Business Process Improvement

Business process improvement and particularly generating a culture of continual improvement is key for businesses today to survive. You are in an ever-developing competitive market and likely to operate in a challenging, constant changing economic environment too.

One solution would be to consider engaging with a business improvement consultant. These experienced professionals will walk through your processes, whether you make widgets or how you engage with customers in your retail store. Having someone look over the business, particularly with fresh eyes and mapping out your processes will often highlight some obvious to them but latent problems to you.

You’ve heard the term, “can’t see the wood for the tree’s” which is a common trait in a busy business. 

Often the bottle necks and sticking points in your processes can be fixed quickly and it’s best practice to involve your team. They are the guys on the ground and front line and often will have noticed but not felt they have the authority to implement any changes. Therefore, one outcome you may decide on, is to enrol one of your employees as a project manager focused on process improvement.

Options which you may decide to introduce to improve processes may include utilising technology, automation, IT software, reducing duplication in tasks, staff training, reconfiguring the layout and work flow, i.e. ergonomics and obtaining better control and visibility of stock ordering. Often just improving communication and cascading decision making down to your team can make a substantial improvement to business productivity.

As an experienced business improvement consultant, I often ask business owners when we first meet, “explain all the challenges, issues you have in your business”. Often it is issues like these that crop up in these conversations:

• We are very busy,
• Behind on deliveries,
• Staff are working extra hours,
• We’ve had some quality issues, and rework to complete,
• Cash flow tends to be tight
• And customers and supplier are never off the phone chasing us.

Utilising a cause and effect model process, such as the fishbone diagram or Ishikawa Diagram above, a consultant will often be able to determine the root cause of your issues. From there we can start developing a business process improvement plan even during the first meeting.

If you are predominantly a manufacture, many solutions can be discovered and solutions found through using process mapping models. Many models were originally developed in Japan by the likes of Motorola, Toyota and Honda.  Such as Six Sigma, Lean, Kaizen, Total Quality Management (TQM), creating Kanban’s, Just in Time (JIT), Agile Management and Process Re-engineering techniques.

Often the process of reviewing and walking through your operations can actually create new ideas on how you can develop new services and products for your customers too.