Masaaki Imai

Masaaki Imai (1930 to 2023) was a Japanese organizational theorist and management consultant best known for introducing the Western business world to kaizen, the philosophy of continuous improvement. His 1986 book Kaizen: The Key to Japan's Competitive Success became a global bestseller and drew on his close association with Toyota figures such as Shoichiro Toyoda and Taiichi Ohno. In 1985 he founded the Kaizen Institute, a consulting firm that promotes kaizen and lean practices, and he followed the first book with Gemba Kaizen in 1997 and Strategic Kaizen in 2021. His honours include the 1999 Shingo Research and Professional Publication Prize and the first honorary fellowship of quality control in India in 2010. He died on 12 June 2023 at the age of 92, and he is remembered as a major influence on how firms organize work and quality.