Continuous improvement in lean: examples and strategies

Continuous improvement is the part of lean that never ends. The fifth lean principle, perfection, says there is always more waste to remove.

This guide explains how lean teams improve continuously: the PDCA cycle, daily kaizen, kaizen events and the habits that keep them going.

Key takeaways

Continuous improvement in lean runs on the PDCA cycle: plan, do, check, act.

Daily kaizen handles small problems, and kaizen events handle focused, larger ones.

Standard work is the baseline. Without it, there is nothing to improve on.

Improvement lasts only when leaders review it, coach it and make time for it.

What is continuous improvement in lean?

Continuous improvement is the ongoing effort to make processes better through many small, tested changes. In lean it is often called kaizen.

The continuous improvement method page covers the definition, principles and process. This guide focuses on how lean teams practice it.

Masaaki Imai popularized the term in his 1986 book Kaizen: The Key to Japan's Competitive Success. It describes improvement by everyone, every day.

It matches the last of the five lean principles in Womack and Jones's Lean Thinking: perfection. The lean methodology guide covers all five.

The PDCA cycle

PDCA is the cycle behind lean improvement. Plan a change based on the cause of a problem. Do it on a small scale. Check the result against the plan. Act by adopting, adjusting or abandoning the change.

Each turn of the cycle is an experiment. A failed experiment still teaches the team something, which is why lean treats it as progress.

A3 reports put a PDCA cycle on one sheet for larger problems. The A3 step-by-step guide shows how.

Standard work is the baseline

Improvement needs a baseline. Standard work records the current agreed way to do a job.

When a change works, the team updates the standard. When results slip, the standard shows what changed. Without it, gains disappear without anyone noticing.

Daily kaizen vs kaizen events

Daily kaizen is small improvements made as part of normal work. An operator moves a bin closer, or a team changes a label that keeps causing mistakes.

Kaizen events are short, focused workshops on one process or problem. A cross-functional team maps the current state, tests changes and leaves a new standard behind.

Events make visible step changes, while daily kaizen keeps improving between events and stops gains from slipping.

The kaizen event guide gives a day-by-day agenda for running one.

Continuous improvement examples

These continuous improvement examples are typical situations, not case studies of named companies. Each one is a single turn of the PDCA cycle.

Shop floor: operators walk to a shared cabinet for gloves several times a shift. The team adds a small stock point at each station with a two-bin refill. The walking stops, and the standard is updated.

Office: invoices bounce back because a purchase order number is missing. The team adds a required field to the request form. Returned invoices become rare, and the check moves upstream.

Warehouse: pickers search for fast-moving items spread across the building. The team moves them near the packing bench and labels the locations. Pick routes get shorter.

Healthcare: nurses hunt for a wheelchair at discharge time. The ward agrees a marked parking spot and a check at the morning huddle. The lean healthcare guide has more examples from care settings.

Software: a team's releases stall waiting for one reviewer. It sets a work-in-progress limit and shares reviews across the team. The WIP limits guide explains why this helps.

Continuous improvement strategies

A continuous improvement strategy is the plan for how improvement happens every week, not only in projects. Five strategies follow.

Make problems visible. Boards, andon signals and simple charts show where work is stuck, so problems surface early.

Give every idea an answer. A short weekly review decides each idea: do it, test it or explain why not.

Coach rather than fix. Leaders ask questions at the gemba and help teams run their own PDCA cycles.

Link improvement to strategy. Hoshin kanri points improvement effort at a few goals that matter, so small changes add up.

Standardize each gain. A change is finished only when the standard work and training are updated.

Collecting and tracking ideas

Most improvement ideas come from the people closest to the work. A simple idea board, reviewed weekly, is enough to start.

Each idea needs an owner, a next step and a decision. Ideas that sit unanswered teach people to stop suggesting them.

Kaizen software and continuous improvement software help when ideas come from many teams or sites, and when you want to share what worked.

Making improvement last

Leaders keep improvement alive through routine. A daily huddle at a board, regular gemba walks and a weekly review of open ideas all help.

Time is the other ingredient. Teams that are fully loaded with production work have no capacity left to improve it.

The lean management guide covers the daily management system and leader standard work in more detail.

Measuring progress

Track a few results that matter to the customer, such as lead time, quality and on-time delivery. OEE suits equipment-heavy processes.

Track the improvement activity too: ideas raised, ideas closed and time to close. A healthy system raises and closes ideas steadily.

Frequently asked questions