You Can be Great If You Really Want To

When it comes to streamlining and maximizing value of production in a company, no other system would beat kaizen. Kaizen is a quality strategy or scheme adopted and implemented by companies that are adopting measures for lean manufacturing, which is known as a process of minimizing production costs to boost overall valuation of a company. Kaizen was devised and introduced by Japanese car making giant Toyota Production System and was shared to all major firms in operations worldwide. Through the years both minor and major businesses have been adopting and implementing Kaizen in efforts to improve profitability and generate costs.

Kaizen is a Japanese word that literally means ‘continuous improvement’. Principally, the idea behind the concept is that small and relatively negligible improvements and changes in business operations would lead to major improvements to bolster productivity, efficiency and profitability in the long run. Because Kaizen is a systematic process, it is logical that its implementation is ruled and governed by several practical and logical metrics. Hence, every company aiming to adopt Kaizen needs to familiarize first with several important and basic Kaizen metrics.

Basic Kaizen metrics is often led by overall duration of production or operational cycles. By this, a company evaluating itself using Kaizen metrics as a guide determines the overall efficiency of operations. By looking at the duration employees complete a product or process, the management can easily tell whether there is efficiency in production. Manufacturers and firms know that productivity is boosted when disturbance and wasteful practices and objects are eliminated from the workplace. Time factors also deal with the duration of defect correction and processing.

Also included in the Kaizen metrics is the flow of tasks. In manufacturing operations and business organizations, it is important that all employees are working as a team. Competition with each other is important in boosting productivity, but overall synergies and cooperation to come up to good results and increased and efficient production is also as important. All employees from the least in the ranks, to the middlemen, to managers and executives must work hand in hand to bolster production and smoothen flow of job tasks.

In terms of troubleshooting and resolving problems and disruptions during operations, it is important that companies implement the system of ‘Five Whys’, which is again identified with Kaizen. Companies adopting Kaizen must answer the following questions when dealing with operational problems:

- Why the equipment did ceased working?

- Why was an overload a problem?

- Why was the machine not lubricated sufficiently?

- Why was the equipment not working efficiently? And

- Why did the machine part worn out?

Part of implementing and observing the metrics of Kaizen is the follow up sessions. Follow ups serve as assessment and evaluation of whether improvements in operations are sustained. Part of the follow up activities is the routine performance measures to determine if employees and executives have all contributed productively to operations.

Kaizen metrics are as simple as that. On top of it all, it is important that companies note that lean manufacturing productivity measures come in cycles. Production would be continuously efficient if all personnel involved are disciplined to follow recommended efficient and productive processes.

Self-esteem is the determining factor for your success in any endeavor in life. What you end up doing in life and how you perform all depend on your self-esteem. Self-esteem refers to what you think of yourself. If you have high self-esteem, that means you are sure of your abilities to complete any task successfully. A high self-esteem ensures your success to a great extent. On the other hand, there are some people who do not trust themselves. Such people are symptomatic of low self- esteem.

The signs of low self-esteem are difficult to notice in yourself. However, other people around you can quickly notice these signs. So, to be able to check yourself before you fall prey to self-esteem, let us give you some of the conditions that lead to low self-esteem.

You reach that stage where you think nothing of yourself. You stay quiet for the fear of being termed inadequate. You yourself feel that you are worth nothing and will not be able to complete any work given to you. Although there are times when you feel your life is capable of doing anything it attempts, yet you lose confidence in your abilities very quickly.

Low self-esteem deters you achieving anything in your life as it always holds you back. If you have low self-esteem, something you would otherwise do very easily would also become an arduous task. Thus, you will not be able to accomplish anything phenomenal. It is very important to root out this low self- esteem from your life so that you can really progress in life.

Low self-esteem is not something a person is born with. It is in fact the repercussion of the hardships one has faced in life. There are times when certain events take place in your life and they result in your losing confidence in yourself. Usually these events are such that they invoke some trauma and stay with you for life. So everytime you remember them, you lose your self-esteem a little and eventually end up with low self-esteem.

If at a time in your life you have been humiliated in front of many people or even an important decision gone wrong, which has caused you to forfeit something important or dear to you, you are likely to bear the effects of it all your life in the form of low self-esteem. When one is born, they neither have high self-esteem, nor a low one. It is the experiences one undergoes in life that determine this fact.

One big mistake people make is when they equate loss of self-esteem to something that is irreparable. However, it is not impossible to regain your self-esteem. You can transform the root cause of this low self-esteem into an impetus for your growth by changing that negative experience into a nice one.

You must change these bad memories into productive ones so that whenever you remember them or experience something similar, you are not left harassed by your negative feelings and the feeling of low self-confidence.

It is essential for your well-being, to protect your self-confidence. Even your children must be taught the ability to save their self-esteem. The confidence to face each and every day head-on must be inculcated in them. Otherwise, their low self-esteem will undermine them as a person and will forever hamper their growth.

You will never be able to display your fullest potential if you have low self-esteem. It is possible to overcome this feeling of low self-esteem and you should make an attempt towards it as quickly as possible. Otherwise, you will only be left wondering all your life, what all you could have done.