Describe the difference between continuous improvement and breakthrough improvement in CBM T6.

• A. Continuous improvement means major, rapid changes; breakthrough means small ongoing changes.
• B. Continuous improvement means small incremental changes; breakthrough means major, rapid changes achieving large gains.
• C. Both are identical.
• D. Breakthrough refers to completely replacing processes.

Answer: (B)

Continuous improvement focuses on small, incremental changes to a process over time, aiming for steady, cumulative gains in performance. Breakthrough improvement, in contrast, targets a major, rapid change that produces large, swift gains, often through a radical redesign, new technology, or a fundamentally different approach. In a CBM T6 context, you’d see continuous improvement as tweaking maintenance procedures, improving scheduling, and refining data collection bit by bit. Breakthrough improvement would be something transformative like adopting a new predictive maintenance system or reorganizing maintenance workflows to achieve a dramatic reduction in downtime. That’s why this option is the best: it correctly pairs small, ongoing changes with large, rapid changes that yield big gains. The other descriptions either reverse the relationship, treat the two as the same, or imply that breakthrough means simply replacing processes.