Zara’s Design process is more focused on the public who uses Zara’s product.

This
information is generally collected by store manager or the store staff which is stored at the
collection counter of each store and in the evening the collection details & the information
stored is transmitted to the distribution centre (Gallaugher, J., 2008). This information
transmitted to the Zara’s designing professional daily. Using this information the designer
figures out what are customers needs and what are their main concerns which helps them
to design the product carefully and reduce the customers concern. From design to the
shelves it takes 6 weeks for Zara to introduce new design in market it is more effective than
the normal 6 months cycle for any other organization (see appendix 2). According to
Ghemawat, P. (2001), the short time cycle reduces working capital intensity and facilitates
continuous manufacturing of new merchandise. In 2008, it was observed that “From design
to the shelves it takes 15 days to Zara to bring the product in the market” (Gattorna, J.,
2007). Also Zara purchase about one-half fabric in ‘Grey’ colour which gives them the
maximum flexibility. The internal manufacturing plants of Zara are located in or around
Zara’s headquarters. This makes designing and approval of the product very fast ultimately
resulting in the faster production. These products then goes to the central distribution
centre of Zara which further distributes the product to the stores twice in a week. This helps
Zara to inventory and concentrate on customers’ requirement.

KANBAN
Zara as organization has almost all the elements of Kaizen. As we have seen, Zara has
efficient Just in time running also they are more customer focused as there most of the
designs are made according to the customers demand. With the efficient JIT system Zara has
reduced the wastage in the company. 

AMAZON
Each kaizen is a very simple thing, but the accumulation of kaizens makes an enormous
difference. On one of Bezos’s days on the front line with me, he was staffed in Receiving,
which is where all of the defects that come from the ordering process and the delivering
process arrive, and you have to deal with all sorts of problems. At the time, Amazon had just
started its Fulfillment by Amazon business.4 Some of the merchants were not very
disciplined, so they were sending products that were not labeled or packed properly.

Bezos opened a box of shampoo and all of the bottles were broken. They spilled all over him
and he nearly cut himself. No customer is going to buy shampoo if the bottle is broken, and
we can’t risk the health of the worker opening the package. So we agreed that we had to
implement a “three strikes” packing process for merchants using our fulfillment services:
the first time there is a problem we explain the packing rules, the second time we give the
merchants a warning, and the third time we end their relationship as merchants with
Amazon. That was one of the most memorable kaizens for me.