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1. Introduction
Western companies tend to manage their business activities by establishing short-term benefits, but this may prevent them from identifying and meeting beyond their immediate needs; in addition, short-term process planning can limit the corporate vision, quality levels of production and profitability.
According to Japanese managerial teams, the success of many companies in Japan is dependent on the establishment of high-quality standards for products, production processes, services and workers’ skills. Therefore, quality has become a philosophy to be implemented at all organizational levels. However, it demands the implementation of a continuous improvement process (Ramadani and Gerguri, 2011). Such an approach must be permanently applied, since it ensures a constant search for excellence and innovation, as well as an increased productivity and reduced costs. As a result, efforts in organizations are reoriented in order to better meet the needs and expectations from both internal and external customers.
Similarly, a continuous improvement process – also known as Kaizen – demands a specific leadership attitude on the part of managers. They must encourage the participation of all members of the company, take part in every supply chain (SC) process and commit to a full performance in their positions. In fact, managers are responsible for the implementation of Kaizen and become the major motivator during its implementation. However, in order to establish such plan in a certain department or the entire organization, it must be economically profitable (Glover et al., 2011).
The appropriate implementation of Kaizen must reflect on economic benefits and also on the human resources. This is one of the reasons that makes Kaizen an attractive asset, since it enables a company to benefit from the maximum potential of human resources while enjoying from a number of benefits (Topuz and Arasan, 2013).
As a result, Mexican businesses have become increasingly interested in the application of improvement processes for their systems. For instance, there is a type of company, known as a maquiladora, which has recently begun to pay attention to Kaizen. Many of these enterprises are located on the border between Mexico and the USA, and represent foreign investments from different countries. The Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez caters for 324 of these maquiladoras, and they are mainly known for importing raw materials, which are...