Peer Review, Communications Training and Site Visits, Bangkok
Eighteen people, including researchers, advisors, practitioners from JICA, the co-editors and a support team from GDN, met in Bangkok from 21-24 April 2018 for a peer review, communications training and site visits to DENSO and Thai-Nichi Institute of Technology.
During the communications training, researchers practiced core messages from their research and converted them into a variety of products that could be used to create and sustain a demand for their research findings. At the peer-review workshop, the authors presented their chapters, and received comments to help structure their revisions. To help frame the discussions, a common definition for Kaizen will be worked into the book under preparation on firm-level productivity in developing countries. Learn more about the program. Meet the teams. See expected results. Watch a video from the training.
Inception Workshop, Tokyo and Nagoya, Japan
In Tokyo and Nagoya, Japan, teams from Brazil, Ghana, the Philippines and Vietnam participated in an inception workshop from 19-22 June, 2017, where they finalized their research proposals for GDN's program on firm-level productivity, with a special focus on Kaizen. The workshop was jointly organized by JICA-RI and GDN, and marked the launch of the Kaizen program. Eminent scholars and experts, Akio Hosono (JICA Research Institute), Go Shimada (Meiji University), and John Page (Brookings Institution), who will co-edit a book featuring results from the research program, engaged with the research teams, providing critical feedback on their proposals.
The second day of the workshop was entirely dedicated to site visits. The teams visited a Toyota assembly line, at the Tahara plant in Aichi prefecture (where a car is fully assembled in 71 seconds), the Toyota Kaikan Museum and the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology. They were joined by the project's scientific advisors, co-editors, and organizers JICA-RI and GDN.
The workshop concluded with discussions on the outcomes and outputs of the program, with input from the research teams, the program managers, organizers and co-editors.