Introduction

Continuous improvement is, as the name suggests, a practice of constantly re-examining and
improving processes. In Lean management, continuous improvement is also known as Kaizen .

Kaizen originated in Japan shortly after the end of the Second World War. It gained massive
popularity in manufacturing and became one of the foundations of Toyota’s rise from a small car
maker to the largest automobile manufacturer on the planet.

In the context of the Lean methodology, continuous improvement seeks to improve every process in
your company by focusing on enhancing the activities that generate the most value for your customer
while removing as many waste activities as possible.

Definition
Continuous improvement is the managerial accounting concept of requiring people at every level in
the organization to constantly be looking for ways to increase efficiency, effectiveness, and
profitability.

The concept of continuous improvement disregards the idea that products and operations can be “good
enough.” There is no such thing as good enough in an organization that is constantly getting better
and looking for ways that it can improve.

Continuous improvement is as the name suggests, a practice of constantly re-examining and

improving processes. At a glance, the whole concept might seem a bit of a buzzword. You keep
hearing the word thrown around, but no one really mentions what it involves doing. And as we all
know, the theory doesn’t get you too far in the business world.

Continuous improvement is an ongoing effort to improve products, services or processes. These

efforts can seek “incremental” improvement over time or “breakthrough” improvement all at once.

All the confusion with continuous improvement is because it’s not something that you “do.” Rather,
it’s a way a company operates. Adopting continuous improvement in a company means two things…

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 • Focus on Growth – The Company should have an ongoing focus on incrementally improving
their processes, services or products. Meaning, perfecting the way you do things on-the-go
instead of carrying out one-off change initiatives.
• Creating a Culture of Improvement – More often than not, it’s the employee on the shop
floor who’s an expert on company processes, not the management. Continuous improvement
should be the responsibility of everyone in the company (not just for the process improvement
team).

Implementation

This PDCA cycle is straightforward, and the importance of continuous improvement is fairly obvious-
-but how do you implement it in a business that is not currently practicing it, or is unfamiliar with
Lean and Agile methodologies?

Companies implement continuous improvement in various ways and to various degrees. It takes a
large commitment to embed the methodology into the foundation of a company, but as we mentioned
earlier, it

doesn’t have to be used at a large scale in order to be beneficial. It can begin on a small scale, with
one team or in one department, and then expand from there into other areas of the business. You can
include continuous improvement in your day-to-day practices or hold “rapid improvement events”
once every few months to work on specific areas of focus. Regardless of the degree in which you
practice continuous improvement, the results will show up incrementally over time.

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Continuous Improvement Process:

Performance Commitment
• Performance measures • Compelling awareness
• Management process • Shared goals
QUALITY

Strategy Process
• Process mapping • Mission & vision
• Process analysis • Deliverables

Advantages of Continuous Improvement

1. Worthy targets: Continuous improvement as a method of quality improvement is not only
beneficial to the business but also beneficial to employees, customers and the entire organization.
Continuous improvement recognizes and rewards the efforts of employees. By so doing, it gives
them a sense of worth in the organization.
2. Improved teamwork: One of the major continuous improvement advantages is improved
teamwork. Continuous improvement is a quality improvement tool driven by teamwork. It does
not benefit only a selected few, but everyone involved in the business process. As the Continuous
improvement solves team problems together and build team spirit. In addition, teamwork helps
build cross-functional collaborations. Therefore, it improves teamwork and cooperation amongst
employees.
3. Builds leadership skills: Every kaizen team must have a team leader. The team leader is
responsible for organizing the kaizen team and coordinating implementation. The kaizen team
leader makes sure that everyone is performing their roles successfully. The team leader is also
responsible for sourcing for help when additional resources are required.

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4. Improved efficiency: Improved efficiency is the major advantage of continuous improvement.
Continuous improvements boost the quality of services. It helps businesses implement new
process improvements, boost efficiency and enhance time management. Manufacturing is able
to minimize errors and maximize productivity.
5. Improved Standard Work Document: Standard Work Document is also called standardized
work. Standard Work Document is a tool that forms the foundation of continuous improvements.
It contains the current best practice guiding a business. Sometimes, this is the main aim of
implementing continuous improvement. In addition, Standard Work Document serves as the base
for future improvements. It also serves as a tool for measuring employee performance and
educating new employees about improvements. In essence, continuous improvement helps
businesses develop a Standard Word Document.
6. Improved employee satisfaction: Improves employee satisfaction is another advantage of
continuous improvement. Continuous improvement involves the employees when implementing
changes for improvements. Employees can make suggestions and creative input for changes
through a suggestion system like team meetings. When employees are involved in decision
making, it gives them a sense of belonging and worth. They are eager to implement changes and
think of new ways to improve the processes. By so doing, the employees are motivated
and productivity increases. Also, employees are more willing to take ownership of process
improvements. Rather than falling back on old methods, they become advocates of quality
improvements.
7. Better safety: Improving safety on the work floor is a kaizen advantage for business. Safety is
improved when businesses implement ideas that clean up and organize workspace. By so doing,
employees have better control of business process equipment. Employees are also encouraged to
make suggestions to improve safety on the work floor. This helps to minimize accidents and
other related injuries. Hence, employees become more efficient and manage their time properly.
However, safety is a responsibility of management as well.
8. Waste reduction: Continuous improvement reduces wastes in business processes. This is
another major advantage of continuous improvement. Continuous improvement is the
responsibility for everyone. Therefore, management and staff are responsible for identifying
areas that constitute waste in the business process. By the continuous improvement, waste is
eradicated from the business process and cost is reduced. Furthermore, resources are used more
judiciously, and the business becomes more profitable.
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9. Customer satisfaction: As an organization’s products and services continually improve, the
organization will be better able to meet customer needs. Organizational offerings will have fewer
flaws because the staff will be devoting time and energy toward resolving difficulties. These
efforts will be in part a response to customer feedback, and their implementation will improve
the customer experience.

10. Others
✓ The effort in organizational procedures and specific areas concentrated.
✓ Improvements achieved in a short term and visible results.
✓ If there is reduction of defective products, results in a reduction in costs as a result of lower
consumption of raw materials.
✓ Increases productivity and directs the organization towards competitiveness, which is vital for
today's organizations.
✓ It contributes to the adaptation of processes to technological advances.
✓ Providing people with training
✓ Making continual improvement an objective for every person in the organization
✓ Establishing goals and measures in continual improvement
✓ Recognizing and acknowledging improvements.
✓ Eliminates repetitive processes

Disadvantages of Continuous Improvement

1. Incremental improvement. Continuous improvement is usually implemented as an
incremental process in which advances are made in small steps according to an established set
of assumptions. It is never ending process so it requires more time and money.
2. Stifled innovation. If the business has defined the ways it wants to grow and improve, it may
limit itself to a specific type of development and close itself off to other possibilities.
3. Inadequate implementation. Although continual improvement itself tends to be good for an
organization, but it may not be implemented effectively. When the firm may not achieve the
goals and may not be communicated clearly with managers and may not be sufficiently

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 motivated with employee improvements. Continuous improvement program may create more
problems than benefits.
4. Poor Prioritization: There is never going to be a shortage of ideas for improvement at any
organization. There are many ways to improve processes and initiatives. But when there is not
a particular focus on what improvements are priorities, disagreements about strategies will
occur.
5. Lack of support and leadership by top level management: When top level management
does not provide proper assistance to its downward managers or employees then the firm does
not success to implement its quality improvement.
6. Poor Employee Engagement: Employee engagement involved many requirements to
employee such as, development and control, communication and relationships with
management, employee well-being, positive motivation and innovation. A firm may not fulfill
above the requirements of employee. Quality improvement depends on employee
engagement. So it a problem of continuous improvement.
7. Poor Process Management Tools: Managers may use many quality improvement tools and
techniques such as, scatter diagram, JIT, Benchmarking, QFD, Brainstorming and so many.
When these tools use poorly then continuous improvement is not possible.
8. Lack of Professional Development or Training: Continuous improvement is based on the
employee involvement. When employees are developing their skills then the possible of
quality improvement in operations. In our country, training is more expensive. So it is barriers
of continuous improvement.
9. Difficulty fostering collaboration between multiple stakeholders: It is difficult for
manager to integrate all the stakeholders who are involved in the organization. Because this
is the basic requirements of continuous improvements.
10. Governing/controlling change: Requires a change in the entire organization, as for the
successful participation of all members of the organization and at all levels is necessary.
11. Concentrated in a specific area: When the improvement is concentrated in a specific area of
the organization, the perspective of interdependence between all members of the company is
lost.

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The Kaizen Process or Continuous Improvement Process
Continuous improvement process involved several steps:

1. Get employees involved. Seek the involvement of employees, including gathering their help
in identifying issues and problems. Doing so creates buy-in for change. Often, this is organized
as specific groups of individuals charged with gathering and relaying information from a wider
group of employees.
2. Identify a problem or opportunity: this is the first step of continuous improvement.
Normally an organized procedures start to identifying problem or opportunity in the
organization. Using widespread feedback from all employees, customers and suppliers then
gather a list of problems and potential opportunities. Create a shortlist of the issues or potential
opportunity in priorities basis.
3. Analyze the process: Analysis the all shortlisted issues and potential opportunities and
develop many alternative solutions. Develop criteria to selection solution from many
alternatives
4. Select an optimal solution: Evaluate the all alternative solutions. And select the optimal
solution which is best for organization and which is effectively work in improving operational
process.
5. Implement the solution: At the fifth stage, the firm implement their selected decision or
solutions.
6. Test the solution: Implement the most effective solution has chosen above, with everyone
participating in the rollout. Create pilot programs or take other small steps to test out the
solution. Pilot test means small test in implementing decisions.
7. Study the results and adjust: At various intervals, check progress, with specific plans for
who will be the point of contact and how best to keep ground-level workers engaged.
Determine how successful the change has been.
8. Standardize the solution: If results are positive, adopt the solution throughout the
organization.
9. Repeat: These seven steps should be repeated on an ongoing basis, with new solutions tested
where appropriate or new lists of problems tackled. Because it is never ending process.

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Continuous Improvement Tools
Continuous improvement has several tools which are used to develop and control products and
services quality. Briefly discuss several tools-

PDCA Cycle:

PDCA cycle (plan-do-check-act, sometimes seen as plan-do-check-adjust) is a repetitive four-stage

model for continuous improvement in business process management. The PDCA model is also known
as the Shewhart cycle.

• Plan: Define your strategic goals and how you’ll achieve them. Define the problem to be
addressed, collect relevant data, and ascertain the problem's root cause.
• Do: Implement the plan and make any changes required to ensure it works. Develop and
implement a solution; decide upon a measurement to gauge its effectiveness.
• Check: Evaluate the results and identify opportunities for improvement. Confirm the results
through before-and-after data comparison.
• Act: Make adjustments based on what’s found in the previous step.

Details of PDCA

The term seems fairly simple, but how does it really play out? What does continuous improvement look
like when it is implemented in a business environment? The most commonly used model is PDCA:
Plan, Do, Check, Act. Walking through these four steps can bring improvements to any process:

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 Plan
• In this first step, the focus is on defining the problem and coming up with an approach that you will test
in order to solve the problem, asking questions like: What is the scope? What is the target? What is the
best approach for the outcome you are trying to achieve? This includes defining a team and planning a
timeline.

Do
• You can use this step to execute a full plan, or to implement a pilot solution at a smaller scale. Either
way, this is the opportunity to experiment--try something new to see if and how it works. The key here
is to record the steps taken in the process and collect data and feedback along the way.

Check

• This is the opportunity to study the chosen approach and evaluate the results, compared to your
expectations when planning. Ask questions like: Was the approach successful/effective? Did it work as
planned? Why or why not? What worked and what didn’t work? If the approach was unsuccessful, you
can go back to the first step (planning), taking into account what you learned and why it didn’t produce
the intended results. If it was successful, you can proceed to the next step.

Act

• Now that you’ve taken the learnings and feedback from the previous steps, it’s time to
implement the new solution fully. Remember, this doesn’t mean it’s the final solution or the
only approach. Instead, it becomes the new baseline against which you will continue to
measure for future improvements.

Much of the importance of continuous improvement lies in what a business does after they’ve
cycled through the steps outline above. In a typical business environment, when improvements
are made in a process, those improvements become “the way things are,” not to be questioned
until something goes wrong. In continuous improvement methodology, every improvement
becomes the new baseline for the next.

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How continuous improvement applied in an organization

1. Commit throughout the organization

That is a big part of what makes this work. It’s not just the people at the top or the bottom of
an organization that make continuous improvement possible. There is no more “us and them”
mentality. Everyone needs to be moving toward the same goal.

2. Make kaizen part of the new routine

At some automobile factories, small teams meet before work each week to talk about one tiny
change they are going to try to implement in order to improve their process. Continuous
improvement is something that needs to be revisited regularly. The routine is key to sustaining
it.

3. Tie it back to everyone’s job

Some people will almost certainly look at this as just one more new initiative that they simply need
to outlive. To take it seriously, they may need to incentivized.

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 4. Measure the results

Continuous improvement is metrics-driven. This means that terms like good, bad, and better
become very objective. Continuous improvement works, but it takes time. It’s like saving
money: at first, the benefits you earn is barely noticeable. But once you have enough, the interest
income starts to add up. Before long, you are earning interest on your interest.

5. Communicate

Unlike some initiatives, you may not have quick wins. It will probably take time, because
continuous improvement is not instantly transformative. Keep everyone aware of what is going
on while you are waiting for the results to speak for themselves.

6. Be deliberate and patient

Creating a culture of continuous improvement is an exercise in demonstrating continuous

improvement. You need serious commitment and sustained energy. Many of us make a practice
to look for the quickest, highest value wins. Kaizen is more like the effect of oceans on the
beach. It’s relentless and disciplined. It can take time to produce the results that many
organizations want. A company with this kind of mindset may not be completely ready for
kaizen. Also, keep this in mind: even if you have a healthy organization, it will likely be
resistant to change.

7. Repeat

These are baby steps, and this is the real heart of continuous improvement. Go over these steps
again and again. This is continuous; you will never really be finished.

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Conclusion
Continuous Improvement (CI) is a process used by the companies around the world as a strategy
to satisfy the highly demanding market. In CI exists a wide variety of tools and methodologies to
improve the process of production. Continuous improvement is a long term focus. Modern
organization believe the concept and continuously work for improving their quality improvement.
Continuous improvement use several tools to identify opportunities such as, customer survey,
employee suggestions, brainstorming and benchmarking. Continuous improvement is not a
destination, but a journey of ongoing processes. High profitable and wealthy organization
emphasis on employee training and improved operational functions for improve their quality
improvement.

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