JASTECA Institute of Management seminar on Japanese Spirit of Excellence (Monodzukuri and Gemba)

“A unique style of corporate management makes a difference to competitors, enhances international competitiveness, and leads to trust by international society. It is also important, to look back on the strength that Japan extracted as best practices and to aim for corporate management that demonstrates distinctiveness and strength and is able to win the confidence of society” – Masamitsu Sakurai, Chairman, Keizai Doyukai 2009 (Japan Association of Corporate Executives).

JASTECA Institute of Management in collaboration with HIDA, the Overseas Human Resources and Industry Development Association of Japan announced a two day specialised program titled ‘Japanese Spirit of Excellence at the place of action (Monodzukuri and Gemba)’ – a Japanese concept of excellence for manufacturing, sales/marketing, services, banking and finance, trading, logistics or business operations.

Monodzukuri means having a state of mind with regard to Spirit of Excellence in order to produce excellent products or to offer an excellent service. The word “Gemba” is a Japanese term for “place of action”. In business, “Gemba” refers to the place where value is created, e.g. in manufacturing the “Gemba” is the factory and in service a place of service delivery.

‘Profits are made possible by the power of Gemba’, due to the degree of excellence to achieve at the place of action (power of Gemba) is one of the concepts that lie at the basis of Japanese Monodzukuri. The power of Gemba is derived from the human interaction based on Omotenashi (thoughtful consideration) logic and skills which Japanese people share with the spirit of hospitality. This is a notion that emerges from the concept of Japanese Monodzukuri.

In the manufacturing and service industries, productivity and quality of products and services depend on how one utilises the abilities of personnel on the front-line. Keeping good relationships and increasing the motivation of front-line employees lead to raise the productivity and quality levels, and eventually generate larger corporate profits. This is a concept that emerges from the concept of Japanese Monodzukuri.

It is considered that Japanese-style skills of Omotenashi (thoughtful consideration), emphasizing on adequately identifying hidden problems and desires of clients and doing ‘what they are pleased’, is very effective not only in the service industry but also in the manufacturing sector. (Gemba/Monodzukuri). 

Key benefits from this seminar – discovering the action plan to find the reason and structure where activities functions in the most ideal manner; implement action that will improve your quality of work at the place of action; typical Japanese way of identifying the skills of the staff members to motivate them accordingly. 

Content of the seminar includes, the structure of Japanese Gemba/Monodzukuri; The logic that had worked well in Japan; Sharpening Management skills to improve Gemba/Monodzukuri effectively. Directors, VPs, GMs, senior managers, managers and supervisory heads are expected to participate and benefit from this program.

Athulla R.F. Edirisinghe, Chairman of JASTECA Institute of Management, commenting on the programme said: “The principle of Monodzukuri and Gemba concept is become extremely popular among Japanese Enterprises and they have starting reaping real benefits in terms of customer satisfaction, customer retention and a basis to attract new customers to enterprises. With the increase in reliance on e-commerce and ordering products and services on line, when a Japanese customer knows that an enterprise is committed to Monodzukuri and Gemba it gives a clear indication to the customer that he or she will be dealing with an organisation where there is a mindset among employees that they need to treat the customer with special care with no mistakes whatsoever providing a perfect product or a service.”

He went on to say that “some reputed front line companies even mention in their product catalogues statements such as ‘Keep it up....Japanese Monodzukuri’”.

“The key to Japanese ‘Good Monodzukuri; is greatly attributed to Japanese hospitality spirit which is related to Japanese characteristic property. This Japanese hospitality spirit of excellence can be well adapted to Sri Lankan manufacturing industry. I would like to present the mindset and logic to deliver ‘Good Monodzukuri’ for the people in Sri Lankan manufacturing industry to achieve ‘Good Sri Lankan Monodzukuri’,” commented Course Director Yushi Ishimaru. 

Ishimaru is the President of Predica Management Co., Ltd. Japan. He is the Executive for projects promoting hospitality management development initiatives and the leading authority of introducing hospitality into business. He is a planner, developer and organiser of the strategies and tactics for such initiatives and working as a project manager on site to establish hospitality in companies. His two trademark registrations are ‘Hospitality logic’ and ‘Hospitality sales’. 

Program partner Masako Kato is the Assistant iector / Registration Engineer of Hospitality Business at Predica Management Co., Ltd. Kato is a certified instructor of Hospitality logic. She has developed the Hospitality projects for Fujitsu, Rakuten and many major companies in Japan.

This two day seminar is scheduled to be held on 23 and 24 March (8.30am – 5pm) at the Renuka City Hotel, Colombo 3.

Investment for this program is Rs. 30,000 per participant. Registration is strictly limited and on a first come first served basis. Further details or registration form could be obtained through [email protected].