Kaizen was one of my areas of research for grad studies in Management Accounting. All of the case studies I looked at (which were usually implemented by Asian

Kaizen was one of my areas of research for grad studies in Management Accounting. All of the case studies I looked at (which were usually implemented by Asian companies after the US dismissed the guy who came up with the concept of Kaizen, which led to its perceived roots as a Japanese business philosophy) focused on one thing only, and that was precisely elimination of the amount of disposables produced in any production environment: specifically manufacturing environments. Essentially, Kaizen is summed up to be "continuous improvement" . . . regarding units of quality produced but there's another metric to be considered, and that is the amount of "scrap" or waste produced in creating X level of quality. Of course, along this route, the statistical metrics can be taken a bit too far. There is a fine line between rigidity in standards for perceived quality and room for innovation; sometimes the line is too fine.