Continuous Improvement Playbook: Sticking Points, New Tools and the Pursuit of Excellence
If you are looking for a finish line, continuous improvement is not the right playing field on which to seek satisfaction. Great gains are possible, and incremental improvements have a home, but so, too, do stumbles and backsliding.
What is entirely absent is a finish line. Continuous improvement doesn’t end or hang up its cleats. It powers forward, although not necessarily in a perfectly straight line or with impeccable cadence. It also values learning experiences.
Throughout 2025 IndustryWeek and its contributors presented a wealth of learning on continuous improvement topics, from lean manufacturing and teamwork to the emergence of AI as a new continuous improvement tool. We’ve gathered standout contributions from each quarter and challenge you to grab all the nuggets of wisdom you can to advance your pursuit of continuous improvement.
January – March: A Kaizen Start to 2025
The year launched with a blend of the known and unknown. IW community members showed interest in how artificial intelligence would impact continuous improvement even as they showed ongoing respect for a long-time lean practice: kaizen.
The Real Meaning of Kaizen: One of the most powerful shifts you can make is moving from being the sole problem-solver to empowering others to solve problems.
Lessons in Continuous Improvement in 2024: Failures, Fixes and Did You Consider This?
Kaizen, Lean and AI for Manufacturing Operational Excellence: Production Pulse: Continuous improvement experts shared how they'd use modern tools to bring manufacturing intelligence to the shop floor, getting the right tools in front of the people doing the work.
April – June: Unlocking Performance Excellence
Three articles captured readers’ attention during 2025’s second quarter, and all of them address continuous improvement challenges: unlocking performance, rebooting excellence, and avoiding the backslide.
Unlocking Super Performance Through Gemba Walks: True clarity comes from directly engaging with the shop floor, where value creation coexists with real challenges.
Rebooting Operational Excellence at Barry-Wehmiller: Model plants, earning credibility and leaning into speed of improvement as a powerful tool for operational excellence.
How Do We Make Lean Stick? Four Essentials for Lasting Change: A look at the principles, behaviors, motivators, and enablers that are key to a continuous-improvement culture transformation.
July – September: Leaning Into Teams and AI
Let’s face it — manufacturing is about people and, usually, teams of people. It’s also about technology. In the third quarter, IW and its contributors shared how both people and technology drive continuous improvement.
How Toyota and Other Lean Cultures Are Leading With AI: Continuous improvement and respect for people are the true drivers of the technology.
Podcast: Unlocking Team Success: Setting Team Goals: Goals don't always drive progress and can actually hinder team success. Learn strategies to foster improved outcomes.
GE Appliances Practices Lean Technology Strategy: Updating lines with robotics, metrology, AGVs and AMRs to boost accuracy, efficiency and safety.
October – December: Marvelous Manufacturing
Our 2025 IndustryWeek Best Plants winners attracted a crowd in the fourth quarter of 2025, as did the wisdom of well-known thought leader Dr. W. Edwards Deming. ‘Transformation’ was the word of the quarter.
Podcast: Dr. Deming's ‘Wake-up Call’ for Unwilling Management: Hosts Dr. Mohamed Saleh and John Dyer explore Deming’s second point for management transformation, which they say takes aim at management and leaders who persist in pursuing outdated practices rather than evolve.
Bringing AI Into a Lean Transformation: Where to Start: The framework should be deliberate and testable, just like any kaizen activity.
Meet the 2025 IndustryWeek Best Plants Award Winners: Marvelous Manufacturers: Celebrate manufacturing excellence with the 35th class of IW Best Plants honorees, models of what is possible with the right combination of teamwork, leadership and a “we will do it” attitude.
About the Author
Jill Jusko
Bio: Jill Jusko is executive editor for IndustryWeek. She has been writing about manufacturing operations leadership for more than 20 years. Her coverage spotlights companies that are in pursuit of world-class results in quality, productivity, cost and other benchmarks by implementing the latest continuous improvement and lean/Six-Sigma strategies. Jill also coordinates IndustryWeek’s Best Plants Awards Program, which annually salutes the leading manufacturing facilities in North America.
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