Innovation at a multinational in the food industry

The foregoing studies provide a sample of the literature that tries to explain Gemba-Kaizen from the process innovation angle. Some of these studies, however, describe Gemba-Kaizen only from the standpoint of rapid shop floor activity similar to the Kaizen Blitz approach (Laraia et al., 2009; Bicheno and Holweg, 2009). Accordingly, there is little empirical evidence for understanding Gemba-Kaizen's 'philosophy' or core proposal when it comes to fostering implementation of process innovation methods. This also applies to short-term improvements (Kaizen Blitz) and Kaizen as a new way of looking at the workplace. More specifically, the main question we sought to answer in this study was: How was Gemba-Kaizen presented when it came to applying a process innovation approach to a food multinational in Mexico? We formulated two sub-questions in our enquiry: R.Q.1.1: What differences are there between traditional and Gemba-Kaizen 'office management' when it comes to innovating processes? R.Q. 1.2: Is there any relationship between the effort put into implementing Gemba-Kaizen and process innovation methods in a multinational food company? To answer the main research question and the two sub-questions, we first carried out a literature review of the Gemba-Kaizen approach and related themes. In that review, we also looked at the application of the Gemba-Kaizen approach to a food multinational in Mexico. The next step was to carry out an exploratory qualitative study based on a food multinational.