What is this standard about?
“Continual improvement” is a fundamental concept within the ISO High Level Structure and has been intrinsic to management system standards for many years – but it’s never been well defined. This new British Standard was developed to close that gap by providing authoritative guidance on continual improvement and how to quantify it.
Who is this standard for?
It’s relevant to all industries, especially healthcare, construction and manufacturing and to organizations of every type and size. In particular it will be used by:
- Quality managers
- Project managers
- Programme managers
- Senior management
Why should you use this standard?
BS 8624 describes requirements for continual improvement and gives methods and examples of recognized techniques.
It provides authoritative guidance on the meaning and nature of continual improvement and supplies common methods for its quantification, to be used within organisations' management systems.
The standard links to PDCA and DMAIC and also discusses the organizational context and performing and managing continual improvement. It provides a common framework for continual improvement that can be applied in future standards’ development.
It’s the first authoritative reference on continual improvement across standards and will support the use of management system standards in all areas, including ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001 and ISO 31000. It also underpins the use of ISO 18404 for Lean and Six Sigma implementation, as well as the guidance standard ISO 13053.
NOTE: Models are not definitive but offer a framework for CI projects, showing how improvement can be reported accurately to interested parties.
