Oita City Government – Site Tour
Oita City is the capital city of Oita Prefecture with a population of 470,000 and is located on Japan’s southern island of Kyushu. The northern coastal region of Oita Prefecture and neighbouring Fukuoka Prefecture is a base for automotive as well as iron, steel, and petroleum industries, and the inland area has many IT and precision machinery companies.
Basic Information
- Population: 470,000
- Region: Kyushu Region
- Area: 502 square kilometers
- Major Industries: Manufacturing,chemical and heavy industries, tourism etc.
Oita City Government – Lean Characteristics
Office and Service Work Improvement and Efficiency, Lean Government
Lean management started to be seriously applied to governments throughout Japan in the mid-1990s. As governments are not driven by profits, the interesting challenge in lean implementation is creating a need for improvement.
Oita City is recognized as one of the leading governments in Japan with a successful lean program. The objective of Oita City’s kaizen activities is to address the existing office and work issues within the City Hall to improve the service levels provided to citizens, increase work efficiency and heighten every employee’s hunger to change for the better.
Oita City calls its activities “Takumi”, which generally in Japanese means skilled craftsman. However, they break this word down into the sounds “ta” for tanoshiku (fun), “ku” for kufu (ingenuity) and “mi” for minna (everyone).
These activities are designed for all employees of the City to be autonomously involved. It is differentiated from employee suggestion schemes because those suggestions tend to finish at the proposal level. Kaizen activities, however, are conducted within a system with ideas that everyone can implement by themselves.
Curico, Chile
For me, the Lean Japan Tour was a journey through different companies guided by experts who explained the tools and demonstrated how to live in a work culture based on continuous improvement. This allowed me to discover new concepts and approaches to facilitate the successful implementation of a kaizen culture in American companies.
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Broughton, Chester, United Kingdom
The tour has been a once in a lifetime experience and a real insight into Japanese Industry and culture. The warm welcome and organisation of the week including travel, hotels, places to eat and all visits were exceptional. The Toyota Group and Isuzu factory tours really demonstrated the Toyota Production System followed up with great…
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Pforzheim, Germany
The Lean Japan Tour was the best lean management experience I have had. I wish I had done this earlier, so I could have done some things differently. One learns that some aspects of lean that one thought one knew, really have a different dimension to them. It helps to see lean management where it…
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Bremen, Germany
I want to congratulate the Shinka Management Team for the fantastic organisation of the Lean Japan Tour 2023. The tour has been a business and life-changing experience for sure. On Day 1 I was already enlightened, and all the bits and pieces of a huge TQM puzzle came together to form a clear picture. The tour…
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Žilina, Slovakia
Thank you to Shinka Management for the positivity, preparation, knowledge, senseis, food, accommodation, photos, and overall care throughout the tour. I learned a lot. I had participated in a similar training program in Japan two years ago, but Shinka Management takes the experience one or two levels higher in several aspects. Thank you.
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Bikfaya, Lebanon
Life changing experience. The tour was extremely well prepared: 1. In terms of logistics and schedule, everything was organized to provide enough time for full day efficiency without putting too much physical or cognitive strain. 2. In terms of quality of information, the senseis’ knowledge is world-class level and they were more than willing to…
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The Shinka Management Lean Japan Tour is a professional development program run several times annually. The program includes a mix of lean and kaizen seminars, hands-on lean training and visits to several benchmark lean companies. For further information and program dates, see the lean tour overview page.
Tour Inquiries
Interested in joining us in Japan? For additional information prior to registration please fill in the form provided or contact us.