Kaizen is a Japanese word meaning “improvement.” While this is the literal translation however, it actually contains a lot more meaning than that when used in a number of contexts. Kaizen as a concept was popularized by the manufacturing indus- try. Here, the focus was on looking at how very small changes in the assembly line could result in massive improvements in effi- ciency and output. Imagine for example that you found a way to speed up a machine that placed screws by 2%. It might not sound like much, but when you are inserting hundreds of thousands of screws daily, it adds up to a huge difference!