ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses Deming's fifth point: improve constantly and forever every activity in the company, to improve quality and productivity and thus constantly decrease costs. A certain delicacy attaches itself to this point: to suggest improvement is to imply inadequacy. To say things could be better is to state that things are not as good as they might be. To recommend change is to criticize implicitly the status quo. In the majority of enterprises, and especially so in the higher performers, there exists no opposition at all to Deming’s Fifth Point. In these organizations ‘continuous improvement’ is seen to be one of the honing-stones used to whet the competitive edge. The chapter illustrates the application of the precepts of Deming's fifth point by presenting an example of a client company that makes things out of black rubber.
