TECHNIQUES TO CONTINUALLY IMPROVE BUSINESS QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE (II)

Continuous improvement processes, based on Japanese management principles, organizational culture, or even their lifestyle, can be a way of organizing and managing business on principles of efficiency and efficacity. In the first part of the paper I presented the theoretical foundations regarding the processes of improvement in quality management and business management regarding: the concepts, objectives, characteristics and base principles of continuous business improvement processes - based on the Japanese Kaizen philosophy. In this part I present a synthesis of the continuous improvement trends applied in various business environments. In these business environments, specific methods and techniques that belong to the Kaizen strategy have been successfully applied, such as Lean, Six Sigma, Balanced Scorecard, Poka-Yoke, JIT, 5S and Kanban.