Browsing by Author "Assefa, Getu"

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    Assessment on the Implementation of Kaizen and its Challenges: The Case of African Union Commission
    (Addis Ababa University, 2016-01) Assefa, Getu; Seid, Mohammed (PhD)
    KAIZEN, a Japanese business management concept that calls ―for continuous improvement‖ that promotes quality and productivity improvement as well as human resource development. It was implemented to improve organization efficiency by standardizing working procedure and eliminating wistful activities through the collective effort of its managers and staff of the organization. Kaizen was selected and implemented in African Union Commission as working systems in order to improve service delivery and standardizing the working procedure by eliminating was full activities and reducing the long work flow. The purpose this study was to examine current status, effectiveness and challenges of kaizen in African Union Commission. In addition the objectives were to assess the major changes brought by kaizen implementation, to study the gaps between the designed and applied kaizen, to analyze customer satisfaction, to point out the major challenges encountered during kaizen implementation and to suggest practical recommendations which can help effective implementation of kaizen. To achieve the above mention objectives descriptive research design was selected and used to gather primary and secondary data. The population for this study was 500 staff members and 30 customers of the office. All staff member purposely used as samples and 30 customers was selected by using simple random sampling. Primary data were collected from sample unit by using survey questionnaire, in-depth interviews and non participatory observation techniques and secondary data were collected from different documents. Kaizen has brought some changes in minimizing work flows, in reducing time conception and in increasing efficiency of the organization. The changes are not continuous changes. This study also revealed gaps in time conception, gaps in human and material resources and customer satisfaction between the design and implemented kaizen as a result of lack of technical incompetency of the stuff, lack of ownership and attitude problem assuming that kaizen is not possible to implement in the services or public organization. So if kaizen intended to bring about radical changes continuous training and follow up should be given more attention for the success of its implementation in public institution.