace magically changes for you. Quick and Easy Kaizen recognizes that you are the expert in your work area and that your ideas are a valuable input towards your personal growth and success and the success of the company you work for.
This workbook teaches the principles of Quick and Easy Kaizen, has many examples and also is a place for you to record your ideas and to keep progress of your achievements on the job. In the future when your boss asks you, "What have you done for us lately?" All you have to do is show him/her your workbook.
This book, in all its simplicity, has the power to generate overwhelming positive change wherever its concepts are implemented. -- Don Dewar, Timely Tips for Teams newsletter
About the Author
Norman Bodek was publisher of Productivity Press and is now the president of PCS Press. Industry Week called him Mr. Productivity and through his 56 trips to Japan he brought to America the bulk of Japanese management practices. In addition to writing and publishing, Norman Bodek also runs a workshop showing others how to implement a Quick and Easy Kaizen system.
Bunji Tozawa is the president of the HR Association in Japan and the author of 23 books on Kaizen. He also runs Quick and Easy Kaizen workshops throughout Japan and the Orient.
In 1979, after working for 18 years with Data Processing companies, Norm Bodek started Productivity Inc. - Press by publishing a newsletter called PRODUCTIVITY. At the time, he said he knew virtually nothing about the subject and had spent very little time in manufacturing facilities. But, he quickly became fascinated with the subject and went to Japan to discover the processes that was making Japan the world leaders in quality improvement and productivity growth.
Even though on his first visit to Japan he didn't know a single person or speak Japanese, he has since, in the last 28 years, gone to Japan 72 times, visited more than 250 plants and published more than 100 Japanese management books in English. As a fortune cookie once told him, "You have the talent to discover the talent in others." Mr. Bodek said his claim to fame is that he found amazing tools, techniques and new thoughts that have revolutionized the world of manufacturing. He has met Dr. W. Edwards Deming, Dr. Joseph Juran, Phil Crosby, Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa, Dr. Joji Akao, Mr. Taiichi Ohno, Dr. Shigeo Shingo and many other great manufacturing masters and published many of their books in English.
Each person he met gave him a new perspective on continuous improvement. Mr. Bodek has lead over 25 study missions to Japan and was one of the first to find and publish books, training materials and run conferences and seminars on TPS, SMED, CEDAC, quality control circles, 5 S, visual factory, TPM, VSM, Kaizen Blitz, cell design, poka-yoke, lean accounting, Andon, Hoshin Kanri, Kanban, and Quick and Easy Kaizen.
Mr. Bodek, who was once called "Mr. Productivity" by Industry Week Magazine and "Mr. Lean" by Quality Progress Magazine, said his most powerful discovery was the way Toyota and other Japanese companies opened the infinite creative potential often lying dormant inside every single worker.
Most recently, he has been working with Gulfstream Corporation, a private jet company, where 1000 people went from 16-implemented ideas in February 2005 to close to 33,000 in 2008 and resulting each year in annually savings of over $2 million. Why every company in America is not doing this is a mystery. When you unlock this hidden talent people become highly motivated and actually love to come to work," he said.
Mr. Bodek founded the Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence at Utah State University with Dr. Vern Buehler and is one of the few to be personally awarded the Shingo Prize.
In the last 10 years, he has written hundred's of articles published in various magazines and journals and on management web sites. Norman has written four books: "The Idea Generator - Quick and Easy Kaizen," co-authored with Bunji Tozawa, president of the HR Association in Japan, "Kaikaku the Power and Magic of Lean," Rebirth of American Industry, co-authored with William Waddell, and "All You Gotta Do Is Ask, co-authored with Chuck Yorke.
