Revitalizing
Ethiopia’s Manufacturing Enterprises through the
Japanese Production Management Strategy, Kaizen,
Tate Publishing 2015
Authored
by Asayehgn Desta, PhD
Reviewed by Ghelawdewos Araia, PhD
July
18, 2015
Asayehgn
Desta, our colleague in the academia and scholarly
research, has produced an excellent book on
contemporary Ethiopia’s political economy in
general and macroeconomic analysis in particular.
The book presents a comprehensive survey,
analysis, and critical remarks on Ethiopia’s
industrial enterprises in the context of Kaizen, a
Japanese management system that “a number of
Ethiopian enterprises” have adopted in order
“to redesign their manufacturing enterprises and
eventually improve their competitiveness in the
global market” as stated in the Introduction of
the book.
The
book is rich in conceptual frameworks, literature
review, database, and figures that conveniently
presents to the reader, and, in turn, enables the
latter to analyze and critique the plethora of
themes relevant to Kaizen that are embodied in the
text of the book. Above all, for clarity in
methodology, the author compares and contrasts
benchmarking, business process reengineering (BPR),
and Kaizen. Moreover, in order to be crystal clear
on some concepts, the author tells us that BPR is
also known by other names such as ‘core process
redesign’, ‘new industrial engineering’, and
‘working smarter’.
Pioneered
by American giants like Xerox, Ford, and Motorola,
“benchmarking is a continuous process of
managing the products, the services, and practices
against the best competitor or leader in the
industry and makes continuous efforts in reviewing
the process practice and methods.” (p. 24) “By
rejecting the existing business process,” says
Desta, “BPR aims to devise new ways or
organizing business tasks, employees, and
redesigning information technological systems so
that the business processes eliminate waste and
redundancy, thereby improving efficiency and
implementing process changes to acquire
competitiveness. To succeed at reengineering, BPR
argues that the managers have to be visionaries,
motivators, and ‘leg breakers’.” (pp. 28-29)
Once
the definition, purpose, and objective of BPR were
clearly stated, the author compares it to kaizen:
“Unlike BPR, kaizen recognizes small
improvements that have been made to the status quo
as a result of ongoing efforts. According to
Newitt (1996), kaizen liberates the thinking of
both management and employees at all levels and
provides a climate in which creativity, setting
standardization, and value addition can flourish.
In addition, in the kaizen approach, the employees
of a firm are taught essential elements of lean
thinking in order to maintain their ability to
meet higher standards on an ongoing basis.” (p.
33) For an in depth understanding of benchmarking,
BPR, and kaizen, the reader must consult Table 1
that begins on p. 35 and goes through page 38 in
the book.
Desta
and his colleagues, who also made contributions to
some chapters of the book, have conducted
fieldwork projects in the form of survey
questionnaires, interviews, and direct
observations in regards to kaizen implementation
by three factories in Northern Ethiopia, and
chapter 3 of the book thoroughly examines the
fieldwork reports.
Chapter
1 of the book discusses the history of kaizen in
Ethiopia and underscores that “kaizen involves
bottom-up decision making and practices an
employee driven management style that heavily
emphasizes teamwork.” (p. 49). In this chapter,
one important caveat that is stated is, “before
indulging into kaizen adventure, each firm in
Ethiopia needs to determine [whether there is] a
synergic relation between the Japanese kaizen
quality initiatives, and whether the transferred
kaizen quality management system been modified,
and also whether in the employees of firms are
disciplined and motivated workers to share kaizen
philosophy (see pages 65-66).
Chapter
2 is about the transferability of the Japanese
kaizen management technique to Ethiopian
manufacturing industries, and it evolves a
conceptual framework that undergirds “the degree
of compatibility between the Japanese company’s
kaizen culture and the host country’s national
culture.” (p. 79)
Chapter
3, as already indicated above, analyzes kaizen
implementation in Northern Ethiopia’s
manufacturing industries. In this chapter, Dr.
Desta is accompanied by other scholars like Hadush
Berhe Asgedom, Alula Gebresas [Gebresus], and
Mengistu Asheber, all lecturers at the Industrial
Engineering Program of Mekelle University. The
three pilot companies that have been studied were
the Mesfin Industrial Engineeering, Alemda Textile
Factory, and the Sheba Leather and Tanning
Industry, “which have implemented the kaizen
management system to revitalize their management
systems.” (p. 88) However, the authors question
“how efficient and effective the kaizen
strategic management are” in those three
companies.
Chapter
4 deals with the kaizen success and sustainability
at the Wonji Sugar Manufacturing Company in
Ethiopia. This chapter begins with the history of
the Wonji Sugar Factory and discusses in detail
the ‘quality and productivity of improvement’
of the company on Table 4 (pp. 132-134)
Chapter
5 explores the lessons of the kaizen approach.
This chapter shows how benchmarking and BPR are
“challenged by some companies looking for a
strategic remedy that will contribute to the
sustainable improvement of their performance and
quality, and add value to their customers while
minimizing cost and eliminating waste.” (p. 141)
Chapter
6 is about economic analysis of lean wastes of the
textile and garment industries of Ethiopia, and it
is authored by Tsegay Tesfay Mesgebe, Hadush Berhe
Asgedom of Mekelle University and Asayehgn Desta
of the Dominican University of California.
In this chapter, ‘lean’ is defined as
“eliminating waste” – Toyota Production
System philosophy.” Moreover, “lean production
is a Japanese manufacturing philosophy that
focuses on abolishing or reducing wastes and on
maximizing or fully utilizing activities that add
value from the customers’ perspective.” (p.
157)
Chapter
7 presents an empirical investigation on
innovative practices of electromechanical
manufacturing in relation to small and medium
enterprises (SMEs) in Mekelle City, Ethiopia. This
study, conducted by Mengistu Asheber and
Gebremeskel Kahsay of Mekelle University and
Asayehgn Desta of the Dominican University,
defines ‘innovation’ as “the mechanism by
which organizations develop value through new
products, processes, and organizational systems
that are needed to respond to changing markets,
technologies, and modes of competition.” (p.
203)
Innovation
and employee skills are inextricably linked
together and because of this relatively organic
concatenation, “firms require an adequate pool
of skilled manpower to develop innovations,
whether incremental or radical. This pool of
knowledge can be enhanced through investments in
staff training.” (pp. 205-210).
Chapter
8 discusses kaizen-based technical and vocational
education and training (TVET) for sustainable
development. The discussion is based on UNESCO’s
Second International Congress that was held in
Seoul, South Korea in 1999. Apparently, according
to UNESCO, TVET programs were “to play a pivotal
role in developing a new generation of individuals
who will face the challenges of achieving
sustainable socioeconomic development throughout
the globe.” (p. 233)
UNESCO’s
claim of “development throughout the globe”,
however, is parenthetical and it should have been
critically examined in light of globalization and
the impact of tans-national corporations (TNCs)
and subsequent unequal development at global
level.
Revitalizing
Ethiopia’s Manufacturing Enterprises is a
great book, not only for the casual reader,
college students, and people engaged in scholarly
research, but it could also serves as a handy and
well-written book for policymakers and
entrepreneurs as well.
All
Rights Reserved. Copyright © Institute of
Development and Education for Africa (IDEA), 2015.
For educational and constructive feedback, Dr.
Ghelawdewos Araia can be contacted via dr.garaia@africanidea.org
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