All Aboard the Kaizen Express!By Jon Miller |Comments: 2
Kaizen Express was written by Toshiko Narusawa and John Shook. When I picked it up in Japan I thought it was a great idea. The concept made perfect sense. A book in Japanese and English on TPS, co-authored by two experts and richly illustrated with the patented LEI action stick men. The book is a great way for Japanese businessmen to learn about the Toyota Production System and kaizen while taking bite-sized English lessons. In theory, a bilingual TPS bible should work as well in the English language book market as in Japan. In practice, it falls short. The book uses half of its space for Japanese content. I try to imagine opening this book without being able to read a word of Japanese. My first reaction would be one of puzzlement. Why is half of this book in Japanese? How does that add value to me? Why did I pay for something I can only half-read? Half of the paper and ink in this book will do me no good! Japanese is a visually beautiful language (in my opinion), but even as a reader of Japanese I am not sure why this book was published in exactly the same format for the English market as well as in Japan, other than the fact that the copy editing and page layout was already done. May I suggest Spanish-English and other practical versions of this book?
The book does an excellent job of packing clear explanations of more than 30 key terms and concepts from the lean lexicon into 150 pages filled with illustrations, examples and sidebars. You can dive in at any section of the book and learn one or two things about concepts such as standardized work, employee involvement or capital linearity, or perhaps a better way to explain and illustrate these and other ideas.
But the readers will need to get used to ignoring the Japanese words that appear consistently first. The English words meander down the center of the table of contents, rather than straight down the left column. This book is perfect for companies that have both Japanese-speaking and English-speaking staff. It is a great book for anyone wanting a deeper explanation than the Lean Lexicon offers of a few dozen terms and concepts. It is good additional research source material for any lean practitioner. Will this book add "express" to your "kaizen"? Do you have a Japanese sensei? Hola Javier! This book is quite popular in the Chinese-English version so it may be a question of the combination languages and how eager the learner is to pick up the 2nd language. I think it is works in Japan as they have the need to learn Japanese. Poster: Anonymous | Post Date: November 6, 2009 6:38 PM |
Interesting post Jon, specially the part about paying for something one can only half-read. What about the opposite? Paying for something that is quite redundant. For example I am fully fluent in English/Spanish and Portuguese, the thought of reading a book that keeps on reapeting itself in two languages is a bit bemusing, after all, unused information is also waste.