Purpose – To provide an overview of the history, evolution, and existing research on continuous improvement. Design/methodology/approach – Extensive review of the literature. Findings – This paper provides an overview of continuous improvement, its inception, how it evolved into...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a continuous improvement methodology developed in an aerospace company that is successfully being used by other companies in various industries. Design/methodology/approach – A case study was undertaken at a medium‐sized aerospace company...

This paper explores the linkages between key features of the new product development (NPD) process and NPD performance and suggests ways of designing the process to improve performance. Using a stochastic computer model, we examine, under varying uncertainty conditions, how the key features of...

The Sequential Probability Ratio Test (SPRT) control chart is a powerful tool for monitoring manufacturing processes. It is highly suitable for the applications where testing is destructive or very expensive, such as the automobile airbags test. This article studies the effect of the Average...

Presents the findings of an empirical study conducted on Canadian firms on the latest version of the ISO9000 standard, ISO9001:2000, which takes a process‐based approach to quality management systems. The study focuses on the difficulties faced by firms and attempts to determine the...

Purpose – This paper aims to present the findings of a case study conducted at ABC Structures (pseudonym), which is a small North American manufacturing company that has spent close to one year working on implementing the ISO 9000 standard. The main obstacles faced by ABC during implementation...