Business Process Improvement (BPI), while it doesn’t really have a universally-accepted definition, can be seen as the analysis, review, and improvement of existing business processes.
At JD Business Consulting Group, we will do it by mapping out the business process, identifying inefficiencies, redesigning the process and benchmarking to initial metrics. We will involve the alignment of an entire organization for this process. It’s not just the responsibility of the senior management to carry out change – rather, it’s a company-wide initiative, all the way down to the lowest level employees.
Typically, the main goal of BPI is either, or all 3, of the following:
Goal #1:
Reducing Process Time
– Finding ways of carrying out the process faster or more efficiently. There are a lot of different ways this could be done, from eliminating useless steps to adopting new technology.
Goal #2:
Improving Output Quality
– Creating a better product with the same input of resources. This usually means finding steps within the process that negatively influence the end-product, resulting in defects and errors.
Goal #3:
Cutting Out Waste
– Discovering wasteful processes & cutting them out of the workflow. This may either help achieve the first 2 goals or simply just improve overall productivity. If your team doesn’t have to do useless work, they can spend more time on the work that creates value for the company.
How often have you wished to improve on a business endeavor, but turned your head the other way when you realise the cost exceed your budget ? Many times, when owners and founders of small to medium businesses hear about consultants, they believe the costs are too high. This is why we do things differently at JD Business Consulting Group. Here, we believe that you should not incur a cost unless what we helped you with, worked. If we sound like the right for your business, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Business Process Improvement (BPI) Methodologies
BPI methodologies help you apply a framework to your initiative, as opposed to just going with the flow. Some of the most famous BPI methodologies include-
Six Sigma
Six Sigma is used as an indicator for the level of efficiency for a process. A “Six Sigma Process” is a process that, out of a million output, doesn’t produce more than 3.4 defects.
For process improvement, specifically, DMAIC is one of the core tools under the Six Sigma umbrella. It consists of 5 parts-
– Define – Find the opportunity for improvement.
– Measure – Identify the metrics you’re going to benchmark new processes to.
– Analyze – Uncover any defects or inconsistencies in the process.
– Improve – Get rid of the aforementioned problems
– Control – Monitor the new process, making sure that there aren’t any new problems.
Lean
While Six Sigma focuses on eliminating defects to better the product quality, Lean aims at optimizing the process itself as much as possible. It means, for example, finding a low-value step in a process and cutting it out completely – something that would improve employee productivity, but not have much of an effect on the end-product.
Typically, the steps for lean process improvement would include-
1. Defining what value is for the end-customer
2. Mapping out the process and identifying which steps aren’t creating any value
3. Cutting out the steps that don’t add value, or modify them in a way that they do
4. Repeat the steps 1 through 3 for other business processes, repeat until the organization is sufficiently more efficient