Which process involves ongoing efforts to enhance products, services, or processes?

Continuous improvement refers to an ongoing effort to enhance products, services, or processes over time. This concept is integral to various manufacturing and business practices, aiming not only to make incremental improvements but also to foster an environment where innovation and efficiency are encouraged.

It emphasizes the need to regularly evaluate and refine operations, which can lead to increased quality, reduced waste, and better alignment with customer needs. Tools such as Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycles, Lean methodologies, and Six Sigma are often employed within the framework of continuous improvement to systematically identify and address issues.

Quality assurance, while important, focuses more on ensuring that processes are set up to meet predefined standards and specifications rather than on the ongoing enhancement aspect. Quality control is primarily concerned with the inspection and testing of products at specific points in the production process to ensure they meet quality standards. Benchmarking is the practice of comparing processes and performance metrics to industry standards or best practices, which can be part of a continuous improvement strategy, but does not inherently involve the ongoing enhancement aspect.