Continual Improvement

Dr. Deming used the term continual improvement (rather than continuous improvement) later in his life because that would include continuous and dis-continuous improvement (innovation, etc.). I use continual improvement for that reason also. I think the improvement process

• must be never ending
• must focus daily on how any process can be improved
• must focus on adopting improvement systemically (not just locally, by one person or team)
• must focus on discontinuous improvement which could include high energy kaizen events and dramatic innovation
• must include a study phase (PDSA) where the improvements are evaluated to determine whether they actually achieved the predicted results
• and must include improvement of the improvement process itself

To me, continual improvement encompasses both continuous and discontinuous improvement.

Reflecting on: Continuous Improvement vs. Continual Improvement [the broken link was removed]

Related: Process Improvement and Innovation – Better and Different – Kaizen the Toyota Way – Change is not Improvement – Think Long Term Act Daily – Encourage Improvement Action by Everyone