9: Process Analysis and improvement

Why would we chart the flow of customers, information and/or products through the stages of the conversion process?

1. Easier to understand (communicating and training)

2. Helps identify improvement opportunities

Task or operation symbol?

rectangle

Storage areas or queues symbol?

Upside down triangle

Decision points symbol?

Diamond

Flow of material/customers symbol?

Arrow usually pointing right or down

Benchmarking

The formal process of comparing an organization's processes and performance measures against top performers ("how do they do it")

Process Improvement Overview (there are 3)

1. Recognize the need for change

2. Research the "best practices" benchmarking

3. Determine how to change (tinker or tear-down)

Leading

Immediate feedback

Lagging

Delayed Feedback

Categories of Benchmarking

1. Internal- Appropriate for organizations with multiple locations

2. Competitive- Often difficult to get information (also illegal)

3. Functional- asking another company about their process

Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) "tinker"

Never-ending process of achieving incremental improvements

Business Process Reengineering (BPR) "tear-down"

Short term radical improvement

What causes the need for BPR?

-Technological advancements

- Drastic improvement at a competitor

- Changing customer desires

CPI- Employee Involvement

- Collaborative, cross-functional teams

- Need for training in problem/ opportunity identification and resolution

- Adequate time to be creative

- Company culture is key (willingness to invest in employees, willingness to delegate decision making, disciplines approach to managing change)

Just In Time/Lean Production

A coordinated approach that continuously reduces waste while also improving quality (eg. Unnecessary transportation, duplication, defective service or goods, inspections, waiting etc.)

Just In Time "Pull" (Kanban) System

A manual self-regulating system fro controlling the flow of material. Workers produce only when the kanban ahead of them is empty, thereby creating a pull system through the factory.

A "pull" system minimizes the amount of unnecessary inventory that would accumulate in a "push" system