What Is Continuous Improvement, and What Is Not

Abstract

In a CI organisation the CI culture underlies any purposeful activity of the organisation and all activities revert to it as if to their ultimate goal. The ultimate capability of continuous improvement is a form of existence for such a company which will necessarily be organised around people and will be a human system. The company practice will build on “people and kaizen first” as on fundamental assumptions. The most telltale sign of the uniqueness of Toyota to the extent of its commitment to these assumptions is the inability of the world to distill the Toyota Production System (TPS) into Lean. TPS is a “people thing” and we just do not let Lean form into one. Can we really say though that it is all a failure of Western executives, or is it perhaps something entirely different, maybe rational calculation on their part, i.e., to take distance from a full Lean-CI conversion? Let me make this tentative suggestion at this point that maybe TPS, after all, is not worth the effort.