It's not continuous improvement if you don't learn from the past; it's just history repeating itself.
While we all like to think that we are the cutting edge of something new and "state-of-the-art," continuous improvement has been around for some time. It has gone by many names, but working on change for the better in small increments has been around for many years. We should recognize this and try to learn some lessons from the past, so we don't engage in more muda (waste) by relearning through making the same mistakes that others have made before us.
Reinventing wheels is a highly unproductive waste of time and energy.
