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Continuous, quality and processimprovement: disintegratingand reintegrating operationalimprovement?Rupert L. Matthewsa & Peter E. Marzeca

a Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University,Newton Building, Burton Road, Nottingham NG1 4BU, UKPublished online: 02 Sep 2015.

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Continuous, quality and process improvement: disintegrating andreintegrating operational improvement?

Rupert L. Matthews∗

and Peter E. Marzec

Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University, Newton Building, Burton Road,Nottingham NG1 4BU, UK

Recent interest in strategic initiatives, in particular Six Sigma, appear to relate to threeforms of improvement: continuous improvement, quality improvements and processimprovement. The similarities between these approaches have led to some confusionwithin the literature and raise the question whether these approaches aretautological. This paper argues against this by firstly exploring the nuances of thesethree areas. Based upon a systematic literature review of operations managementjournals, insight is developed by exploring the three terms individually and then incombination, resulting in the presentation of a number of research propositions toguide further research. To extend our understanding of operational improvement,organisational learning is identified as a common theoretical perspective employedwithin each of the three forms of improvements. Organisational learning issubsequently utilised to underpin the relationship between the three terms,highlighting the need for both operational and strategic improvement, drawing uponstrategic management literature. These are presented in the form of a conceptualmodel, in addition to further research propositions. The paper concludes bypresenting future research opportunities identified by the work in the form ofconstruct development, exploratory case study research and survey work to test thepresented model and propositions.

Keywords: process improvement; quality improvement; continuous improvement;organisational learning; literature review

1. Introduction

The necessity to focus on improving operational processes is core to contemporary

business given reduced access to capital in response to the global financial crisis, the esca-

lation of market pace dictating the need for firms to continually adapt and globalisation

requiring boosts in productivity to sustain wealth creation. To account for this difficult

operating environment, product and process innovation have been identified as key deter-

minants of success (Anand, Ward, Tatikonda, & Schilling, 2009; Bisson, Stephenson, &

Viguerie, 2010; Lee, Swink, & Pandejpong, 2011). While the terms continuous improve-

ment (CI), quality improvement (QI) and process improvement (PI) would seem to imply

the common goal of improved operational performance, there has been considerable

overlap of the terms in the literature. Bateman (2005) suggests that ‘continuous improve-

ment is regarded as the extension of process improvement’ (p. 274), and Angell and

Chandra (2001) suggest that a quality improvement philosophy ‘demands a continual

drive toward process improvement’ (p. 113). However, particular seminal work on oper-

ational improvement states that ‘continuous improvement is at the heart of leanness’

(Womack, Jones, & Roos, 1990, p. 249), while giving very limited attention to PI

# 2015 Taylor & Francis

∗Corresponding author. Email: rupert.matthews@ntu.ac.uk

Total Quality Management, 2015

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14783363.2015.1081812

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(p. 153). Alternatively, work on QI (Garvin, 1988, p. 29) emphasises the multifaceted

nature of quality management, while also largely overlooking PI. In both cases, PI primar-

ily relates to work carried out by suppliers in an effort to reduce costs, rather than explor-

ing the role of PI within other types of improvement. The content of PI is also overlooked

within work focusing on PI and CI, where it is viewed as resulting from the accumulation

of experience, rather than being defined as an explicit set of practices (Freiesleben &

Schwarz, 2006; Jaber, Bonney, & Guiffrida, 2010; Li & Rajagopalan, 1998).

The need to address these concerns and confusion is mirrored by Kappel and Ruben-

stein’s (1999) sentiments that ‘if an acceptable definition [is] available, the subject is made

available to scientific study’ (pp. 132–133). Consequently, developing agreed upon defi-

nitions of CI, QI and PI will (a) prevent overlap, redundancy and misspecification of aca-

demic inquiry; (b) prevent overlooking work on particular types of improvement and (c)

consistent with Schmenner, Van Wassenhove, Ketokivi, Heyl, and Lusch’s (2009) critique

of operations management research, will allow attention to be directed to the development

of the field of operations management through consistent, cumulative research from

agreed upon perspectives.

To address this inconsistency, we start by exploring the nature of these three improve-

ment terms. The relationships between each improvement terms are then explored to deter-

mine how they are related to one another, leading to the presentation of the number of

propositions on the relationships between the different terms. Organisational learning

(OL) is then identified as a theoretical perspective that each of the improvement terms

draws from, providing a theoretical framework to understand how all three of the terms

are related to one another and organisational performance. OL provides a foundation on

which to present a conceptual model of operational improvement that integrates the

improvement terms and highlights the role of effectively integrating organisational strat-

egy into improvement interventions to ensure they contribute to building a sustained com-

petitive advantage. The paper concludes by proposing further research to develop an

understanding of improvement terms and their role within operations management.

2. Definition of terms

In order to ensure sufficient depth and coverage of the topic, in addition to remaining

objective in our interpretation of the literature, a systematic literature review of the

three improvement terms was undertaken. Such a methodology has been applied in the

past; however, in comparison to previous studies, our departure is threefold. Firstly, it

reviews more recent literature in contrast so some more dated accounts (Ahire, Landeros,

& Golhar, 1995; O’Neill & Sohal, 1999). Secondly, in our quest for a more pragmatic and

hence more practical interpretation of the literature, our study takes a broader account

rather than focusing on a topic, such as a particular tool (i.e. quality function deployment;

Chan & Wu, 2002) or an improvement strategy (i.e. continuous improvement; Bhuiyan &

Baghel, 2005). Finally, given the focus on understanding the nature and specifics of QI, CI

and PI as a methodology and mindset, we avoid sector-specific arguments such as health-

care (Kaplan et al., 2010), software development (Unterkalmsteiner et al., 2012) and the

public sector (Fryer, Antony, & Douglas, 2007).

Following the method presented by Tranfield, Denyer, and Smart (2003) and adapted

by Matthews and Marzec (2012), a systematic search of key operations management jour-

nals resulted in the findings presented in Table 1. 1991 was selected as the starting date of

the survey as it represents a transition to the modern age of operations management

(Pilkington & Meredith, 2009), but before the second decade of the twenty-first century

2 R.L. Matthews and P.E. Marzec

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that is becoming known as the ‘post-lean age’ (MacCarthy, Lewis, Voss, & Narasimhan,

2013). Journals were selected based on 2 criteria: firstly, to ensure sufficient quality of

articles, only 3- and 4-star quality general operations management journals were selected

based on the Association of Business school rankings; and secondly, to evaluate the

specific relevance to operational improvements, a number of topic-specific journals

were selected (i.e. TQMBE and IJQRM). While there are other journals of similar

quality, for the sake of brevity and to maintain the focus on operational improvement

and operations management, rather than information systems or operations research, our

search was limited to these journals. The title, abstract and keywords were searched for

the terms ‘Quality Improvement’, ‘Continuous Improvement’ and ‘Process Improvement’

in articles up to and including 2014. Reference to each of the three improvement terms in

each of the selected journals provides justification of the inclusion of the three improve-

ment terms, with the volume of publications illustrating that these terms are important

within the domain of operations management. Following identification, articles were

reviewed to identify how they referred to each term in the body of the work. Additional,

highly influential work from the areas of QI, CI and PI predating the search criteria or from

the strategic management domain were also drawn from, to provide additional underpin-

nings to the work

Greater emphasis is given to QI and CI by the dedicated quality management journals;

however, within the broader scope operations management journals, greater attention is

given to PI. Due to emphasis being spread across these different improvement terms,

the question can be raised as to whether these terms are used interchangeably or

whether research related to these terms are progressing in isolation. Exploring this issue

will ensure that research attention focuses on the key concepts and key units of analysis,

allowing insight from one area to contribute insight to others.

While Table 1 shows that over the period of interest, emphasis is relatively consistent

across the three terms, the data does not provide information on the emphasis given to the

terms from year to year, suggesting that further exploration of the data is needed. Abra-

hamson (1991) explored the role of management fashions and trends, which was later

applied within the field of operations management by Thawesaengskulthai and Tannock

Table 1. Use of terms in OM literature from 1991 to 2014.

JournalQuality

improvementContinuous

improvementProcess

improvement

Management Science 22 4 18International Journal of Operations &

Production Management10 35 19

International Journal of ProductionEconomics

40 27 30

International Journal of ProductionResearch

52 45 38

Journal of Operations Management 5 10 16Production and Operations

Management6 2 16

International Journal of Quality andReliability Management

63 55 21

Total Quality Management andBusiness Excellence

113 107 31

Total 311 285 189

Total Quality Management 3

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(2008). They demonstrated that academic research followed practitioner interest in new

approaches to operational improvement (such as TQM and Six Sigma, amongst others).

By exploring the year in which each of the publications contained in was published, it

is possible to assess whether the number of articles referring to these terms was affected

by particular management fads and fashions within practice. As Figure 1 shows, while the

volume of publications related to all the terms increased over time, during the late 1990s

and early 2000s there is a notable increase in publications referring to QI. However, the

rate of increase referring to CI and PI is significantly more linear (linear regression

explains more of the variation), suggesting that research on CI and PI area is less affected

by management fads and fashions.

The following section explores the definition of the three terms and how they relate to

operational activities. Each section begins by examining quality, continuous and process,

in an attempt to define what the associated ‘improvement’ activity may consist of a priori,

which is followed by how each term is used in the literature.

2.1. Quality improvement

The literal definition of quality from the English dictionary1 states it is a distinguishing

characteristic or attribute, a degree or standard of excellence and excellence or superior-

ity. Such as definition of quality is consistent with a ‘transcendent’ view of quality from the

literature (Garvin, 1988). Based on the first statement, an improvement could be seen as

providing an intangible improvement to the nature of the product or service that could

only be defined once experienced. Unfortunately, this provides little direction of the

specific nature of the attribute, which in the case of perceived quality is, by definition, sub-

jectively defined by the user (Garvin, 1988). Such forms of QI are well documented by

Handfield and Melnyk (1998) who tracked the development of research related to

quality management, outlining how the nature of the research evolved to account for

the developing agreement on quality management definitions, assisting the development

of the science of quality management. Agreement of definitions has assisted both research-

ers and practitioners in their exploration of quality management and execution of quality

management practices, illustrated by Powell (1995); Samson and Terziovski (1999);

Kaynak (2003) and Zu, Fredendall, and Douglas (2008), amongst others.

Figure 1. The use of improvement terms from 1990 to 2014.

4 R.L. Matthews and P.E. Marzec

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However, the broad nature of quality continues to create some confusion in terms of a

specific definition, reflected by Oliver (2009) who states that ‘there is no universally

accepted definition of quality’ (p. 547). To address this, the definition of quality made

famous by Juran (1992), ‘fit for purpose’, is seen as an appropriate starting point, allowing

the inclusion of manufacturing, product and value-based definitions of quality, while also

accounting for the end user. From this perspective, a QI could be considered as a response

to a customer complaint or change in requirement. Consequently, a non-conforming

product can be viewed as a product that is not ‘fit for purpose’, so requiring a QI. By resol-

ving quality non-conformance and adapting to meet changing customer requirements, QI

is frequently viewed as the aim of improvement initiatives (Karthi, Devadasan, Murugesh,

Sreenivasa, & Sivaram, 2012; Lee, Lee, & Olson, 2013).

From these standard and practically oriented definitions, research has also explored

alternate definitions of QI. A traditional view, that is consistent with Six Sigma, at the

time of its inception (Harry & Schroeder, 2000), suggests that quality, and hence QI, is

concerned with reducing the number of defective parts and product reliability, reducing

operating costs while increasing customer satisfaction. Consequently, Green (2006)

viewed QI as the aim of Six Sigma, which deliver changes to products and processes

that benefit the end user. Agreeing with this definition, Adam, Flores, and MacIas

(2001) state ‘quality outcomes in this study are total cost of nonconformance (the cost

of quality) and percentage defective’ (p. 47) and Hales, Siha, Sridharan, and McKnew

(2006) refer to prioritising QI as those that ‘reduces the number of quality defects and

the overall cost of quality (COQ) of the process’ (p. 867).

Finally, QI also stems from the general observation that defines quality management as

a practice and a collection of tools (Kaynak, 2003; Linderman, Schroeder, Zaheer, &

Choo, 2003). These consist of a range of activities, including the systematic, statistical

analysis of operational processes to improve consistency, leadership, training and

employee relations, amongst others (Powell, 1995). From this perspective, QI could be

conceptualised as improvements made at a higher level put in place to support operational

improvement (Jones, Parast, & Adams, 2010). Such changes may reflect an organisation

changing or learning about their environment in order to improve performance by better

meeting the needs of their customers. Baxter and Hirschhauser (2004) even state that

‘quality improvement initiatives can be construed as a form of organizational learning’

(p. 222), with Freiesleben and Schwarz (2006) stating learning as a core pillar of QI.

Improvements made to policies and procedures may then result in greater customer

focus and strategic alignment, which can provide firms with a competitive advantage

(De Mast, 2006; Schroeder, Linderman, Liedtke, & Choo, 2008). With careful exploration

of the definition of the term quality, it is possible to appreciate its numerous facets, and the

direction it provides practitioners in terms of what the outcome of improvement activities

might look like. Table 2 summarises the different dimensions of QI with associated

sources.

2.2. Continuous improvement

Again, starting with a literal explanation of continuous1, it is described as unceasing

and without end; an unbroken series or pattern and another term for progressive.

Thus in regard to CI, the first notion of without end implies an ongoing and future

orientation of improvement activities. The second notion of patterns implies that

work has happened and appropriate organisational artefacts can be recovered to demon-

strate the fact. The last notion of progressive enriches the point of without end by

Total Quality Management 5

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suggesting that improvement efforts may well be ongoing; however, they also need to

be progressive, which may consist of not repeating errors, and engaging in cumulative

improvement.

Sanchez and Blanco (2013) reflect on how CI has evolved over the course of three

decades and the critical role it plays in modern business to allow firms to compete. This

is consistent with strategic management research and concepts that highlight the need

for firms to continually improve in order to remain competitive within a dynamic environ-

ment (Anand et al., 2009; Teece, Pisano, & Shuen, 1997). The first notion of ongoing and

future orientation is implied by Chen, Li, and Shady (2010) who describe CI as the ‘con-

tinuous identification and elimination of waste’ (p. 1070) and ‘a series of small, strategic

improvements’ (p. 1071). Similarly Delbridge and Barton (2002) suggest that firms which

‘proactively and continually seek out and solve problems’ (p. 681) are engaging in CI. An

interesting parallel can then be drawn from the pattern notion of CI and learning, with

Garvin (1993) stating that CI requires a commitment to learning. This view is consistent

with Sanchez and Blanco (2013), who stated that in order for improvement to become con-

tinuous at an organisational level, improvement activities cannot be independent. Bessant

and Francis (1999) provide further detail, by stating that CI enables OL, allowing firms to

reinvent themselves.

CI is considered the aim of many improvement initiatives (Furterer & Elshennawy,

2005; Green, 2006), in terms of progressing towards organisational goals and achieving

fit with the external environment. In this sense, such improvements can be seen as delib-

erate, where they are driven by the need to reach particular targets, goals or strategies, or

more emergent and inductive as emphasised in lean quality circles and data-driven initiat-

ives (Koksa, Batmaz, & Testik, 2011).

Building upon these notions of CI, organisation-wide change and coordinated

improvements highlight the need to integrate improvement activities. This is consistent

with Boer et al. (2000, cited in Jørgensen, Boer, & Gertsen, 2003, p. 1260), who stated

CI was ‘the planned, organized and systematic process of ongoing, incremental and

company-wide change of existing practices aimed at improving company performance’.

This definition highlights two further aspects that need to be accounted for within CI:

Firstly, the notion of progression through systematic changes to existing practices and

organisational policies. Such policies have been identified within work on Six Sigma, as

what differentiates it from Total Quality Management (TQM) (Zu et al., 2008) and

what assists isolated improvements in becoming continuous and organisation wide

(Anand et al., 2009; Harry & Schroeder, 2000).

Table 2. Dimensions of quality improvement.

Dimension Source

Tangible improvements Collins English Dictionary, Garvin (1988)Changes as response to a customer complaint or

change in requirementCollins English Dictionary, Li and Rajagopalan

(1997)Changes to product features Collins English Dictionary, Green (2006)Reduce cost of quality Adam et al. (2001), Harry and Schroeder (2000)Reduce number of defects Adam et al. (2001), Koksal (2004), Hales et al.

(2006), Kumar et al. (2008)Conformance to specification Adam et al. (2001), Koksal (2004)Customer satisfaction Adam et al. (2001), Lee et al. (2013)Improvements to policies and procedures De Mast (2006), Anand et al. (2009)

6 R.L. Matthews and P.E. Marzec

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Secondly, policies can provide a foundation on which firms are able to build particular

organisational contexts that promote the necessary improvement behaviours at an individ-

ual level (Choo, Linderman, & Schroeder, 2007a). Such contexts or organisational cultures

can help to embed individual behaviours that drive CI (Poksinska, Swartling, & Drotz,

2013; Sousa & Aspinwall, 2010) and ensure that improvement initiatives are not affected

by staff turnover (Furterer & Elshennawy, 2005). Culture oriented towards and supportive

of CI has also been identified as key in promoting knowledge creation from improvement

activities (Choo et al., 2007a; Jones et al., 2010). From broader management literature,

knowledge creation has been stated as the primary means through which firms create a sus-

tainable competitive advantage (Dierickx & Cool, 1989; Grant, 1996), important for

solving more complex organisational problems (Nair, Malhotra, & Ahire, 2011) and

found to contribute to improvement performance (Choo, Linderman, & Schroeder,

2007b). Table 3 summarises the different dimensions of CI with associated source

literature.

Although unceasing, patterns and progressive seem to encapsulate the essence of CI,

the ‘what’, in terms of both the output and the operational characteristics of CI, is notice-

ably missing. Reflecting back on the section on QI provides some direction for the output

of improvement activities, whether in terms of performance or conformance (Garvin,

1988). This omission is reflected in work focusing on CI that overlooks the key role of

QI and PI in achieving CI (Evans, 2010; Sanchez & Blanco, 2013). Without knowing

what to improve, pursuing CI would appear to be difficult, reflected in the difficulties

firms experience in pursuing CI initiatives (Pay, 2008). Chakravorty (2009) effectively

illustrates this issue, when presenting a model for the implementation Six Sigma:

The problem is that managers waste their time in adopting the newest improvement tool, usingconsultants, and spending very little time in driving process improvement from the bottom.(Chakravorty, 2009, p. 9)

In spite of this, CI has been outlined as an aim of modern enterprises and has formed the

basis of a considerable stream of research (Sanchez and Blanco, 2013). However, the

result of this lack of direction raises questions concerning what operational measures to

improve, what tools to apply or how best to integrate CI activities within the organisation

in order to sustain them (Sousa & Aspinwall, 2010) and create a competitive advantage

(De Mast, 2006). The following explores the nature of PI, and illustrates how PI may

play an important role within both QI and CI. Critically, within the following section,

PI will be presented as a deliberate operations practice, and not simply an outcome of

Table 3. Dimensions of continuous improvement.

Dimension Source

Ongoing (future orientation) Collins English Dictionary, Chen et al. (2010),Delbridge and Barton (2002)

Patterns of evidence (past orientation) Collins English Dictionary, Baxter andHirschhauser (2004)

Progressive: Collins English Dictionary(1) Changes to existing processes, practices and

procedures1. Jørgensen et al. (2003), Anand et al. (2009),

Sanchez and Blanco (2013)(2) Improvements in firm performance 2. De Mast (2006), Choo et al. (2007a, 2007b)Embedding of continuous improvement into the

culture of an organisationChoo et al. (2007a), Sousa and Aspinwall (2010),

Poksinska et al. (2013)

Total Quality Management 7

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production experience that is often defined in terms of learning curve improvements

(Freiesleben & Schwarz, 2006; Li & Rajagopalan, 1998; Yelle, 1979).

2.3. Process improvement

The term process comes from the Latin processus, meaning an advancing1. Similar defi-

nitions support this, such as a series of natural developments, which results in an overall

change and a natural outgrowth or projection of a part or organism. On the other hand, a

process can refer to the ‘process of doing something’ for which the literal definitions seem

to fall into two camps. Firstly, this may represent an individual transformation process,

consistent with operations management (Slack, Brandon-Jones, & Johnston, 2013) – to

handle or prepare by a special method of manufacture or a series of actions or

changes; secondly, process as a method or sequence of steps, that is, a method of doing

or producing something; to perform operations on (data) in order to obtain the required

information. From this literal perspective, PI can entail three possible forms: efforts that

advance performance; efforts that improve some form of manufacturing system or a

method to guide improvement effort. This illustrates that PI can potentially take place

at a number of organisational levels.

Turning to operations management literature, the methods view is most obviously sup-

ported by the structured methods that are commonly associated with improvement initiat-

ives such as Six Sigma and TQM. For example, Schroeder et al. (2008) stated that ‘Six

Sigma uses a structured method for process improvement’ (p. 541). Jones et al. (2010) pre-

sented PI as the aim of Six Sigma, with Furterer and Elshennawy (2005) stating PI was

how improvements were made. Taking a broader view, Bhatt (2000) gave emphasis to

the aims of PI, which are ‘to make business processes – interrelated activities, procedures,

and behaviours – efficient, effective, and flexible’ (p. 1334). Terwiesch and Bohn (2001)

provide a more focused definition, where ‘process improvement corresponds to an

increased value of processing capability’ (p. 10) resulting in a reduction in process vari-

ation. While this final definition gives focus to types of activities that PI consists of, De

Mast (2006, p. 457) highlights that ‘optimization cannot be subsumed under conformance’

that quickly reaches a limit in the benefits they provide. Providing an alternate perspective,

Matthews, Tan and Marzec (2015) emphasise the need for firms to engage in both confor-

mance and more exploratory forms of improvement activities. Notwithstanding the need

for more concise definitions of PI, there is considerable agreement between the literal defi-

nitions and definitions used within operations management, which give focus to the ‘what’

(operational processes), ‘how’ (structured methodologies) and ‘why’ of PI (improvements

in performance). Table 4 presents evidence on how the dimensions of PI relate to specific

sources of the literature.

Table 4. Dimensions of process improvement.

Dimension Source

Advancing Collins English Dictionary, Terwiesch and Bohn (2001),The process of doing (manufacture) Collins English Dictionary, Bhatt (2000),

Harry and Schroeder (2000)The process of doing (method) Collins English Dictionary, Six Sigma,

TQM, Schroeder et al. (2008)Outcome of the use of quality

management tools and techniquesAnand et al. (2009), Jones et al. (2010),

Lee et al. (2013)

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3. Exploring the relationships between improvement terms

By focusing on the three improvement terms individually, the previous section divorced

itself from discussing their overlap. In doing so, the distinguishing attributes of QI, CI

and PI were identified, providing evidence for there being three separate areas of research.

While each of the improvement terms focuses attention on particular aspects of oper-

ational improvement, the following section begins to explore the overlaps between

these improvement terms. By initially reanalysing the data presented in Table 1 and

Figure 1, it is possible to identify the extent to which literature draws from more than

one term simultaneously, or whether the terms are used in isolation. Table 5 illustrates

that compared to the number of articles referring to each of the improvement terms,

only a limited proportion refers to more than one term within the title, abstract and key-

words, with the majority (over 90%) of papers referring to only one term.

At face value, the proportion of papers referring to more than one term would appear

insignificant; however, the key concern, as the introduction highlights, is the blurring in

the definitions of the terms, the apparent common outcomes and goals of each improve-

ment term and the limited attention-giving in explicitly distinguishing between them.

Table 5, therefore, helps direct attention to those unique studies that can provide transpar-

ency between the terms and aid in deconstructing the overlap. Exploring the overlap will

make it possible to determine the logical relationships between the different terms from the

evidence available. The following section examines the overlap of these terms, presents

research propositions related to the relationships and in doing so, identifies OL as a

theory with potential to provide the necessary underpinning to discussions to support

the integration of all three improvement terms. Discussions on OL will provide a foun-

dation on which to present a conceptual model of operational improvement.

3.1. Continuous and process improvement

Several studies have intertwined the terms CI and PI. Anand et al. (2009) defined CI as

‘actively and repeated making process improvements’ (p. 444). Oliver (2009) provided

an alternative perspective, considering effective PI as a measure of performance resulting

from CI. Integrating the terms within their discussions, Li and Rajagopalan (2008) present

continuous PI which ‘advocates firms to invest continuously to improve their production

processes’ (p. 61). Wiklund and Wiklund (2002) supported this view, stating focus needs

Table 5. Use of multiple improvement terms 1991–2014.

JournalPI &CI

PI &QI

CI &QI

PI & CI &QI

Management Science 1 7 2 1International Journal of Operations & Production

Management4 1 1 0

International Journal of Production Economics 2 5 2 1International Journal of Production Research 3 2 2 0Journal of Operations Management 2 0 0 0Production and Operations Management 0 0 1 0International Journal of Quality and Reliability

Management4 3 7 0

Total Quality Management and Business Excellence 5 3 11 0Total 20 22 26 2

Total Quality Management 9

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to be given to improving the process themselves, or the ‘methods needed for continuous

improvement’ (p. 238). To consolidate these approaches and integrate these improvement

terms and to clarify the overlap, Bateman and Rich’s (2003) work on CI and PI suggests

that:

the difference in the two approaches concerns the length of time over which the improvementactivity is focused, with continuous improvement taking place over a comparatively longerduration whilst process improvement interventions happen in the short term. (p. 186)

Exploring this conflict from the definitions presented in section 2, we see that a key

element of CI is its ongoing nature, while PI is concerned with application of particular

methodologies in the short-term in an effort to improve process characteristics. Therefore,

we are in agreement with Anand et al. (2009) who viewed sustained PI efforts resulting in

CI, or that CI is operationalised through ongoing PI efforts. Consistency with this view is

also found in the similarity between CI advocating progression and PI endorsing advance-

ment, which leads to the presentation of the first and second research propositions.

Proposition 1. PI leads to localised short-term advancement in operational performance

Proposition 2. Ongoing PI efforts are required to achieve CI

From this position, there is a need for the coordination and alignment of isolated, short-

term PI activities, in order to ensure they achieve the long-term aims of a CI initiative.

Sanchez and Blanco (2013) stated that improvement activities could not take place inde-

pendently if the aim was to achieve CI. CI in organisational performance can, thus, only be

realised if PI is directed and coordinated towards appropriate organisational aims. Such

direction and alignment could be in terms of a PI process or policy, to structure and

direct PI behaviour. This need for alignment thus resounds with Drucker’s famous

quote ‘There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at

all’ (cited in Zhang, Hill, Schroeder, & Linderman, 2008). A requirement of the selection

criteria is a need to align PI policies with the requirements of the operational environment.

Consequently, the rate of improvements to the PI policy should reflect the dynamism of the

operating environment (Anand et al., 2009; Eisenhardt & Martin, 2000). From a Six Sigma

perspective, this might require the adaptation of improvement approaches to reflect the

problem at hand, such as how problems are prioritised to reflect the needs of the CI initiat-

ive (Anand et al., 2009; Choo et al., 2007a; Linderman, Schroeder, & Choo, 2006;

Wiklund and Wiklund 2002), which leads to the following research propositions:

Proposition 3. The accumulation of PI efforts that lead to changes in policies fosters further PIefforts, promoting the achievement of CI

Proposition 4. CI via PI aligned with organisational aims leads to long-term advancements inoperational performance

3.2. Process and quality improvement

The overlap between PI and QI primarily extends from the notion that improved quality

can be defined as an outcome of PI. Bhatt (2000) suggested that ‘the aims in the

process improvement initiatives are to eliminate waste, i.e. scrap, rework, returned

goods, cost of warranties, settling customer claim, and other redundant activities’ and

that ‘process improvement initiatives can be categorized into: defect prevention, improve-

ment actions, and cost of quality deficiencies’ (p. 1335). Consequently, Bhatt (2000)

adopts a product-conformance view of quality (Garvin, 1988) and its association to PI.

However, while De Mast (2006, p. 457) stated QI was the aim of Six Sigma, he also

stated that such behaviour, focused on conformance, could not provide a firm with a

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competitive advantage. While ensuring a tangible link with the end users, product confor-

mance views may emphasise a reactive approach to QI. Li (2010) instead took an alterna-

tive ‘systems level’ view stating that ‘quality improvement often requires changes in

process conditions, such as product specifications, inspection plans and processing

methods’ (p. 884). A systems view of QI thus provides a context that promotes more fun-

damental changes to operational processes, more proactive and so more consistent with the

longer term, progressive orientation of PI. Such a view is consistent with a radical, or

breakthrough form of PI (Harry & Schroeder, 2000), process innovation (Schroeder,

1990), business process re-engineering (Hammer & Champy, 1993) or kaikaku

(Womack & Jones, 1996).

An alternative perspective of the QI/PI overlap is the conflict associated with the use of

tools and methodologies that are commonly associated with a traditional view of improve-

ment efforts (Linderman et al., 2006). This perspective is consistent with the statistical

foundation of the quality management movement (Garvin, 1988; Xu, 1999), which at

times has resulted in PI in quality control literature being defined as variation-reducing

activities (Terwiesch & Bohn, 2001; Williams, Tang, & Gong, 2000). With returns

from such forms of improvement diminishing overtime, the strategic role of PI within

quality management has tended to be overlooked (Garvin, 1988; Powell, 1995; Samson

& Terziovski, 1999). To counteract this argument, Choo et al. (2007a), Jones et al.

(2010) and Asif, de Vries, and Ahmad (2013) suggest that methods such as structured

problem- solving promote exploratory learning and knowledge creation, which increase

rather than reduce variation. The continued creation of knowledge has been stated as

being key to determining how firms compete and can enable improvement initiatives to

provide firms with a sustainable competitive advantage (De Mast, 2006).

Finally, QI policies may consist of auditing the Quality Management System, external

benchmarking (Harry & Schroeder, 2000; Sousa & Aspinwall, 2010) or generally getting

feedback from customers. Such activities represent proactive behaviours to identify

quality characteristics, which may include performance, conformance or features

(Garvin, 1988), that can initiate QI activities (Buavaraporn & Tannock, 2013). The acqui-

sition of such external information provides QI targets that drive PI activities that almost,

by definition, will be aligned with meeting the needs of the customer and orient organis-

ational systems towards the requirements of the external environment. In this way, audit-

ing policies and processes (of customer requirements or internal processes) provide

important information that can inform the selection and prioritisation of PI to achieve

QI that directly benefit customers. Thus, process auditing provides an additional source

of internally oriented information, assisting problem identification and definition to

ensure quality is correctly defined and PI behaviours add value to the end user. Based

upon the exploration of the overlap between PI and QI, the following propositions can

be proposed:

Proposition 5. QI policies support and direct the identification of PI opportunities

Proposition 6. QI tools support the systematic analysis of operational issues to support PI

Proposition 7. A balanced QI approach (increasing and reducing variation) promotes PI withshort- and longer-term benefits

3.3. Continuous and quality improvement

From the definitions presented in section 2, we suggest that QI is primarily concerned with

‘changes as a response to a customer complaint’ or ‘changes in requirement’ and CI as the

‘proactive identification and elimination of problems and waste’. In this sense, a

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distinction can be made that QI is seemingly reactive while CI is more proactive. Bessant

and Francis (1999) make a similar point when discussing how capabilities could evolve

from ad hoc improvement activities, represented here as reactive QI, to the more systema-

tic and strategically aligned, proactive approaches to CI.

Several studies have also used the term ‘continuous quality improvement’. Sousa and

Aspinwall (2010, p. 476) who built on the idea of ‘implementing a strategy for implement-

ing a continuous improvement programme . . . based on TQM and performance measure-

ment principles’ use the term ‘continuous quality improvement’ in reference to Deming’s

philosophy of ‘a continual drive toward process improvement, specifically focused on tar-

geting the mean and reducing the variation of the distribution of process output’ (p. 113).

Sabet, Adams, and Yazdani (2014) presented that TQM could enable ‘systematic and con-

tinuous quality improvement’ (p. 9), but requiring the integration of Six Sigma in order to

focus and sustain improvements. Sousa and Aspinwall (2010) provide a complementary

perspective, highlighting the role of performance measurement, in promoting, sustaining

and demonstrating QI activities. Notwithstanding both sides of the argument related to QI

and CI, our interpretation that particular QI practices support and direct PI subsequently

leads to CI that results in improvements in a range of quality characteristics. This argument

thus introduces PI as the means of improvement, relating QI practices to achieving CI,

again addressing the ‘what’ that translates the aims of improvement initiatives to CI

and ultimately competitive advantage. Consequently, we can present two further

propositions:

Proposition 8. Systematic QI practices facilitate the achievement of CI

Proposition 9. QI is related to CI through systematic PI

4. Organisational learning and operational improvement

The above discussions highlight there are links present within the literature on how the

different terms relate to one another. However, due to the very limited number of

papers that draw all three of the terms together, existing literature does not provide

insight on their integration. Within discussions on the terms in isolation and in combi-

nation, OL has emerged as a concept that relates improvement terms together and

improvement terms to organisational outcomes. The use of OL within this discussion

has been given further support by Amundson (1998) who identified OL as an appropriate

theory for use in operations management, calling for research that explore ‘how OL occurs

through process improvement’ (p. 351). OL represents an organisation’s ability to accept

information and knowledge from internal (auditing) or external sources (benchmarking),

adapt it to internal requirements and change behaviour to account for the newly acquired

knowledge (Huber, 1991). OL moves away from autonomous learning curve conceptual-

isations of improvements (Li & Rajagopalan, 1998), emphasising that improvements are

not simply the result of operational experience, but can be deliberately changed and sup-

ported by management (Barkema & Schijven, 2008). Specifically relevant to PI, Fiol and

Lyles (1985, p. 803) stated that learning was ‘a process of improving action through better

knowledge and understanding’, which complements Asif et al. (2013, p. 668) who stated

PI was a ‘knowledge oriented function’. Table 6 provides specific excerpts from the litera-

ture related to the link between the OL and the three improvement terms.

The key contribution in our identification of OL as an underpinning theory to QI, CI

and PI is that it provides a framework needed to support their integration. More so, in

recent years, operations management has begun to critically reflect on its development

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and is increasingly accepting the role of organisational theories to supplement home-

grown theories of operations management. Schroeder (2008) stated that without the use

of a consistent theoretical framework, operation management research may tend

towards ‘raw empiricisms or data-dredging’ (p. 354), which Schmenner et al. (2009)

suggest inhibits cumulative research and development of the field. To address this limit-

ation and provide support for the integration of the improvements terms, OL provides

an appropriate theoretical lens through which to analyse operational improvement. The

selection of OL over alternate theoretical perspectives is provided further support by

Amundson (1998), stating that OL theory ‘exhibit[s] many characteristics ideally suited

to integration with important issues in OM [operations management]’ (p. 351).

Table 6 provides evidence relating operational improvement terms to OL. By explor-

ing the nature of OL, it contributes a framework that can provide additional evidence for

linking the three improvement terms together. OL also provides additional support for the

inclusion of deliberate improvement behaviours and the alignment of operational improve-

ment activities with organisational aims. These discussions provide the foundation for two

overarching research propositions:

Proposition 10. Operational improvement practices provide a mechanism and structure withwhich firms can undergo OL

Proposition 11. Firms that exhibit strong improvement capabilities also possess strong OLcapabilities

Table 6. OL in operational improvement.

Improvement term Exert Source

Qualityimprovement

‘for organizations considering a move towards TQM,organizational learning can hardly be ignored’(p. 145)

Hill, Hazlett, andMeegan (2001)

‘Quality improvement is inherently a learning andknowledge-based activity that emphasizes learningand knowledge creation’ (p. 918)

Choo et al. (2007a)

‘Effectiveness criteria such as organizational learning. . . should be assessed in the companiesimplementing TQM’ (p. 429)

Kaynak (2003)

Continuousimprovement

‘In particular, the focus was on the investigation of therole of organizational learning to supportcontinuous improvement’ (p. 547)

Oliver (2009)

‘continuous improvement requires a commitment tolearning’ (p. 78)

Garvin (1993)

‘Without organizational learning there can be nocontinuous improvement’ (p. 236)

Wiklund andWiklund (2002)

‘The potential for CI to become an enablingmechanism in organisational learning is only nowbecoming recognised’ (p. 1107)

Bessant and Francis(1999)

Processimprovement

‘Six Sigma is an organized and systematic method forstrategic process improvement’ (p. 195)

Linderman et al.(2003)

‘Six Sigma is an organizational learning process andone that results in greater knowledge’ (p. 549)

Schroeder et al.(2008)

‘OM can contribute a detailed understanding ofprocesses, methods of measuring processproductivity and improvement . . . that aid inunderstanding how processes embody OL and howOL occurs through process improvement’ (p. 351)

Amundson (1998)

Total Quality Management 13

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4.1. Integrating QI, CI and PI through the lens of organisational learning

Drawing from section 2, QI focused primarily on the nature of the output and the use of

particular quality management tools necessary to explore and develop solutions in order

to achieve improvements. CI focused upon the need to repeatedly undertake improvements

to operational processes in order to promote CI of process outputs in order to achieve

organisational aims and create a competitive advantage. Finally, PI focused upon not

only the specific operational processes that translate inputs to outputs, but also changes

to improvement policies and methods. Exploring the overlaps of these different terms,

further understanding is provided to the separate roles of the three improvement terms.

Consistent with Anand et al. (2009), CI is achieved through repeatedly making PI. A

similar perspective can be taken to viewing the intersection of QI and PI, where quality

management practices are applied to operational processes in order to identify and

achieve PI across a range of customer-oriented criteria (Garvin, 1988). Finally, as illus-

trated by Table 5, the relationship between QI and CI is more established, with quality pro-

viding the necessary criteria against which CI is made.

Figure 2 illustrates a conceptual model of operational improvement terms, their

relationships with one another and their contribution of organisational performance. Start-

ing from the left of the model, QI activities are used to identify operational issues or oppor-

tunities (auditing and benchmarking) and apply quality management tools to develop an

understanding resulting in changes to operational processes (PI). The nature of PI will

be determined by the nature of the opportunity or operational issue identified. Conse-

quently, the outputs of PI will be defined in terms of the quality criteria used to identify

the opportunity, delivering improvements in terms of the quality criteria if the PI is suc-

cessful. For example, a non-conforming part may initiate a reduction in process variation.

In comparison, a change in customer requirement may result in a totally redesigned

process or product. Depending on whether quality management practices are repeated

and PI occurs frequently, PI may also result in CI.

The interaction between and feedback from the different forms of improvement are

reflective of the multi-level nature of OL (Amundson, 1998). This synthesis of operational

improvement and OL we term operational organisational learning. Depending on how

quality outcomes feed into group discussions and result in changes to organisational pro-

cedures will determine the strength of relationships between the different terms. For

Figure 2. Linking QI, PI and CI.

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example, how the isolated identification of an improvement opportunity is realised at an

organisational level (emergent improvements) or how management instructions are realised

through changes in group and individual behaviours (top-down improvement) will have a

significant impact on the outputs of improvement activities. These processes both represent

important operational improvement and OL activities. Critically, within the operational OL

element of the framework, attention needs to be given to how QI and PI activities result in

changes to organisational processes to enable progression and allow improvements to

become continuous. However, while operational organisational learning may be able to

support an organisation to change and develop in the short-term, improvement activities

also need to be strategically oriented, to support longer term improvements.

Porter (1980) and Treacy and Wiersema (1993) proposed specific organisational

strategies, stating their pursuit resulted in improved organisational performance.

However, Thornhill and White (2007) later illustrated that within specific organisational

environments, particular strategies (product or cost leadership) are more appropriate.

Consequently, it is necessary for organisational procedures and policies to be aligned

with the competitive environment in order to create a competitive advantage (Eisenhardt

& Martin, 2000). For example, some industries may give greater emphasis on price-based

competition, requiring greater attention on cost- and waste-reducing policies, compared to

other companies which need to give more attention to innovation and the development of

new technologies. To ensure that improvement activities are aligned with the aims of the

organisation and the organisational environment, operations strategies and improvement

policies need to direct improvements in an appropriate manner to realise the desired

outcomes. The ability to change how firms pursue improvements will then determine

whether a firm can undergo deliberate, organisational change or strategic renewal, what

we term strategic organisational learning to maintain fit with a changing organisational

environment.

The need to focus on different types of improvement is not always acknowledged within

operational improvement initiatives, which are frequently associated with making cost

savings, suggesting that competitive advantage is primarily realised through a cost leader-

ship strategy. Combining this situation with the findings of Thornhill and White (2007),

within environments where innovation or creativity plays a greater role in creating a com-

petitive advantage, without careful direction, improvement initiatives such as Six Sigma

may adversely affect firm performance (Tyler & Wilkinson, 2007). For example, Tidd

and Bessant (2009, p. 592) present 3 M as a firm widely regarded as innovative, whose per-

formance suffered following the implementation of Six Sigma. This reflects a key misinter-

pretation of the original work that states ‘being better is cheaper’ (Harry & Schroeder, 2000,

p. 28), compared to a cost leadership strategy that believes ‘being cheaper is better’. This

limitation is accounted for in Figure 2 by acknowledging that strategic OL activities that

direct and inform QI, PI and CI need to be defined in terms of both cost reduction (the refin-

ing of existing processes) and product leadership (the exploration of new processes). Such

attention to different forms of improvement is becoming known as ‘ambidextrous process

improvement’ that balances attention between cost reduction and more innovative activities

(Matthews et al., 2015). Without such a balance to ensure that operational improvement

activities match the requirements of the operational environment, a firm is more likely to

have difficulties in creating and sustaining a competitive advantage through operational

improvement. This leads to the final research proposition:

Proposition 12. Organisational learning and operational improvements can be combinedthrough strategic organisational learning, which balances internal/refining learning, andexternal/exploratory learning to maintain fit between improvement efforts and goals

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Building upon this perspective, the relationship between strategic alignment of operational

improvement activities has been theoretically justified and empirically validated

(Schroeder et al., 2008; Zhang et al., 2008, respectively). While attention has been

given in previous discussions to customer requirements, organisational strategies need

to inform selection criteria and performance measures when choosing from a portfolio

of improvement opportunities. Without appropriate alignment of operational improvement

measures, the implementation of measurement systems may adversely impact improve-

ment behaviours (Chakravorty, 2009; Tidd & Bessant, 2009). Critically, this may

require more complex performance measurement systems able to capture changes in per-

ceptual measures of performance, exploration of future demand or direct attention to

improvements in product design that are valued by the customer (Garvin, 1988). The

inclusion of such elements will ensure that the improvement selection criteria will initiate

improvements that are valued by customers and promote longer term improvements. This

will ensure that improvement efforts are not only focused upon cost reduction or confor-

mance quality activities that may only be able to provide a short-term competitive advan-

tage (De Mast, 2006).

5. Research limitations

By drawing from relevant literature, this paper has explored the key differences between 3

widely used improvement terms. A limitation of the study is that it could have explored

more improvement terms, such as ‘performance’ or ‘operational’ improvement. These

terms were not included for a number of reasons. Both give insufficient focus to direct

investigation, with performance focusing on the output of activities, and operational pro-

viding an umbrella term. Figure 2 shows how both terms related to the three selected

improvement terms. Additionally, product improvement was not included within the

study. Product improvements can result in significant improvements in quality and

process conformity (Harry & Schroeder, 2000); however, due to their larger scale, they

are not considered to fall wholly within the domain of operations management.

A second limitation of the study is that a greater quantity of literature could have been

reviewed and analysed qualitatively or quantitatively (see Jones & Gatrell, 2014). The

current study instead chose to emphasise the exploration of the literal meaning of the

terms and relate them to discussions within the literature. Rather than drawing wholly

from existing operations management definitions, the work has helped unearth why it

may not be appropriate for using these terms interchangeably. Further systematic

reviews, meta-analyses or co-citation analyses on these terms would, however, provide

interesting avenues for further research.

6. Conclusions

Reflecting on the previous discussions, PI, rather than QI and CI, has been identified as a

key area of focus within operations management. This is consistent with Anand, Ward, and

Tatikonda (2010, p. 304), who stated that ‘process improvement is central to Operations

Management’, highlighting PI as the primary topic, on which practitioners and researchers

need to focus their attention. However, this does not mean QI and CI should be over-

looked, but highlights the need to appreciate how QI and CI are realised through effective

and strategically aligned PI.

This work also highlights that without focused research or direction to practitioners,

inconsistencies while implementing improvement initiatives may create problems, for

16 R.L. Matthews and P.E. Marzec

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example, implementing CI tools, without appropriate focus upon operational processes.

Alternatively, focus may be given to the variation-reducing approaches to PI without

aligning improvements with the strategic aims of the organisation, informed by different

dimensions of quality. Research, such as Anand et al. (2009), begins to address this

problem, by defining CI in terms of PI, with tools and training that make up Six Sigma

providing mechanisms for structuring and directing PI. The presented research prop-

ositions thus provide a starting point for exploring the relationships between the different

improvement terms, while providing practitioners direction when engaging in operational

improvement activities.

From a foundation of the three underlying terms, OL has been identified as a theoreti-

cal perspective from which to view operational improvement activities. OL provided a

foundation from which to explore the relationships between the different terms and sup-

ported the integration of a number of research propositions to direct further research.

The result was a conceptual model (Figure 2) that related the improvement terms to one

another and to two forms of OL, providing a model oriented towards assisting practitioners

in attaining organisational goals in terms of achieving short- and long-term organisational

aims. The model offers direction on how to initiate improvement activities (audits and

non-conformance), how the activities become embedded at an organisational level (pro-

cedures) and awareness of the need to balance different forms of improvement activities

(refining and exploratory forms of learning). This offers those implementing improvement

initiatives choices that may be able to account for firm-level differences that can affect a

firm’s willingness and ability to engage in particular improvement activities. The model

also provides understanding of the different organisational levels at which the improve-

ment activities take place. With PI involving individual operators, they occurred at a

lower level of the organisation than CI which is achieved at an organisational level. Con-

sequently, unless managers implementing operational improvement provide support to the

different levels of activities, there is an increased likelihood that difficulties will be experi-

enced, and benefits will not be realised by the organisation.

Overall, this paper has presented the constituent parts of QI, CI and PI, how they relate

to one another and how they may in turn affect short- and long-term performance. Rather

than doing this from the base of an improvement framework, such as Six Sigma or TQM,

the proposed model is based on key improvement practices. This provides new insight,

compared to the repeated presentation of broadly similar Six Sigma implementation

models (Chakravorty, 2009; Jones et al., 2010; Krueger, Parast, & Adams, 2014; Schroe-

der et al., 2008, amongst others). From a position of greater understanding, further

research can begin to explore PI’s role in firms’ ability to achieve CI and explore its

impact on firm performance. To further develop the presented model, additional work

on measurement constructs is required in order to more effectively capture the complex

methodological and contextual aspects of PI. Extant constructs such as Wolff and Pett

(2006), Powell (1995) and those listed by Roth, Schroeder, Huang, and Kristal (2008)

appear to miss many critical aspects of PI, such as its-multi level nature.

This limitation is reflected by research on Six Sigma. While researching a concept with

PI at its core, research gives greater attention to the role of goals (Linderman et al., 2006),

tools (Anand et al., 2010), project selection (Zhang et al., 2008) or knowledge creation

(Asif et al., 2013; Choo et al., 2007a), amongst others, rather than exploring the holistic

nature of PI. While this view reflects Kumar, Antony, Madu, Montgomery, and Park

(2008), who stated that ‘Six Sigma is not just about statistics’ (p. 882), PI can also be

appreciated as more than the rigid application of quality management tools. The

Total Quality Management 17

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development of such constructs may assist in further developing the understanding of PI

that is not necessarily defined by particular improvement initiatives.

In order to develop robust and relevant measurement constructs, further exploratory,

qualitative research is needed to unpack PI activities, potentially through case study-based

research methods. This will allow the exploration of the relevance of the presented research

propositions. While the current work focused upon unpacking terms based on subtle nuances

between similar terms, it has highlighted the important differences between terms that are at

times used interchangeably. In summary, this paper has drawn together three of the main

terms of operational improvement used within operations management. From the ideas pre-

sented and by attempting to develop agreement of these terms that are central to operations

management, it should be possible to more consistently accumulate knowledge relevant to

both operations management theory and operations management practice.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Note

1. Collins English Dictionary.

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