How does it work?

Although obvious, this potentially huge source of innovation was largely neglected in UK manufacturing until comparatively recently. It was only when the messages from Japan became hard to ignore that we began to realise that their success across a range of sectors was due in no small measure to a different approach to innovation. In addition to the traditional use of specialists, Japanese firms built on high involvement of the workforce in regular incremental innovation — a process called kaizen but which is more familiar to us as 'continuous improvement' (CI).
Continuous improvement (CI) is a generic name given to a range of activities designed to engage a high degree of involvement amongst the workforce in innovation. It is really an umbrella term for an organisational approach (high involvement) supported by a range of specific tools.
CI is about an approach to change which is high in involvement but which stresses incremental innovation as its key feature — a 'little and often' rather than a 'big bang' view. Since it is a philosophy it is often linked with more specific change programmes — for example, in business process re-engineering, total quality management or versions of the 'lean' concept. In each case the contribution of CI is to maintaining and extending progress through a regular stream of small improvements.