About Kaizen Painters

Kaizen Painters Origin Story

In 1991, I was fortunate to be selected to be sent to Tokyo by my employer to study Total Quality Management (TQM) at a Toyota plant. The experience will always be with me. At the time, Japanese manufacturers were far superior to American manufacturers in delivering quality products to market.



One of the key concepts of TQM is a Japanese concept called Kaizen. Kaizen is the concept that small incremental changes implemented daily result in positive results more consistently than does one large set changes implemented annually. During that part of the training, all of the Japanese engineers in the class were bored and the three American engineers were diligently writing notes.

The best example to explain Kaizen is found in the Japanese Art of Bonsai (not to be confused with Bon-Zai). In creating a Bonsai Tree (miniature tree) the artist will make one or two small cuts or changes to a house plant over several years to turn a small plant into a beautiful, miniature tree.

The concept of Kaizen has remained with me since that time. Therefore, when I decided to start my own corporation in 2006 the name of the company had to be Kaizen Associates, Inc. I utilized the corporation at that time to purchase a franchise for painting people’s homes. Then in 2021, when I decided to not renew the franchise agreement, we changed our name to Kaizen Associates, Inc. dba: Kaizen Painters.