JANUARY 2021 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 31
sive, but also more convenient for customers.
Netflix improved continuously into a market
leadership position, toppling an industry giant
in the process. Ironically, in the early days of
Netflix, Blockbuster had a chance to buy the
company for $50 million, and passed. Today,
Netflix's reported annual income is more than
$20 billion.
But there is another lesson in the Blockbust-
er/Netflix story. Netflix not only adapted busi-
ness operations to be more competitive and
nimbler, but they also adopted innovations in
electronic distribution. Netflix went digital;
that changed everything. Netflix was able to
grow as it did because the company had al-
ready improved upon its business practices
continuously, so that when they went digital,
the efficiencies scaled.
The electronics manufacturing industry is
embarking on a transition to Industry 4.0, a
transition for us that is not unlike the Netflix
transition. To fully utilize their investment in
smart factory equipment, real-time data for
process control, and the benefits of the digital
twin, manufacturers must first ensure they are
automating optimized processes, then continu-
ously improve them.
With the tagline "X=X
c
– 1," we're repre-
senting the idea that incremental improve-
ments can happen at any level and need not
be large. I-Connect007 will devote regular at-
tention in 2021 to the ideas of continuous im-
provement—both incremental and large-scale.
PCB007
References
1, 5, 9. "How continuous improvement can build a
competitive edge" by Carolyn Dewar, Reed Doucette and
Blair Epstein, McKinsey & Company.
2, 7, 8, 10. "6 Principles of the Continuous Improvement
Model," Maggie Millard, KaiNexus.
3. "What is Continuous Improvement?," by Jon Terry,
Planview Inc.
4. "Continuous Improvement—Your Complete Guide
to Continual Improvement Process" by Rever Team, Rev-
er Inc.
6. "What Is Continuous Improvement? A Must-Read
Guide to Understanding Kaizen", Daedalus Howell, Bee-
Keeper.
1. Customer focus: Organizations can establish
this focus by trying to understand and meet
their customers' current and future require-
ments and expectations.
2. Leadership: Organizations succeed when
leaders establish and maintain the internal
environment in which employees can become
fully involved in achieving the organization's
unified objectives.
3. Involvement of people: Organizations suc-
ceed by retaining competent employees, en-
couraging continuous enhancement of their
knowledge and skills, and empowering them,
encouraging engagement, and recognizing
achievements.
4. Process approach: Organizations enhance
their performance when leaders manage and
control their processes, as well as the inputs
and outputs that tie these processes together.
5. Systematic approach to management: Or-
ganizations sustain success when processes
are managed as one coherent quality manage-
ment system.
6. Continuous improvement: Organizations
will maintain current levels of performance,
respond to changing conditions, and identi-
fy, create and exploit new opportunities when
they establish and sustain an ongoing focus
on improvement.
7. Factual approach to decision making: Organi-
zations succeed when they have established
an evidence-based decision-making process
that entails gathering input from multiple
sources, identifying facts, objectively analyz-
ing data, examining cause/effect, and consid-
ering potential consequences.
8. Mutually beneficial supplier relationships:
Organizations that carefully manage their re-
lationships with suppliers and partners can
nurture positive and productive involvement,
support, and feedback from those entities.
The Eight Principles
of ISO9001:
