Business Process Improvement: What it is and How to Implement it
According to surveys conducted, as of 2016, 66% of enterprises run a business process improvement program occasionally or never.
Of the 20% that undertake process improvements , 5% record little to no success, 28% experience success limited to individual departments but do not record enterprise-level success, and 19% experience success after significant difficulties.
With these staggeringly low numbers, especially when you consider the importance of efficient business processes for success for any organization, we have put together our knowledge in this article to inform you of everything you need to know about business process improvement.
So, without further ado, let’s get to it!
Read on…
What is Business Process Improvement?
Before you can work towards improving your company’s business processes, it is imperative to understand what a business process is.
Simply put, a business process is a series of tasks that you or your team members perform repeatedly to create a product or service. This product or service can be for your stakeholder, customer, or sponsor.
A business process aims to provide value to a customer, starting with an objective to the achievement of a goal.
Generally, business processes can be divided into three key types. These types are:
Therefore, you can understand the Business Process Improvement as the exercise of identifying, analyzing, improving, and then reviewing existing business processes.
This is accomplished by mapping out business processes, identifying any inefficiencies, redesigning the process, and then measuring it against the initial design.
Looking for the best business process management software? Read this:
What is the Purpose Behind Conducting Business Process Improvement?
There are many reasons behind the need to improve your company’s business processes.
These reasons can be differentiated as falling into one or more of three categories.
These categories are:
You may wish to improve your business processes so that you can find ways to carry out steps more efficiently and faster.
Analyzing your processes can help you eliminate unnecessary steps or invest in technology that can make your processes faster.
You may want to improve your business processes to be able to identify those processes that harm the output you and your team deliver.
Such steps may cause defects and errors.
Therefore, improving your processes can help you deliver a better output while using the same input of resources.
Improving your business processes can help you discover wasteful steps letting you cut them out of your workflow .
This can help you with the first two goals mentioned above, but can also help you increase your overall productivity .
Cutting out unnecessary steps can free up your team’s time to focus on value increasing work.
Which Business Process Improvement Methodology Should You Use?
There are different types of methodologies you can adopt when looking to improve your processes.
Deciding which methodology to choose can be a whole other ball game, so here are some of the different methodologies available to choose from.
This method allows companies to measure inconsistencies or defects in a process so that you can deliver better products and services.
This methodology has further two sub-methodologies. Namely, DMADV for creating new processes, and DMAIC for improving your existing processes.
DMADV follows these steps:
The sister methodology, DMAIC requires you to:
DMADV uses a cause and effect analysis and should be conducted is your processes do not meet the required standards even after improvement.
Total quality management is a business improvement methodology.
This methodology is best for those environments that are constantly changing. The methodology incorporates a system of practices , tools, and training techniques that will adapt along with customer needs.
This methodology encourages:
If you want to use total quality management there are certain general principles you should follow. These include:
This methodology aims to reduce waste from processes.
With Lean Thinking your company aims to:
Lean Manufacturing tries to maximize all your business processes that add value. You also want to reduce or preferably remove steps that do not add value.
Kaizen is a Japanese term that means “to take part” and “to make good”.
With the Kaizen methodology, your company will make small incremental changes. These changes should be routinely applied over a significant period to allow improved performance.
The Kaizen methodology aims to improve productivity while also eliminating wasteful activities that occur in business processes.
The PDCA cycle comes from the Kaizen philosophy. This methodology addresses the entire range from the beginning to the end.
By following the steps, plan-do-check-act, when performing projects your team can maximize effectiveness as well as long-term success.
This type of methodology is suitable to be adopted by any business as well as any department in an organization.
