Businesses often seek ways to stay competitive and efficient in a fast-paced market. Continuous improvement is the strategic practice that keeps companies evolving and improving over time.
This article will delve into how this systematic approach can streamline your operations and set you on a path of relentless progress. Discover the key to unlocking sustained business success below.
Key Takeaways – Continuous Improvement
Continuous improvement is a strategy focusing on ongoing, incremental changes that lead to significant benefits over time. Adopting this approach helps businesses become more efficient and remain competitive by constantly seeking to enhance productivity whilst reducing inefficiencies.
Methodologies like Lean Thinking, Six Sigma, Kaizen, TQM (Total Quality Management), and Agile are key in driving continuous improvement. These provide structured frameworks that aid in waste reduction, process streamlining, quality control and fostering innovation within an organisation.
The PDCA cycle (Plan, Do, Check, Act) is fundamental to the practice of continuous improvement. This four-stage model ensures businesses continuously evaluate their performance against strategic goals and implement improvements systematically.
Employee engagement and empowerment are crucial for successful continuous improvement initiatives. Encouraging staff participation leads to valuable insights into process enhancements and promotes a culture where everyone contributes towards operational excellence.
At its core, continuous improvement aims not only at boosting internal processes but also focuses heavily on customer satisfaction. By refining operations regularly through various methodologies mentioned above organisations can ensure they consistently meet or exceed customer expectations whilst adapting swiftly to market changes.
Defining Continuous Improvement
Continuous improvement stands as a core strategy for operational excellence, embracing incremental changes that lead to significant impacts over time. This proactive approach focuses on enhancing every aspect of business processes, striving for day to day practices increase productivity and quality whilst eliminating inefficiencies and bottlenecks.
Grounded in the belief that there is always room for improvement, it seeks out opportunities for refinement at all levels of an organisation.
At its heart lies the commitment to continuously assess and adjust workflows, ensuring they remain competitive and responsive to changing markets. It’s about fostering a company culture where employee engagement becomes the driving force behind innovation.
Continuous improvement taps into collective expertise; it empowers teams to analyse root causes of issues and co-create solutions that resonate across the value stream. With a keen eye on customer satisfaction, firms use continuous improvement tools and methodologies like Lean Thinking and Six Sigma not just for problem-solving but also as catalysts for growth and resilience.
The Four Key Stages of Continuous Improvement
The journey of continuous improvement is structured around a cyclical framework that propels businesses towards operational excellence. This cycle transforms strategic vision into tangible outcomes, ensuring every initiative contributes to the cumulative success of the organisation.
Plan
Identifying opportunities and analysing current processes kick-start the Plan stage of continuous process improvement. This phase demands a clear view of existing workflows, pinpointing exactly where enhancements can be made.
By setting specific goals, leaders ensure that every effort is channelled towards tangible outcomes.
Developing strategic solutions comes next, with a focus on implementing changes that drive efficiency and standardisation across business functions. Evaluating outcomes goes hand in hand with implementation efforts to ensure that the action taken not only matches expectations but also aligns seamlessly with overarching business objectives.
Standardising successful practices ensures long-term benefits and sets a precedent for future improvement initiatives.
Do
Once a strategic plan has been established, it’s time to transition into action with the ‘Do’ phase of the continuous improvement cycle. This stage involves implementing the carefully crafted solutions on a small scale to test their effectiveness.
Directors should ensure teams execute these plans by employing continuous improvement methodologies like Agile or Lean, focusing on initiating changes that can lead to enhanced productivity and business flow.
During this phase, it is essential for leaders to oversee the deployment of improvements and manage any challenges that arise. Continuous monitoring allows for adjustments in real-time, keeping projects aligned with overall business objectives.
It’s a hands-on period where theories are put into practice and initial results begin to form the basis for further analysis in subsequent stages of the PDCA cycle.
Check
The Check stage is where the impact of actions taken during the Do phase gets thoroughly analysed, ensuring alignment with your company’s strategic objectives. It involves a careful examination of data and performance metrics to verify that solutions are not only effective but also contribute positively towards long-term goals.
This critical evaluation identifies any discrepancies or unforeseen outcomes, allowing for real-time adjustments.
Monitoring progress at this juncture is vital for maintaining the continuous improvement cycle’s momentum. Businesses leverage statistical methods and control charts to measure success against benchmarks, making it easier to spot trends and variances.
Through this rigorous analysis, decision-makers gain invaluable insights that drive informed choices on how best to refine processes further and achieve excellence in all operational aspects.
Act
Implementing the chosen solution across your organisation is a pivotal part of the Act stage in the continuous improvement cycle. It’s where strategic decisions come to life, transforming plans into actionable changes that aim for enhanced efficiency and quality.
This stage requires leaders like yourself to step up, ensuring integration with existing processes while nurturing a culture of innovation and adaptability among teams.
Directors have the unique role of overseeing this implementation while monitoring its effectiveness within their purview. By making informed adjustments during rollout and scaling successful strategies, you solidify improvements, laying ground for ongoing effort and future enhancements.
Acting decisively at this stage not only reduces costs but also secures a competitive edge by embedding continual improvement into your company’s DNA.
Popular Continuous Improvement Methodologies
Within the dynamic landscape of business management, a myriad of continuous-improvement techniques and methodologies offers robust frameworks for driving operational excellence. These strategies vary from Lean principles that streamline processes to Kaizen, which nurtures an ethos of incremental enhancements across all levels of an organisation.
Lean Thinking
Lean Thinking transforms the way businesses operate by relentlessly pursuing waste reduction and value enhancement. Companies adopt this methodology to streamline operations, ensuring every process adds value for the customer whilst minimising unnecessary steps and resource usage.
The core of Lean Thinking is to identify what truly matters to customers, then optimise or eliminate everything else that does not contribute directly to that value.
By mapping out the entire value stream, directors can pinpoint where delays occur, which processes are inefficient, and where defects might arise. Implementing a pull system further refines workflow efficiency as products are created based on actual demand rather than forecasts.
Lean Thinking instils a culture of continuous improvement within manufacturing teams, driving them to constantly seek ways to refine these processes and improve quality without sacrificing speed or inflating costs.
The Kaizen Approach
The Kaizen Approach embodies the philosophy of continuous, incremental improvement. Originating from Japan and pivotal to lean management, this strategy thrives on fine-tuning processes and enhancing workflows in small, manageable steps.
It encourages a company-wide culture where all employees actively seek out opportunities for improvements. By implementing Kaizen principles like “Know Your Customer” and “Let it Flow,” businesses can swiftly adapt to changing markets while keeping operations streamlined.
Engaging with the five core principles of Kaizen accelerates innovation and employee empowerment. Directors who foster an environment that embraces going to ‘Gemba,’ or the actual place where work is done, gain real insights into operational challenges.
Empowering people at every level ensures that each team member contributes ideas towards efficiency gains. Transparency throughout this journey is essential; it helps cultivate trust and maintain focus on collective goals within your organisation, ultimately leading to sustained value creation and competitive edge.
Six Sigma Principles
Six Sigma stands as a benchmark for excellence in process management and quality control, aiming to reduce errors and enhance product quality. It targets a performance level where only 3.4 defects occur per million opportunities, an aspiration that drives rigorous data analysis and decision-making based on statistical evidence rather than guesswork or assumptions.
Employing two core sub-methodologies, DMAIC focuses on refining existing processes while DMADV streamlines the creation of new products or processes. These structured frameworks underpin Six Sigma’s commitment to minimising variability and removing defects across production cycles and operations, enabling businesses to achieve more reliable outputs at an exceptionally high standard of quality.
Total Quality Management (TQM)
Total Quality Management (TQM) stands as a cornerstone of continuous improvement methodologies, tailored specifically to boost operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. This method hinges on the collective effort of all team members within an organisation to drive down defects and ramp up quality.
At its core, TQM takes the PDCA cycle – Plan, Do, Check, Act – to heart by encouraging thorough planning based on brainstorming sessions, executing well-thought-out tests for solutions, verifying their effectiveness meticulously before rolling them out across the board.
The adoption of TQM across businesses marks a significant step towards not just meeting but exceeding customer expectations while simultaneously carving out waste from processes. Embracing this approach transforms workplaces by enhancing employee engagement and fostering stronger relationships amongst staff.
It empowers teams to work in sync toward common goals that resonate with both company objectives and client demands. Engaging every level within the corporate structure ensures that initiatives are optimised for greater returns – cutting costs without compromising service quality or execution excellence.
Agile Methodology
Agile Methodology revolutionises the way businesses tackle project management and continuous improvement. This approach breaks projects down into manageable units, called iterations, allowing teams to adapt quickly to changing requirements while maintaining a high standard of quality.
Collaboration is at its heart with cross-functional groups working closely together; team members exchange insights in real-time and pivot as needed without losing momentum.
Directors will appreciate how Agile positions customer satisfaction as the driving force behind product development. Every aspect of this methodology leans on direct feedback from users to shape the final offering.
It empowers teams to produce value incrementally through constant feedback, re-evaluation and refinement, ensuring that end results align perfectly with market demands and customer expectations.
Agile goes beyond software development; it’s an ethos that can push any business towards operational excellence by fostering innovation and teamwork across departments.
The Importance of Continuous Improvement
Understanding the significance of a continuous improvement mindset is foundational for businesses striving to excel in an ever-evolving marketplace. It serves as a catalyst for not merely sustaining but propelling overall business success through perpetual refinement and excellence efforts.
Enhancing Efficiency and Productivity
Embracing continuous improvement directly boosts your company’s efficiency and productivity. Techniques like Lean thinking and Six Sigma are engineered to streamline processes, eliminate waste, and improve quality, ensuring smoother operations that can keep pace with market demands.
These methods encourage teams to focus on value-adding activities while trimming down time-consuming tasks that don’t contribute to end goals.
Investing in a culture of continual improvement equips employees with the mindset to collaboratively seek out opportunities for optimisation. A business environment where every team member is attuned to enhancing operational flow leads to reduced costs and a compelling competitive edge.
This tailored approach recognises the unique challenges within each organisation, allowing strategies to be effectively adapted for maximum impact on performance metrics.
Fostering Employee Engagement
Engaged employees are more than just productive – they’re the driving force behind continuous improvement within a business. By involving staff in the quest for betterment, companies tap into their first-hand experience and insights.
This hands-on approach encourages a shared commitment to elevating performance and service quality. Provide training opportunities that equip team members with the tools they need to contribute effectively.
These initiatives not only foster a culture of learning but also demonstrate your investment in their personal growth and job satisfaction.
Putting employees at the heart of continuous improvement initiatives amplifies their voice in shaping processes that directly affect their work. Encourage them to analyse current practices and experiment with new solutions, fostering a sense of ownership over improvements.
As directors, recognise these contributions visibly – celebrate successes, learn from setbacks together and keep communication open at all levels. This forward-thinking strategy ensures every employee feels valued and connected to your company’s overarching goals, perpetuating an environment ripe for innovation and progress.
Minimising Waste and Costs
Within the framework of the continuous improvement model, a key focus is on streamlining processes to eliminate unnecessary steps that consume resources without adding value. This strategic pruning not only enhances efficiency but also drives down operational costs significantly.
By applying principles such as lean management and embracing tools like value stream mapping, organisations can pinpoint areas of waste – from excess inventory holding to underutilised staff talent – and methodically reduce or eradicate them.
Directors should note that by fostering a culture attentive to continual improvement practices, businesses position themselves for long-term financial health. It’s not just about cutting expenses in the short term; it’s about embedding a cost-conscious mindset throughout the organisation.
Advances in modern technology facilitate process mining and data collection efforts that provide clear visibility into how resources are used – and sometimes misused – granting leaders actionable insights for informed decision-making.
Reducing waste becomes an integral part of your business strategy, ensuring sustainable growth while preserving quality and customer satisfaction.
Boosting Customer Satisfaction
To secure the loyalty of customers, continuous improvement must be at the core of your business operations. Utilising methods like Lean and Six Sigma paves the way for more efficient processes that meet customer needs rapidly and effectively.
Enhance this further with a culture that promotes collaboration; when employees work together seamlessly, they resolve issues swiftly, ensuring customer queries don’t linger unanswered.
Empowerment also plays a vital role – give your teams the tools and authority to make decisions on the spot, which can dramatically improve response times and customer contentment.
Quality service hinges on proficient employees who are well-versed in their roles. By prioritising ongoing training initiatives, you ensure that staff members stay at the cutting edge of industry standards, equipped to handle even complex customer concerns competently.
Additionally, technology integration is non-negotiable in attaining sharper insights into consumer preferences through data analysis; understanding these dynamics helps tailor experiences that resonate with patrons’ expectations.
Remember to celebrate every milestone achieved through continuous improvement strategies as this reinforces commitment across all levels and standardises best practices for consistently exceptional service delivery.
Let’s turn our attention now towards fostering innovation within your organisation – a crucial step following enhanced customer satisfaction measures – by cultivating an environment where new ideas thrive.
Encouraging Innovation
Fostering a culture of innovation within an organisation unlocks the creative potential of every employee. By empowering staff, companies provide the autonomy necessary for individuals to experiment and come up with groundbreaking ideas.
Innovation is not just about new products; it’s also about process improvements, customer service enhancements and finding efficient ways of working. Embracing technology plays a crucial role here, enabling businesses to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.
Continuous training and education are essential to nurturing this innovative mindset across all levels of an organisation. This commitment ensures that employees stay current with industry trends and emerging technologies, which can be leveraged for continuous improvement initiatives.
Collaboration and open communication channels encourage knowledge sharing, sparking inspiration that leads to inventive solutions tailored for enhancing business performance and customer experiences.
A Six-Step Guide to Implementing Continuous Improvement
Embarking on the journey of continuous improvement requires a structured and strategic approach to ensure successful outcomes. Our six-step guide provides a clear roadmap for organisations to embed this iterative process into their operations, catalysing effective change and fostering an environment geared towards perpetual progression.
Assessing the Current Situation
To kick off the journey towards continuous improvement, scrutinising your company’s current situation is crucial. This means taking a comprehensive look at processes, workflows, and outcomes to establish a baseline.
Consider employing tools like data analysis, employee surveys, and customer feedback to paint an accurate picture of where you stand against competitors and in terms of operational efficiency.
Mapping out this initial landscape is pivotal; it serves as the foundation for identifying potential areas that need refinement or overhaul. It involves discerning not just what needs to change but also understanding the factors contributing to existing conditions – by doing so, you set the stage for targeted interventions.
After analysing performance assessing thoroughly, the next step focuses on uncovering root causes underlying identified issues.
Identifying Problem Root Causes
Peeling back the layers of recurring issues in your organisation requires a sharp focus on root cause identification. This stage is pivotal within continuous improvement efforts, acting as the linchpin that holds together all efforts towards enhancing efficiency and productivity.
Directors must ensure their teams employ rigorous analysis tools such as the fishbone diagram or Five Whys technique to trace problems to their source accurately.
Deploying these analytical and scientific methodologies permits a deeper understanding of underlying issues rather than just tackling surface symptoms. It’s here that the effectiveness of solutions hinges, streamlining processes by eliminating fundamental obstacles that impede smooth operations.
Armed with insights from this critical examination, leaders can drive targeted improvements aligned with the overall strategic vision for continuous business improvement.
Developing Potential Solutions
Crafting effective solutions begins with a creative brainstorming session where all voices are heard. Encourage team members to suggest ideas freely, without fear of criticism or immediate dismissal; this cultivates an innovative atmosphere that can lead to groundbreaking approaches.
Leverage the strengths of methodologies like Lean and Six Sigma to foster a structured yet flexible environment for generating solutions. By integrating these techniques into your strategy, you promote a culture of continual improvement that systematically addresses inefficiencies and boosts productivity.
Moving forward requires rigorous testing of the developed concepts against real-world scenarios. Establish clear criteria for evaluating the potential success of each solution based on data-driven insights and industry benchmarks.
It is essential at this stage to consider factors such as cost-effectiveness, impact on continuous flow, and alignment with business goals – remembering always that successful continuous improvement hinges on keen attention to detail and willingness to adapt strategies as needed in response to feedback throughout implementation stages.
Implementing the Selected Solution
Putting the chosen solution into practice marks a significant phase in the continuous improvement cycle. It is crucial to have a clear implementation plan that outlines each step, designates responsible team members, and sets realistic timelines.
Effective execution relies on aligning resources with strategic objectives and ensuring all team members understand their roles in this transformation. Transparency during this phase is key; keep communication channels open so everyone involved can track progress and provide timely feedback.
Monitor the new processes closely once they’re in action. Quick identification of any issues allows for immediate adjustments, maintaining momentum towards achieving your desired outcomes.
Remember to document changes meticulously – this ensures learning points are captured and future improvements can be informed by past experiences. Celebrated milestones drive morale and underline the value of everyone’s contribution to the continuous business improvement journey.
Evaluating Results and Impact
Evaluating results and impact stands as a vital stage in the continuous improvement cycle. After implementing potential solutions, directors must scrutinise the outcomes rigorously.
Look closely at performance metrics to determine if objectives are met. Measure your progress against initial goals using reliable statistics and data analysis. Without this critical evaluation, you might miss valuable insights or continue down an ineffective path.
Effective leaders establish robust feedback loops as advised by experts like Brian Ragone to understand the full spectrum of their actions’ impacts. They gather input from all levels – from frontline employees to customers – ensuring every voice contributes to a comprehensive view of the project’s success or areas needing adjustment.
Continuous improvement leans on such thorough reviews, making each iterative step informed and targeted towards refinement and optimisation.
Standardising Successful Processes
Standardising successful processes marks a pivotal step in the continuous improvement journey, capturing the essence of what works best and integrating it into everyday operations. This move towards uniformity ensures that efficiency and productivity rise to their peak.
By codifying the most effective methods, organisations set a benchmark for quality, minimising errors and reducing costs significantly. It is not simply about maintaining consistency; standardisation also paves the way for innovation within a secure framework where adaptability becomes part of the corporate culture.
Director-level strategy often entails making hard decisions to propel business success forward. Embedding these proven approaches into your operational fabric can give your teams clear guidelines, allowing them to deliver excellence as routine rather than exception.
As we redirect focus on strategies for advancing continuous improvement, reflect on how establishing effective feedback loops might enhance these standardised processes push systems even further.
Strategies for Advancing Continuous Improvement
To remain competitive and agile in a constantly evolving market, businesses must refine their approach to continuous improvement with strategic practices that drive growth and efficiency.
Delving into these strategies reveals how they serve as catalysts for transforming operational processes and fostering a culture of perpetual enhancement within organisations.
Establishing Effective Feedback Loops
Establishing effective feedback loops is a cornerstone of driving continuous improvement in any business. It’s imperative for directors to understand that feedback isn’t just about collecting data; it’s about ensuring there’s a systematic process for gathering insights, reflecting on performance, and making informed decisions based on that information.
Set up mechanisms to regularly capture the voice of employees, customers, and processes. Use surveys, direct observations or real-time data analytics as tools to monitor and evaluate your company’s performance against set goals.
Direct action follows good observation practices. You need to analyse the collected information thoroughly and plan strategic changes where necessary. This step often leads back into further observation or assessment- hence creating a dynamic loop of continuous improvement methods.
Make this practice routine within your management team by scheduling regular review sessions devoted solely to discussing feedback received from varied touchpoints within your operations.
An openness to change based on what these loops reveal is crucial; adaptability can turn feedback into tangible results that refine efficiency and innovate product development continuously.
Maintaining a Customer-Centric Focus
Building on the foundation of effective feedback loops, focusing on customer-centricity is critical for any director looking to excel in continuous improvement management. By placing customers at the heart of your business strategy, you ensure that their needs and expectations shape every decision.
This approach does more than just meet demands; it builds a robust loyalty base by consistently delivering value through improved products and services.
Embedding a culture where customer satisfaction guides continual improvement processes fosters an environment ripe for innovation. Directors can spearhead progress by encouraging teams to view challenges through the lens of customer impact first, ensuring that each iterative development contributes to heightened experiences for those who matter most – your clients.
Setting SMART Goals for Continuous Improvement
Transitioning from a customer-centric focus to setting goals, it’s essential to adopt SMART criteria for maximum effectiveness in driving continuous improvement. Establishing Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound objectives ensures that your targets are clear and attainable.
This approach not only streamlines your efforts but also guarantees that every step taken is aligned with the overarching business ambitions.
Implementing SMART goals forms a vital part of the continuous improvement cycle – providing a structured framework for prioritising tasks and making intelligent resource allocations.
It empowers teams by setting definitive milestones that foster accountability and motivation within the pursuit of measurable outcomes. By leveraging this methodical strategy, directors can ensure their initiatives make substantial contributions towards long-term success and sustained business growth.
Embracing Flexibility and Adaptability
Setting SMART goals provides a clear roadmap for continuous improvement, yet it’s the capacity to adapt and be flexible that enables organisations to navigate unanticipated challenges.
Embracing flexibility means recognising that the business landscape is ever-changing; what worked yesterday might not work tomorrow. Directors should champion an environment where quick pivoting is possible, allowing teams to respond effectively without being bound by rigid frameworks.
Adaptability in continuous improvement management calls for an openness to new ideas and a willingness to experiment. It acknowledges that continual improvement is not one-size-fits-all and must be tailored to fit unique situations within each organisation.
Leaders need to foster a culture where innovation thrives and strategies evolve based on real-time feedback, ensuring processes stay relevant, efficient, and aligned with current objectives.
Recognising the Value of Mistakes
Embracing flexibility and adaptability paves the way for a culture that not only anticipates change but also celebrates the insights gained from errors. Recognising the value of mistakes is vital in creating an environment where continuous improvement thrives.
It turns missteps into stepping stones for innovative solutions, pushing businesses towards excellence. Directors should champion this notion, ensuring that their teams view every mistake as a critical learning opportunity.
Creating such a transformative atmosphere requires openness and transparency about errors made along the path to success. This approach can lead to more creative problem-solving, ultimately cementing a company’s position at the forefront of its industry.
Encouraging employees to share and examine slip-ups fosters an invaluable mindset shift – from fearing failure to harnessing it as fuel for progression and growth within the continuous improvement process.
Clear Communication of Plans and Progress
Recognising the value of mistakes enables us to refine our communication strategies. Effective communication plays a pivotal role in steering continuous improvement initiatives towards success.
Keeping project managers and everyone informed of both the strategic objectives and incremental advancements ensures that all team members pull in the same direction. It not only aligns efforts but also boosts morale by demonstrating visible progress.
By regularly sharing updates, you avoid confusion and build a culture where challenges are openly addressed, fostering collaboration and accountability within your teams. Transparently discussing plans and acknowledging progress engages employees at every level, encouraging them to contribute insights that can lead to more robust and sustainable outcomes for your business’s continual improvement processes.
Celebrating Achievements and Milestones
Celebrating achievements and milestones is crucial in fostering a culture of continuous improvement. It not only recognises the hard work of your teams but also reinforces the successful application of methodologies like Lean Thinking and Kaizen.
Marking these successes can boost morale, motivate employees to further engage in improvement efforts, and provide tangible examples of how small changes lead to significant impacts.
Ensure that celebrations are meaningful and linked directly to the milestones achieved; this allows everyone to see the value in their contributions to the business’s continual improvement process.
Recognising progress encourages a positive mindset towards facing new challenges head-on, setting your team on course for future accomplishments. Moving forward, establishing effective feedback loops will be integral in sustaining this momentum.
Conclusion of Continuous Improvement
Embrace the journey of continuous improvement; it steers businesses towards excellence with relentless drive and innovation. Through continuous delivery and steadfast application of its principles, companies not only refine their processes but also invigorate their teams.
Each small step forward compounds into substantial gains, securing a pivotal advantage in today’s competitive arena. Let your business thrive by making this powerful approach the backbone of your operational strategy.
Success lies in the persistent pursuit of betterment – for products, services, and people alike.
FAQs about Continuous Improvement
1. What exactly is continuous improvement?
Continuous improvement, also known as continual improvement, is a method that focuses on making regular small changes and incremental improvements to business processes, aiming for higher quality and efficiency over time.
2. How does the Deming Cycle aid in continuous improvement?
The Deming Cycle, or PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act), provides a framework for implementing continuous flow of improvements by planning actions, executing them, studying the outcomes and acting on what has been learned.
3. Can you explain how lean management relates to continuous improvement?
In lean and management systems, continuous improvement is seen as an essential part of operations where efforts are made to streamline processes by eliminating waste and adding value at every stage using methodologies such as the Toyota Production System.
4. Why should businesses adopt a continual process of improvement?
Adopting a continual and ongoing process of improving ensures that businesses stay competitive by constantly seeking ways to enhance their products and services while reducing risks and cutting down unnecessary costs.
5. Are there any models or concepts from experts that support continuous business change?
Yes! Models like Lean Manufacturing’s Five Focusing Steps provide guidance for spotting areas with room for enhancement; theoreticians like W. Edwards Deming and Shigeo Shingo have laid down principles driving the success behind the Toyota Motor Corporation’s approach to ongoing betterment.
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