Many people see it as the way to build products better, faster, and cheaper.
In truth, there are many ways to be better, faster, and cheaper at whatever you are doing, and process improvement is only one of them. However, process improvement is the most reliable because first it works on people and only then does it work on the process. First you understand how good, fast, and cheap a process is and why it is that way. You also develop an understanding of why alterations of a process or adoption, as well as altogether different processes may be better, faster, or cheaper. With this understanding, you can then implement the changes that will result in improved performance.