The Effect of Kaizen Implementations on Productivity in medium and large manufacturing companies: the case of some selected companies in Dire Dawa

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of kaizen implementation on productivity in medium and large manufacturing companies: the case of some selected companies in Dire Dawa city administration. In order to attain the objective of the study, explanatory and descriptive research design together with quantitative and qualitative analysis entertained. The data analyses through descriptive and inferential statistical analysis methods were used. Descriptive statistical tools such as percentages, frequencies, mean and standard deviation, and also inferential statistics data analysis ordinary least square(OLS) were used to see the effects of independent variables on a dependent variable by using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25 software. Among the six independent variables, five of them namely Cost, Quality, Downtime, Capital Utilization, and Profit significantly influenced organizational productivity, and the p-values of those antecedents are less than 0.05. However, Waste wasn’t significantly influenced organizational productivity since the p-values were above 5%. Based on the findings and conclusions of the study, the researcher recommends kaizen training and education should be given to all employees frequently, management should use a bottom-up approach of management for effective implementation of kaizen on cost minimization practice, the Ethiopian kaizen institute should conduct continuous follow-up and provide outgoing support in order to the sustainability implementation process, management should encourage employees and give some respect what they say or what they do, reward and recognition system to the manufacturing firms and continuous discussion between employees and management so that any misunderstanding should be resolved, Finally the study recommended that keep checking the milestones achieved by the introduction of the system to determine growth and performance of the manufacturing firms.