A-Z Popular New Processes Search »
Business Analysis
 
Related Guides
Related Topics
Strategic Planning

12 Examples of Continuous Improvement

 , updated on
Continuous improvement is the process of improving products, services and processes. This is viewed as a circular process of planning, implementation, measuring results and taking corrective actions if results don't represent an improvement. The following are illustrative examples of continuous improvement.

Product

An engineering team that continually finds ways to improve a figure of merit such as the energy conversion rate of solar panels.

Service

A retail banking website continually improves its infrastructure and service management processes to decrease its downtime and increase availability.

Experience

Improving the intangible elements of a service such as the taste of food on a flight. Typically measured with a process of quantification of customer surveys.

Environments

Improving physical environments such as buildings, interior design and landscapes. For example, a large restaurant chain that is continually experimenting with new interior concepts.

Processes

Improving processes by eliminating wasted effort or resources. For example, a farmer who bags fruit as opposed to spraying it with chemicals once a month.

Assets

Asset improvements such as upgrading a machine that is a bottleneck. For example, a rail line does an analysis and finds that a particular legacy model of signal equipment has caused an usual number of delays due to their high maintenance requirements. The signals are replaced with more reliable models.

Policy & Procedure

Identifying counterproductive or inefficient policies and replacing them. For example, a airline that chooses a passenger to be removed from an overbooked flight using a complex algorithm that can't be explained to the passenger resulting in dissatisfied customers and potential public relations issues. A more efficient policy might be to incrementally increase compensation offers until a passenger volunteers.

Information

Improving communication and information. For example, if a customer service team gets the same question 200 times a day, they might contact a marketing team about updating product packaging to make things more clear.

Information Technology

Improving software and related machines such as robots. For example, a robot that sorts recycling has its error rate improved on a regular basis with tweaks to its machine learning algorithm.

Risk

Seeking ways to further reduce managed risks. For example, a farmer reduces risks related to the price fluctuations of commodities with incremental strategies to diversity and differentiate their crop.

Quality

Improving quality such as a manufacturer that investigates quality control defects to determine root cause and identify improvements to designs, parts, processes, materials, methods and controls.

Culture

Efforts to improve organizational culture on an ongoing basis using techniques such as sharing corporate stories to build a sense of team identity.
Overview: Continuous Improvement
Type
Definition
The process of improving products, services, processes, policies, structures, systems, tools and assets.
Related Concepts
Next: Iterative Process

Business Processes

This is the complete list of articles we have written about business processes.
Automation
Batch Production
Business Rules
Choreography
Continuous Process
Event Processing
Internal Controls
Iterative Process
Kaizen
Lead Time
Orchestration
Process
Process Analysis
SOPs
Task Analysis
Work Process
Workflow
More ...
If you enjoyed this page, please consider bookmarking Simplicable.
 

Business Processes

A list of business process terms.

Business Process Examples

A definition of business process with common examples.

Capability vs Process

The difference between a capability and a process.

Lights Out

Definition of a lights out business process.

Orchestration vs Choreography

The difference between process orchestration and choreography.

Event Processing

The definition of event processing also known as complex event processing.

Modeling vs Mapping

The difference between business process modeling and business process mapping.

Business Process Mapping

A definition of business process mapping with several examples.

Process Gaps

A few examples of common process gaps.

Lead Time vs Cycle Time

The difference between lead time and cycle time explained with an example.

Quality Assurance

A few quality assurance techniques.

Quality Assurance Definition

Definitions of quality assurance.

Quality Assurance vs Quality Control

The difference between quality assurance and quality control.

Quality Assurance Examples

An overview of quality assurance with a few examples.

Quality Policy

A list of common elements of a quality policy.

Acceptance Criteria Examples

A definition of acceptance criteria with examples.

Ishikawa Diagrams

The definition of ishikawa diagram with examples.

Problem Analysis

Common problem analysis techniques.

Quality Goals

Examples of measurable quality goals.
The most popular articles on Simplicable in the past day.

New Articles

Recent posts or updates on Simplicable.
Site Map