25 Inspirational Business Process Improvement Quotes

Kiichiro Toyoda, founder of Toyota Motor Corporation, strongly believed in philosophy that “the ideal conditions for making things are created when machines, facilities, and people work together to add value without generating any waste.”

Continuous Improvement, also known as Kaizen that translates from Japanese as “improvement” (kai – “change” – zen “good”), is ongoing effort to improve existing products, services, or processes by implementing rather smaller than major changes. 

Here are some of the best quotes for your inspiration:

“All we are doing is looking at the timeline from the moment a customer gives us an order to the point we collect the cash. And we are reducing that timeline in the value stream by removing non value-added wastes.”
​– Taiichi Ohno

“If I had one hour to save the world, I would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem and only five minutes finding the solution. “
​– Albert Einstein

“The biggest room in the world is the room for improvement.”
– Helmut Schmidt

“Don’t say it can not be done, rather say,
you don’t know how to do it yet.” ​
– Tomas Bata 

“Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to improvement. If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control it. If you can’t control it, you can’t improve it.”
– H. James Harrington

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
​– Antoine de Saint Exupery

“If you don’t ask the right questions, you don’t get the right answers. A question asked the right way often point to its own answer. Asking questions is the ABC of diagnosis.”
– Edward Hodnett

“Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence. “
​–​ Vince Lombardi

“If you define the problem correctly, you almost have the solution.”
​–​ Steve Jobs

“Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning. “
​–​ Benjamin Franklin

“Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.”
​–​ Henry Ford

“Before you say you can’t do something…TRY IT.”
– Sakichi Toyoda

“Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.”
– William A Foster

“The thing is, continuity of strategic direction and continuous improvement in how you do things are absolutely consistent with each other. In fact, they're mutually reinforcing.”
​–​ Michael Porter

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
​–​ Henry Ford

“A relentless barrage of “why’s” is the best way to prepare your mind to pierce the clouded veil of thinking caused by the status quo.  Use it often.”
– Shigeo Shingo 

"If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing."
​–​ W. Edwards Deming

“Everything can be improved.
– Clarence W. Barron

“What get measured, gets managed.”
– Peter Drucker

“If you do not know how to ask the right question, you discover nothing.”
– W. Edwards Deming

“Almost all quality improvement comes via simplification of design, manufacturing, layout, processes, and procedures.
– Tom Peters

“If you can’t explain something simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
– Attributed to Albert Einstein

“The most dangerous kind of waste is the waste we do not recognize.”
– Shigeo Shingo

“The message of the Kaizen strategy is that not a day should go by without some kind of improvement being made somewhere in the company.”
– Masaaki Imai

“Manage the cause, not the result.”
– W.E Deming

Additional Quotes 

Since one of the most important factors of continuous improvement starts with people, here are few additional quotes :-)

“I believe that leaders and leadership teams working together in a proper design will run the business more effectively than by hierarchical, command-and-control managing. But I can’t prove that. And there are no models.”
​– Marvin Bower 

“Excellence is a continuous process and not an accident.”​
– A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

“Management is about telling people what to do, and leadership is about allowing people to do what they’re capable of doing.”
​– Bob Chapman 

“Everyone wants to contribute. Trust them. Leaders are everywhere. Find them. Some people are on a mission. Celebrate them. Others wish things were different. Listen to them. Everybody matters. Show them.”
​– Bob Chapman

“I have not failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
​– Thomas Alva Edison

“Focus on being productive, instead of busy.”
–Tim Ferris

 “Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.”
– Henry Ford

“Worry is the most wasteful thing in the world.”
​– Henry Ford

“The only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave is not training them and having them stay.”
​–​ Henry Ford

“The nightmare is big data when you need to react fast – you need small data.”
– Jean-Pascal Tricoire, Chairman & CEO, Schneider Electric

“In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.”
– Warren Buffett

”The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency”.
– Bill Gates

“Waste is worse than loss. The time is coming when every person who lays claim to ability will keep the question of waste before him constantly. The scope of thrift is limitless.”
–Thomas A. Edison

“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”
– Vincent Van Gough

“We are too busy mopping the floor to turn off the faucet.”
– Author Unknown

“Watch the little things; a small leak will sink a great ship.”
– Benjamin Franklin

“If you don’t have time to do it right you must have time to do it over.”
– Author Unknown

“Invest a few moments in thinking. It will pay good interest.”
– Author Unknown

“Growth and improvement is about acknowledging weakness.”
– Tony Frontier

“Strive for continuous improvement, instead of perfection.”​
– Kim Collins

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