Assessment of the Kaizen principle of building construction: the case of Jimma Town

Abstract

Kaizen originated in Japan to be applied in the improvement of productivity, cost, delivery, morale, safety and health, quality, efficiency, and overriding good management and problem solving tools. It is one of the principles that support the Toyota Production System (TPS) as a philosophy. But in recent time it expands to the other manufacturing areas such as: construction industries, manufacturers, hospitals, banks, software developers and other business sectors. Kaizen in construction is an approach to construction management that aims to eliminate operational inefficiencies through a focus on optimizing production at the construction work face. Common goals of kaizen in the building construction practices on projects are to improve productivity, time on task, flow of work, and the value added to the final product with each work task. But the contribution of kaizen principles in building construction techniques in sustainable construction cannot be over emphasized, in the building construction industry in Ethiopia particularly Jimma town. The purpose of this thesis focused on assessment of the critical success factors for the adoption and issuing implementation of the kaizen principles in the building construction industries from design to final completions of projects to avoid or minimize the wastage(muda): the case of Jimma town. The study design is descriptive research. Both qualitative and quantitative data were used. To achieve objectives of the research design primary and secondary data are used. The selected sample was probability sampling method. In order to achieve the objectives of the research the design study methodology was utilized. The questionnaire was applied to 46 ongoing sample building construction, and 15 formal interviews for the populations of project sites. The data collected were analyzed using Microsoft office Excel 2016 and descriptive statistics such as frequency, mean, standard deviation and percentage. Based on literature review and collected data’s analyzed, this study proposed and developed a conceptual framework for improving kaizen implementation practice and enhancing sustainability of the implementation. Even if the kaizen benefits was producing high quality of products and service in the project site, the kaizen implementation program has been not yet in pervious time. The reasons for not used in the previous time of kaizen management are, lack of problem solving culture in the project, lack of follow up and support by top managements, failure to provide good mobility to the well-being of others, lack of training for rehabilitation and new staff, the existence of key success factors that are considered as essential for the successful adaptation did not meet the requirement. So it’s important to adopt the kaizen principles in building construction to minimize/ totally avoid the problems occurred in the case of building construction industry.