The just-in-time learning-based partial least squares (JIT-PLS) has been extensively applied to adaptive soft sensor modeling of complex nonlinear processes. However, it still has the problems of unreasonable relevant samples selection and unsatisfactory local modeling. Aiming at these problems, this paper proposes an improved just-in-time learning-based random mapping partial least squares (IJIT-RMPLS), including an improved relevant samples selection strategy and a random mapping PLS (RMPLS) model. On the one hand, considering the different correlation degrees between input variables and output variable, this method applies mutual information to evaluate the importance of each input variable and designs a variable-weighted Euclidean distance to select relevant samples for local modeling. On the other hand, in order to prompt the prediction precision of local soft sensor models, this method combines the idea of nonlinear random mapping in extreme learning machines with PLS and builds a RMPLS with multiple activation functions. Applications on a numerical example and a real chemical process show that the proposed IJIT-RMPLS has smaller prediction error compared with traditional JIT-PLS. This paper proposes an improved just-in-time learning-based random mapping partial least squares (IJIT-RMPLS), including an improved just-in-time learning strategy and random mapping partial least squares (RMPLS) model. It utilizes the weight information of input variables from mutual information to select relevant samples and the RMPLS as a nonlinear local model to enhance the predictive performance.This paper proposes an improved just-in-time learning-based random mapping partial least squares (IJIT-RMPLS), including an improved just-in-time learning strategy and random mapping partial least squares (RMPLS) model. It utilizes the weight information of input variables from mutual information to select relevant samples and the RMPLS as a nonlinear local model to enhance the predictive performance.