Business Process Management (BPM)

Business Intelligence Adds to Process Reengineering

Infomation about a business, known as business intelligence, should be part of any business process reengineering effort. It is a driving force for determining an organization's efficiency gains and final specs, and helps in making key decisions.

Business Process Management for Software Development

While the term business process management is not frequently encountered in software development organizations, it can be a powerful guide to identification and prioritization of opportunities for improvement in software companies.

Business Process Reengineering in a Six Sigma World

Using Six Sigma DMAIC with traditional BPR efforts provides a customer-centric view of project identification within an organization. Six Sigma's DMAIC problem-solving discipline within a BPR effort can help an organization address its problems.

Improving Low-maturity Processes Takes Special Approach

Change agents often need to improve immature processes. These can be processes that are undocumented, uncontrolled or highly variable. To improve them, practitioners must first uncover the roadblocks keeping the process from reaching maturity.

Is Process Management Right For Your Business?

Process management involves defining macro and micro processes, assigning ownership, creating responsibilities for the owners who control the processes, and measuring the performance of each process. Learn why coupling process management with Six Sigma is unstoppable.

Management Assessment for Competitive Advantage

A management functional assessment model (MFAM) can help organizations attain and sustain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. The model aids managers in determining the key activities to address via an easy-to-use scorecard.

Preparing to Measure Process Work with a Time Study

Without basic time study measures, it is impossible to know whether work has improved or whether there are differences in performance in a unit. But before the study can take place, practitioners must determine what they want to measure and how.

Process Maturity Model Can Help Give a Business an Edge

It is important to improve the entire gamut of business processes for an organization to achieve a competitive edge. A good way to do that is for the organization to focus on improving the maturity level of key business processes.

Process, Product and People: 3P Approach to Quality

Quality management should be a holistic approach. Process, product and people are the three key elements of a company’s quality system and all of them need to be focused on for an overall improvement in performance.

Six Sigma and Lean May No Longer Be Enough to Improve Services

To see rapid results, transactional organizations may benefit from integrating Agile and business process management into their deployments.

Six Sigma, Process Reengineering and Prototyping

With no Design for Six Sigma experience, a financial services company used traditional process reengineering and the concept of prototyping to leverage Six Sigma and implement end-to-end process improvements based on the customer's perspective.

Standardize Processes to Make Change Stick

One method to approach change is to actively engage process owners. This can be done through the creation of standards for how a process is to be completed, using owner input. Once in place, they can lead to improved quality and reduced costs.

Systems Thinking Results in Holistic Improvements

The whole is often greater than the sum of its parts. By looking at issues through a systems-thinking lens, it is possible to work with a system as a whole – and to deliver sustainable and comprehensive process improvements that address root causes.

The Perfect Storm: Building of the Six Sigma Phenomenon

Six Sigma has become what it is because it is the “perfect storm,” the result of various forces coming together in a decades-long development which contains the genius of untold numbers of contributors in an ever-changing business environment.

Threads of Success and Failure in Process Improvement

In addition to Six Sigma, many process improvement methodologies, when applied correctly, achieve comparable results. What is important to know is those common threads that run through all process improvement efforts that succeed or fail.

Using Triage to Manage Process Workloads in Services

Finding ways to manage workflow and minimize congestion, and the delays it causes, is a common challenge in service businesses. One of the most effective tools for dealing with congestion is triage.

Why a Quality Management System in Service Industries?

Everyone tends to resist change, but companies that delay in establishing a quality management system will find they increasingly become less competitive and less effective in markets where customers demand trouble-free products and services.