Kaizen is the Japanese business term commonly translated as continuous improvement. In management, it describes the practice of making ongoing improvements—often small, practical changes—with participation from people throughout an organization.
The word itself more literally means “improvement” or “change for the better”; it does not inherently mean “continuous” in ordinary Japanese usage. The continuous-improvement meaning became especially prominent in English-language business writing through Japanese manufacturing practices, particularly those associated with Toyota.
Kaizen grew from postwar quality and production work in Japan. American experts including W. Edwards Deming helped promote statistical quality control there, while Japanese companies developed systems emphasizing process discipline, employee involvement, and waste reduction. Toyota later integrated kaizen into the Toyota Production System.
A common mix-up is treating kaizen as synonymous with Six Sigma or kanban. They can work together, but they are different: kaizen is an improvement philosophy or practice, Six Sigma emphasizes variation and defect reduction, and kanban is a visual workflow and inventory-control method. Masaaki Imai helped popularize the term globally with his 1986 book Kaizen: The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success.