The Enterprise and Economic Development
Glossary
a resource of the .network library |
continuous improvement:
... a process of continual
improvement wherein production steps are broken
down into tasks in sequence and analyzed for the purpose
of finding where efficiencies can be introduced. Continuous
improvement is being good at getting better (quote: Gene
Glover).
Continuous
improvement is a process of monitoring and controlling
efficiencies so that they can, at least, be held in place.
The process includes getting answers to questions about production tasks
and their order and contribution within sequences as
well as overall productivity.
Continuous improvement is a
subset of methods and techniques applied as systemic approaches
to continual
improvement. The
International Organization for Standardization, however,
doesn't make a point to distinguish between the continuous
and continual improvement. Wikipedia
has more about this under ISO
9000. Also, see www.praxiom.com for
answers to several questions and links
to related
information about standards.
W. Edwards Deming is credited with having
much to do with continuous improvement, especially as related to
Kaizen. Enterprise
development practices that bring about change
for the better (Kaizen)
are identified
in various ways. For example, see the definition
of lean production in Business
Dictionary.com where muda as a companion word to Kaizen is
used to point out activities that consume resources ... without
adding value. A book titled Reengineering the Corporation by
Michael Hammer and James Champy attempts to clarify the distinction
between continual improvement and continuous improvement.
The W. Edwards Deming Institute website may be worth a
visit—here
is an example webpage: http://deming.org/index.cfm?content=66.
The Sloan Review MIT website has an article, Where
Process-Improvement Projects Go Wrong.
The Google/.network
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information.Try
copying following italicized text lines. Keep quotation
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Points of Management"
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