What is continuous quality improvement?
Continuous improvement means that whatever an organisation is doing now can be improved, if they try hard enough. These improvements can be small, but mean big cost and/or quality benefits to the organisation.
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ISO 9000, with its standards and auditing, is a version of quality management that was first used in manufacturing but has since been used in many service environments like hospitals and airlines. It provides a step-by-step process for achieving quality.
Where does continuous quality improvement come from?
You can find out more about Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s theories and quality processes at www.deming.org
In the mid-1980s, Japanese companies gained a lot of the world market for cars and electronic goods by focusing on quality through a continuous quality improvement process they called Kaizen. Since then, managers everywhere have tried to ensure that their products and production processes represent quality.
Dr. W. Edwards Deming is one of the fathers of quality management. He said that most mistakes in an organisation were caused by the process being used. He suggested that the process was owned by managers, not by their staff. Deming thought, therefore, that managers were responsible for most workplace mistakes.
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