ABSTRACT
More exacting people might say that a problem is "a discrepancy between the present situation and their objectives" or "a discrepancy between their objectives and the actual results." Conversely, with awareness of the desired state and attention to the current state, one can recognize discrepancies, or problems. Therefore, problem awareness has three components: being aware of the desired state, understanding the present situation, and being aware of the discrepancy between the desired state and the present situation. People who say that they have run out of seeds of improvement or that they have no problems belong to one of three categories: people who do not notice problems, people who cannot foresee and predict problems, and people who are content with things as they are. In each case, however, the real problem is the belief that there are no problems. People who understand the kaizen proposal system know that it is impossible to have no problems.
