Continual vs. Continuous

[James Robert Crow <jr1crow@mindspring.com>]

Hello Group:

I would suggest that Roger Key go back and consult his Deming regarding
continuous vs. continual.  The Transformatio will in fact be discontinuous,
in other words continual.  You may continuously work at the transformation
or for that matter process improvement, but the results will be
discontinuous.  You will have major bread throughs which can result in
dramatic change and improvement, and then you may go through a period where
very little change occures.

There may be times when for competitive reasons you need to make major
break throughs to achieve a competitive advantage or to simply keep up with
the competition.

I have an exercise I do with groups.  Take a small ball or for that matter
a pair of socks rolle up in a ball.  Have the group pass them from persom
until the ball returns to the person with whome it originated.  Time the
result, and begin a run chart.  Now have the group repeat the exercise,
doing it exactly the same way.  Time the result and record it on your run
chart.  Do this a third time.
Now allow the group to rearrance itself and brainstorm the best way to
reduce the time required.  Time their effort and record the result.  Do
this again, once again allowing the group complete freedom of design.  Time
and record the result.  Do this a third time.

What you will usually see is the difference between continuous and
continual improvement.  The first three times in which you repeated exactly
the same process will usually result in slow but steady improvement.  The
forth time will usually see a dramatic improvement, as will the 5th and
sixth, but their improvement will not normally be as great as the 4th.  

What you see is that by simply repeating the same process, you can gain
some improvement.  This could be the result of asking a group of workers to
work harder, using the same process.

To gain a dramatic improvement you must change the process.  Only by
changing the process can you achieve the breakthrough performance needed to
gain a competitive advangage.
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