TASK-1

1. What is Kaizen? Why Leyland has implemented a practice of Continuous Improvement?

Kaizen is a Japanese word which refers to continuous improvement. Kaizen involves all the
employees in the organization from CEO to labour worker. Kaizen is nothing but refers to
little continuous small step improvement of the whole organization.

Leyland has implemented the practice of continuous improvement because of the following
major reasons:
 To increase the production capacity from 18,000 to 25,000 units
 To meet the planned production and sales growth
 To make the customer happy by fulfilling the demand for reliable trucks
 To be on top of the competitive market
 To cut the increase in labour cost by increasing the production efficiency

2. How is Kaizen, as a business strategy, expected to help Leyland Trucks to increase its market
share?

Leyland trucks is expecting to increase its market share to 20% by following the major two
strategy, which includes:
 Continuous Improvement
 Increase production capacity by 40% from 18,000 to 25,000 units

As part of continuous improvement kaizen is introducing a robotic paint spray booth for the
truck chassis. Introduction of this state-of-the-art technology was a strategy to directly
increase the production by cutting the time frame. As part of the kaizen, successful
introduction of the production line and getting little improvement ideas from everyone was
considered to implement the giant leap of introduction of robotic chassis plant.

3. How does Leyland Trucks measure its continuous improvement? Can you suggest KPI’s for
another type of business organisation e.g. a retailer or leisure centre? Comment on how the
four outcomes of HR support the strategic intent

Leyland trucks measure its continuous improvement through its KPIs. Some of the main
measures used are as below:
 On-time performance(be able to meet deadlines)
 Less no of accidents at work
 No of defects
 Production efficiency
 Quality and quantity of production
  No of labour hours
 Six sigma for continuous improvement

Some other KPIs used in retailer are as below:

 Sales per employee

 Customer satisfaction
 Inventory turnover
 Total sales and gross margin
 Return on Investment
 Break-even point

4. Why is continuous improvement most likely to be achieved in a company with a culture of

trust?

Trust is a very powerful skill that a leader must possess. Culture of trust can be defined as a
faith that all employees have in their organization and it is easy to drive change that impacts
organization performance. The company whose culture is based on trust is more likely to
achieve its goals and objectives. The set of values that the company relies on determines its
culture and the values determines the way people behave in an organization. The company
with culture of trust has values that support continuous improvement and consists of the
following:

 Team work and building team for small changes

 Making every employee involved while making small to large scale decisions
 Providing continuous training for everyone
 Making everyone feel they are valued and important to the organization success
 Encouraging all employees to be more innovative and try out different new possible
approach

Company with culture of trust involve employees to take action and solve the problems.
It is the responsibility of a leader to ensure that culture of trust exists by rewarding
opinions ad innovative ideas. The performance and outcome of the process is hugely
impacted by the trust among the team members. Implementation of any CI approach
will be only effective if the employees have trust with the management and are given
importance.