1 An Investigation on Continuous Improvement (CI) for New Product Design and Development Pharveen A/L Parameswaran, Dr. Nasrul Hamidin, Dr. Harith Amlus, and Dr. Muhammad Shahar Jusoh BFT565 - SEMINAR IN ENGINEERING & INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT School of Business Innovation and Technopreneurship, Universiti Malaysia Perlis, Perlis, Malaysia ABSTRACT This paper aims at providing an overview of the evolution, current research and the history of continuous improvement over time through reviewing the literature extensively. The paper covers the inception of continuous improvement and its evolution into today’s world’s sophisticated methodologies. The research covers the well-known programs of continuous improvement if not covering the entire plethora of the past and the present. It also covers the various tools used by the organizations for addressing the need of continuous improvement and thus may serve the purpose of reference for people who wish to pursue the field of continuous improvement and wants to know its development form its historical form to its modern day avatar. Key words: Evolution, TQM, Six Sigma, Lean Production, Quality, Continuous improvement 1. INTRODUCTION Continuous Improvement (CI) is defined as (“Bessant et al., 1994”) “a company-wide process of focused and continuous incremental innovation” while Deming (Juergensen, 2000) describes Continuous Improvement as “Improvement initiatives that increase success and reduce failures”. Still some treat consider CI as a branch of practices like Total Quality Management (TQM) or for other it is separate from TQM and it is totally a new method to achieve excellence in the market and enhance creativity. (Gallagher et al.; 1997, Caffyn, 1999; Oakland, 1999.). Kossoff (1993), claims achievement of total quality can be done through constant persuasion of CI by all levels in an organization. Whereas we can describe CI as a We define CI more generally as an ethos in an organization that aims at eliminating all wastage in all processes or systems through sustained improvement. The process makes every individual in the organization its part and does not necessitate capital investment. CI can be the result of a drastic change brought about a change in technology or an innovation or it may be because of a gradual improvement brought over a period of time. Additionally, gradual improvements collectively form major changes in the system. At any level, improvements are results of techniques and tools aimed at searching and minimizing variations, waste and problems. In the past many aspects of CI have been studies and researched upon, in this paper we would look into the evolution and history of CI, where it has its modest beginning of sophisticated techniques of Improvement to the current day practices widely used across the world. We would initially discuss the origins of CI, then the CI techniques that have developed over time. We would then cover the different techniques and tools used by organizations for addressing the requirement of improvement. We would also present an overview of the studies done on this topic. 2. HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF CI Beginning of the CI known today can be considered to be from 1800s in the form of initiatives taken by various organizations’ managements, to encourage improvement driven by employees that were rewarded by incentives (“Schroeder and Robinson, 1991”). Scientific management became important in the late 19 th century and early 20 th century, that enabled managers to use scientific methodologies to solve issues by analyzing the problem and solving it. During World War II, the US government introduced the concept of “Training within industry” with a goal to enhance the output of the industry at a national level. The concept was based on introduction and importance of CI to supervisors. The same was later implemented by experts like Gilbreth, Juran and Deming in Japan along with US forces there at the end of World War II (Robinson, 1990). Later on the Japanese established indigenous concepts of quality control, which were initially used for manufacturing, but eventually transformed into a complete tool of management for continual improvement that involves the entire organization at all levels. (Imai, 1986). The earlier methodologies were more focused on improvement at the work place whereas modern principles of CI more to methodologies that is comprehensive and organized.