Continual improvement process

[2] Delivery (customer valued) processes are constantly evaluated and improved in the light of their efficiency, effectiveness and flexibility.

[3] W. Edwards Deming, a pioneer of the field, saw it as part of the 'system' whereby feedback from the process and customer were evaluated against organisational goals.

[4][5] A broader definition is that of the Institute of Quality Assurance who defined "continuous improvement as a gradual never-ending change which is: '... focused on increasing the effectiveness and/or efficiency of an organisation to fulfil its policy and objectives.

"[6]: 498 The key features of continual improvement process in general are: Some successful implementations use the approach known as kaizen (the translation of kai ('change') zen ('good') is 'improvement').

Shewhart took the standard academic scientific method of inductive and deductive thinking, used in hypothesis testing, and converted it to a simple notion.

This was a far simpler notion to use and inform the shop floor of Western Electric while building telephones, where many workers would not and could not understand the scientific method.

[11] This change ran contrary to the common usage of continuous in the standard and other prior business management documentation.