In the late 1970s, Western business was going through hard times. The oil crisis hit extensive and energy-intensive industries hard. For example, Ford suffered billions in losses, and Chrysler found itself on the verge of bankruptcy and was forced to seek government assistance.
Looking for a way out of this situation, managers turned their gaze to the East, where Japanese companies were demonstrating impressive success. Their secret turned out to be a special management system focused on quality, statistical process control, and total employee involvement. In 1986, entrepreneur Masaaki Imai summarized this experience in a book that popularized the term "kaizen," which translates from Japanese as "continuous change." Kaizen is not just a methodology, but an entire philosophy aimed at the continuous improvement of business processes through many small, incremental improvements.
Logically, Russian management also became interested in this approach. Kaizen came to Russia in the form of the "lean production" concept, emphasizing the elimination of waste, increased efficiency, and continuous small improvements. Industrial giants such as KAMAZ PJSC and GAZ PJSC became pioneers. Over time, this system was adopted by companies operating hazardous production facilities, such as Gazprom PJSC, Transneft PJSC, Lukoil PJSC, and Severstal PJSC, creating internal "idea factories" and systems for rationalization proposals.
However, this seemingly flawless system has a fundamental limitation in the field of industrial safety, namely Federal Law No. 116-FZ of July 21, 1997, "On Industrial Safety of Hazardous Production Facilities." It establishes mandatory requirements both for the hazardous production facilities themselves and for the technical devices used at a hazardous production facility, as well as the forms of assessing their compliance with these mandatory requirements. And these requirements practically exclude the possibility of any modifications by the operating organization.
Despite this, modifications are often made at many enterprises under the guise of rationalization and inventive activities. There is a dangerous misconception that registering a proposal with Rospatent legalizes such changes. But this is not the case. It is important to understand: a patent is a document confirming authorship and granting the exclusive right to use an invention. However, it does not make you a manufacturer of any device, nor does it give you the right to make changes to the design of a single piece of equipment or a hazardous production facility as a whole. Any such modification, even a patented one, is a direct violation of the law.
Setting aside the legal aspect, another problem arises — the profanation of the idea itself. A financial incentive system, where bonuses depend on the number of ideas submitted or the amount of expected savings, often leads to a flood of formal proposals that carry no real value. Even proposals aimed at improving safety can be controversial. They often neutralize one risk without assessing new risks that may potentially arise as a result of implementing the proposals.
Management may follow trendy concepts and chase efficiency. But industrial safety is not a game of "continuous improvement." It is an area of strict responsibility, where any change must be not just a "good idea," but a carefully calculated and legal solution.