The term Continuous Improvement: Definition, Concept, Benefits and Its Application to Business

In the midst of rapid business development and intense market competition, business people need to implement strategies to maintain their business so that they can remain relevant in the eyes of consumers.

one of a kind Strategy that can be applied by the company is to maintain resilience and innovate. Therefore, business people need to understand and implement continuous improvement or continuous improvement.

So, what is continuous improvement or continuous improvement that? and, how does it impact the company? Here's the review.

Definition continuous improvement

Continuous improvement is an effort to improve and develop a program in a sustainable manner, through evaluation activities that are expected to produce solutions for business continuity.

Generally, this continuous improvement is carried out by business people to improve and innovate products, services and processes of business activities in their companies. The aim is to develop the business and maintain the resilience of the company.

Process in running continuous improvement This can be said to be practical and flexible. Undoubtedly this continuous improvement is also known as Kaizen or a practical method that focuses on improving better than previous conditions.

Basically, Kaizen is a work philosophy from Japan that is generally implemented by companies. In its implementation, this Kaizen will involve all employees in the company from various levels, from the highest to the lowest.

PDCA Concept in Continuous Improvement

Implementation continuous improvement or Kaizen requires a tool in the form of the PDCA concept (plan, do, check, art). The PDCA concept is used as a company operational control tool and continuous improvement process.

Here's the explanation:

• P = Map, namely the planning stage and determining what will be done to make improvements. This can be done by identifying opportunities and potential to support innovation to plan targeted changes.
• D = Do, is the stage of carrying out the implementation process on a small scale from the plans that have been prepared in the previous stage. In addition to implementing, at this stage it is also necessary to control the implementation process.
• C = Check, namely the monitoring stage and measuring the process and results of the predetermined plan. You can do this by re-checking the existing data in the planned concept.
• A = Act, is a large-scale implementation stage that is carried out after re-checking.

benefit continuous improvement in Business

Continuous improvement activities are considered to play an important role for the continuity of a business. Here are some of the benefits that can be reaped from the implementation continuous improvement:

• Avoid wastage

Implementation continuous improvement will encourage employees to continue to grow every day. That way, companies can avoid wasting time and money used to make large-scale changes.

• Adaptive to Development

Companies especially for those who are still pioneering or beginners (startup) need to be sensitive to business developments. This continuous improvement can increase the company's sensitivity to existing developments, so that it can quickly develop its business.

• Increase Productivity

Application continuous improvement in the company will be more focused on the most important thing, namely customer needs. That way, the company will produce products according to the targets and criteria with customer orders. Pull the production system and the use of Kanban cards will be able to facilitate implementation.

• Growing Discipline Attitude

Continuous improvement can also form a disciplined attitude in the work environment. This discipline attitude will improve the work ethic of employees and can affect the increase in the achievement of company targets.

Application continuous improvement within the Company

Currently continuous improvement has been widely used by many companies. A number of companies even make this continuous improvement part of the culture they want to build in the company's work environment.

The way that can be done by a number of companies in implementing this continuous improvement can be by holding special events or agendas such as training or employee assessments or it can also be by implementing the method lean manufacturing.

Basically, continuous improvement itself is part of the method method lean manufacturing, but not so standard. Continuous improvement more flexible in the process. Meanwhile, method readManufacturing aims to improve processes by eliminating activities that do not have value in a process.

Here are the related reviews continuous improvement, starting from the definition, methods, benefits to its application for the company.