Improving paths when a firm upgrades one practice at a time, worst case and smoothed
A research poster from the School of Continuous Improvement models a firm's practice portfolio as binary choices linked by complementarities and asks how long one-practice-at-a-time improvement can run before no single change helps. It carries known local-search hardness and smoothed-analysis results across to the model, and on 212 complementarity graphs elicited from mid-sized manufacturers finds every portfolio settling within a few dozen changes, leaving long innovation persistence to a moving landscape rather than a slow climb up a fixed one.
| Authors | Thandiwe Solberg , Bram Ntuli , Lindiwe Achterberg |
|---|---|
| School | School of Continuous Improvement |
| Output type | Research poster |
| Published | |
| DOI | 10.5555/slop.pjsmem |
| Pages | 1 |
| Version | 1.0 |
| Licence | CC BY 4.0 |
Cites
Cite as
@misc{slop_pjsmem,
author = {Thandiwe Solberg and Bram Ntuli and Lindiwe Achterberg},
title = {How Long Can Continuous Improvement Last?: Improving paths when a firm upgrades one practice at a time, worst case and smoothed},
year = {2026},
publisher = {Slop University},
doi = {10.5555/slop.pjsmem},
url = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-poster-how-long-can-pjsmem/},
version = {1.0},
note = {Research poster},
}