Category: Business Process Management (BPM)

Compliance is a central part of any business’s operations, especially given how highly regulated the landscape is today. As a strategic necessity, organizations are facing increasing pressure to show transparency, accuracy, and fit within the regulatory requirements necessary, regardless of whether they’re in finance, healthcare, public services, or any other sector. Adhering to […]

Streamlining and optimizing processes sees businesses reaching for known, trusted methodologies in continuous improvement like Six Sigma, Lean, and Kaizen. Over time, teams root out waste, guarantee consistency, and climb closer toward process excellence and overall stability. However, when margins begin tightening, you might see those gains start to plateau, and those incremental […]

When you think about Business Process Reengineering, you might be thinking about a strategy to organize a business or organization’s workflows better. The goal is that if you are able to reengineer business processes, you are going to find a clearer path toward eliminating waste, which in turn leads to increased profits. Rest […]

For many organizations, service operations are growing steadily out of control. Increasingly complex and verging on inefficiency, these processes often start with the best of intentions behind them. However, over time, process improvement measures, compliance mandates, and hacky ad-hoc solutions can turn fairly straightforward workflows into a convoluted nightmare. When service operations reach […]

Incremental and continuous improvement is the backbone of methodologies like Lean, Six Sigma, and even standalone Kaizen implementations. These methodologies hone in on minimizing waste, improving quality, and refining processes over time. Such an approach works well, especially if an organization is working with an otherwise mature, effective system. What happens when continuous […]

Waiting weeks for a simple approval is just one example of how red tape and unnecessary procedures stifle productivity. That isn’t to say that bureaucracy is the bane of all businesses, but being able to cut through the fat and get the work done is vital for maintaining efficiency. Delays cost time, money, […]

Whether it’s from faulty implementation, the prevalence of waste, or even just shifting priorities, processes can slip out of spec with ease. When you don’t have the means to incrementally improve things, you aren’t left with many options. Sure, you can try to kitbash an ad-hoc solution and hope for the best, but […]

What does the future of business processes look like? We’ve seen quite a bit of change just over the last 40 years in how business processes are constructed. As technology grows more advanced, we’re due for a new paradigm shift. Radical approaches like BPR are becoming rather common when it comes to designing […]

When processes are fundamentally broken, you aren’t left with many choices. You can try to tweak and improve them incrementally. However, this only serves to spin the wheels, wasting resources and manhours. If a process isn’t working, you have to make the change, and that often means leaning on BPR to make things […]

Sometimes, a business process simply isn’t tenable. No matter what you try to do with improvements and initiatives, it won’t respond how you want. In scenarios like this, it can be difficult to think of a solid method of recourse. Business process reengineering is a drastic means of completely redesigning a business process […]

You’ve done the difficult task of conducting a business process reengineering effort, but how do you quantify the results? BPR is a very drastic practice, and can be somewhat more difficult to measure than you might think. When you consider the scope and depth of a BPR project, cleanly pointing out tangible benefits […]

What is Business Process Reengineering? There are quite a few ways to approach the design of a process. We can pursue continual improvement, hoping that little by little it is hammered into the right sort of shape. This has its benefits, as it doesn’t severely upset the current workflow, and teams stay on […]

BPR projects can be daunting at first glance, as you’re fundamentally changing the way you work. However, it might not be tenable to continue with work as it sits; processes might be inefficient, wasteful, and prone to costly errors. BPR isn’t something that happens in a vacuum, and understanding how it affects any […]

What can you do to engage employees in your BPR initiatives? Any sort of BPR effort can be a vast undertaking. When we consider the wider scope of what needs to be done to achieve any sort of success, the odds are stacked heavily against us at first glance. Overhauling a process from […]

When you have an undertaking as massive and diverse as a BPR effort, you need a little help to get things rolling. While getting your workforce on board with your efforts is instrumental to the initiative’s success, that isn’t the only consideration you’ll need to keep in mind when planning your BPR effort. […]

Scope creep is the bane of any project’s existence, and one thing that can seriously hinder your BPR efforts. Avoiding scope creep is going to be paramount to the success of any efforts you’re undertaking to revamp your processes. Thankfully, it isn’t quite as difficult as you might think to stay focused and […]

What role does leadership play in your BPR efforts? BPR is a drastic and often massive change to business processes. The concept of a clean slate isn’t just touted about, but followed through on. As such, it has its own sort of demands to consider when undergoing a BPR initiative. Leadership plays a […]

What major changes in BPR implementation is your organization struggling with? Like it or not, sometimes implementing something new can lead to some real hurdles to overcome. Often, these can be minor speed bumps in the road, and an adjustment can get things back on track. However, BPR is quite drastic by design, […]

How do you measure process work? First introduced in the 19th and early 20th centuries, time and motion studies established rules of motion that guaranteed optimal performance during a given period and reduced the number of movements needed to accomplish work. Over the years, time and motion studies have been conducted in many industries to […]

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. Why It Matters So, why consider this approach for your quality management? While there are many approaches […]

What is PDSA? PDSA stands for Plan, Do, Study, and Act. It is a method that is used to test a change that is being implemented or has been implemented. Working through these four steps guides thinking into breaking down a task into sections and then evaluating the result, making improvements, and then […]

It is important to have a procedure in place to finalize a project. That is where a PSO (process sign off) procedure comes in.

Value stream map vs. process map, which is better for you? As with many tools and methods in Six Sigma, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to mapping things out. Both of these tools have specific functions with some overlap. If you’re new to Six Sigma, then you’re in luck. Today, we’re going in-depth into how […]

What is a Spaghetti Diagram? A spaghetti diagram is defined as the visual representation of the flow of an activity or process utilized to identify areas that could use improvement. It is unique in that it demonstrates motion work and its associated waste and assists in the quantification of the amount of walking an operator […]