Continuous improvement through Kaizen in food manufacturing : A case study

Malaysia is growing rapidly towards industrialization, food and beverage industry alone makes up to 10% of the total manufacturing production in the country. The case under study is a company involved in food manufacturing industry. The company is a manufacturer of coconut related products, who supplies domestically in Malaysia (10%) and externally (90%). The company applies the Kaizen culture as a corporate culture in all company activities. The purpose of this study is to describe the process of implementing Kaizen culture at the company. This study also illustrates the application of Kaizen by the company which is related to the implementation of main Kaizen concepts. Good manufacturing practices are also a part of system to be followed by food manufacturer to ensure the products are consistently produced and controlled according to the quality standards. Personal hygiene is important to prevent food poisoning, with some rule of thumb to be followed. Clothing is one of the important aspects for the good personal hygiene practices. The best way to eliminate clothes as a potential source of contamination is for each employee to wear protective clothing provided by the company, such as a uniform, overall, apron and hairnet that completely covers exposed parts of the body. Hairnet prevents hair from contaminating food. The findings of the study are the application of Kaizen has influenced the employees’ mindset on continuous improvement. The adoption of the Kaizen culture increases the production rate and company’s potential benefits. The introduction of Kaizen practices promotes the expectations of workers to enhance their efficiency and contribute to the company’s improvement. Employee efforts lead to performance growth, quality improvement, cost savings, and delivery time reducing.