Process Improvement

Processes are the backbone of the day-to-day activities of all businesses, including operational processes, such as in manufacturing and order fulfillment, support processes in accounting, and management processes throughout the company. Collectively they form the way in which the business runs, and determine the effectiveness and efficiency of its operations.

It is not unusual for many of these processes to evolve without any close review or conscious design effort. Over time, even in the best run companies, they can become so well established within the organization that they are never questioned, even after they become redundant. Additionally, many processes can appear to be effective when viewed in isolation, yet may not be actually creating value for the organization as a whole.

Few other aspects of a business offer greater potential for improving its performance and making it more competitive than its underlying business processes. Process improvements frequently deliver significant efficiency improvements, increases in productivity, cost savings, and waste reduction – resulting in increased profitability and improved cash flow.

Starting out on a process improvement program can be challenging initially, and you may find it difficult to allocate internal resources with the time and ability to initiate the program without disrupting other, more pressing day-to-day priorities. BW&A can assist you by taking on the role of leading and coordinating the process improvement initiative. Our knowledge and experience, and bringing a fresh perspective, can help you find more effective and less costly ways of handling the processes that are necessary (and eliminate those that are not) for the efficient running of your business. We aim to create sustainable improvements, and to help you establish a continuous improvement mind-set within your company that will lead to on-going improvements in the future.

We can review and assess specific process issues that you are concerned about, or we can start with a designated area of the business. We always pre-agree the objectives with you so that our work is directed at the priority issues. Establishing well-defined objectives is extremely important and ensures that the activities will remain focused. Without this focus, process improvement initiatives can result in a lot of work but little in terms of real improvement.

Our review involves mapping and documenting the existing processes in detail, reviewing relevant documentation, and working with your managers and staff to identify issues and assess the potential areas for improvement. Mapping allows us to clearly identify all the steps in each process, understand how they interact, assess their overall effectiveness and efficiency, identify problem areas or unnecessary activities, and formulate improvements.

It is important that we see the processes as they actually take place. This ensures that we establish exactly what is happening, rather than what the process should be. Sometimes we find inconsistencies in the way that the same process is carried out from one day to the next, or from one person to another; this is often caused by a lack of clearly documented procedures. When this occurs, we document the variations until we can establish which one is correct. This is one of the reasons why the process review and mapping stage is so important: we need to establish exactly what each process is before we attempt to improve it. This also underscores why having good process documentation is important.

We apply a basic lean thinking approach when assessing each process. The goal in this approach is to eliminate waste, which typically occurs for one or more of seven well-proven reasons:

-    defects/errors
-    waiting/delays
-    over processing/complicated processes
-    excess motion
-    unnecessary transportation
-    overproduction
-    excess inventory

Eliminating waste effectively means eliminating processes that do not add value for the customer of your product or service, and increasing the efficiency (or reducing the costs) of those processes that do add value. Lean thinking can be applied to almost any business process, not just within a manufacturing environment, since the customer is effectively anyone (internal or external) who needs and uses the product or service being produced.

After we provide our findings and recommendations, we can work with you to develop an implementation plan and the steps needed to communicate the changes within the organization. The very nature of a process improvement program implies change; in fact, its success depends on a willingness to implement change. Initially, this tends be unsettling and disruptive for everyone directly involved. Good communication can go a long way to alleviate these reactions and ensure a successful implementation. Our role can include working with you in the affected areas of the company to help your people adjust to the impact of the changes.

Call BW&A today to discuss how your business might benefit from a process improvement initiative, and how we can assist you in this.

See also The benefits of process documentation under Manufacturing Solutions for more on this topic as it relates not only to production processes, but also to all areas of a business.