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Abstract
Purpose - To provide an overview of the history, evolution, and existing research on continuous improvement.
Design/methodology/approach - Extensive review of the literature.
Findings - This paper provides an overview of continuous improvement, its inception, how it evolved into sophisticated methodologies used in organizations today, and existing research in this field in the literature.
Research limitations/implications - It does not provide an exhaustive review of the existing literature, or an exhaustive list of all continuous improvement programs, only the most well known.
Originality/value - This paper traces how organizations have used various tools and techniques to address the need for improvement on various levels. The paper also presents research conducted in this field. It should be of value to practitioners of continuous improvement programs and to academics who are interested in how continuous improvement has evolved, and where it is today. To the authors' knowledge, no recent papers have provided an historical perspective of continuous improvement. Furthermore, our paper also discusses the existing research in this field.
Keywords Continuous improvement, Quality, Lean production, Six sigma, Total quality management, Evolution
Paper type General review
Introduction
Continuous improvement (CI) is a philosophy that Deming described simply as consisting of "Improvement initiatives that increase successes and reduce failures" (Juergensen, 2000). Another definition of CI is "a company-wide process of focused and continuous incremental innovation" (Bessant et al., 1994). Yet others view CI as either as an offshoot of existing quality initiatives like total quality management (TQM) or as a completely new approach of enhancing creativity and achieving competitive excellence in today's market (Oakland, 1999; Caffyn, 1999; Gallagher et al, 1997). According to Kossoff (1993), total quality can be achieved by constantly pursuing CI through the involvement of people from all organizational levels.
We define CI more generally as a culture of sustained improvement targeting the elimination of waste in all systems and processes of an organization. It involves everyone working together to make improvements without necessarily making huge capital investments. CI can occur through evolutionary improvement, in which case improvements are incremental, or though radical changes that take place as a result of an innovative idea or new technology. Often, major improvements take place over time as a result of numerous incremental improvements. On any scale,...