continuous improvement
compound.compound. the habit of always looking for small ways to make a process, product, or service better. Instead of making one big change, you make many tiny improvements over time.
compound. an ongoing effort to enhance products, services, or processes through incremental and breakthrough improvements. Often associated with management philosophies like Kaizen, where every member of an organisation contributes to efficiency.
Our team uses continuous improvement to fix small bugs every week.
By adopting a culture of continuous improvement, the factory reduced waste by twenty percent over two years without major equipment upgrades.
The methodology of continuous improvement requires a robust feedback loop where data from the production line informs immediate, iterative adjustments to the manufacturing protocol.
A compound of the adjective continuous, derived from the Latin continuus, and the noun improvement, based on the Anglo-French emprouwer. The phrase gained prominence in industrial management through the translation of the Japanese term kaizen.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Commonly used in business and manufacturing contexts; often functions as a compound noun.
Last updated July 22, 2026