by Patrick Seaton

   This article was originally published in The Productivity Institute (PI) Newsletter

Business owners understand the need to introduce long-term improvement initiatives into their organization.  The pay-off that some companies are experiencing is astounding.  Unfortunately, not every company has found the same success.  Subsequently, they give up somewhere in the middle of the journey with lots of money invested and little to show for the investment.  At the same time, the employees have chalked up the improvement initiative as another “program of the month.”

A periodic review of your company’s major processes (called Process Analysis) identifies:
• Who are the people involved in each process,
• If the process has changed since the last time it was analyzed,
• If the process should be modified because of recent changes in your company,
• Where your bottlenecks, pain points, and areas of waste exist in current processes,
• If there is a need to update/revamp/reengineer the process, and
• What improvements could/should be made to improve productivity.

A very important message that you give your staff during a session is “I care about what you do, how effective you are in your job, and how you think things could be improved.”  Additionally, after the process analysis session, the company has stronger reasons and justification for implementing process changes (the actual process improvement activity).

Some situations involving process analysis are listed below.  Perhaps you have similar situations in your company.

1. Need a Fresh Eye
Jody and Brenda are a husband/wife management team and have owned their framing shop for over 10 years.  Their order fulfillment process has changed over the years, but always as a reaction to specific situations.  Jody’s sales are consistent, but his costs are rising, meaning less profit for the business.  He saw the need to streamline his order fulfillment process and remove bottlenecks so he could be more productive.  However, he wanted a fresh eye to look at the process, since he was so close to the process.

After mapping out the process and analyzing where it was working well, where it was rather clumsy, and where the bottlenecks existed (mostly because of a lack of discipline to be proactive on Jody’s part), Jody was able to see exactly where his problems were.  Based on this analysis, Jody revised his workshop’s layout to improve workflow and he changed some inefficient procedures.  Ten years to create but only four hours to visualize the current state and define ways to improve the situation.

2. Defining a Process
Tim is a writer/editor who recently starting his own marketing consulting company. 

Tim felt he wasted time with potential prospects as they worked their way through the quoting process.  Those that didn’t ultimately take his services often ate up substantial time before coming to a decision.  Tim wanted to see how his process could be changed to minimize his time commitment during the quote phase, while still answering the prospect’s questions – moving them toward a decision.

Using process analysis, Tim realized where his trouble spots were and had specific ways to correct the situations.  The reality was that his process didn’t have enough check points and confirmation points.  He didn’t have enough feedback from the prospect early on in the process to know if the services/quotes offered were getting favorable reviews or not.  Until Tim stepped back and visualized the whole process, he had not realized how little feedback he was receiving. 

3. Unofficial Process
Nick works for a plastics company.  They run many jobs in a day and try very diligently to meet the customers’ demands.  Their schedule is created today for the next day and then distributed to people in the plant.  Everything is fine until there is a schedule change – which can happen several times a day.  The customer calls and needs parts sooner, materials aren’t in-house when the job is ready to run, or materials come in today for a job that should have been run the previous day.  Those changes call for setup adjustments and a redistribution of staff.

Nick wanted help formalizing their scheduling process, specifically in the schedule changes area.  Schedule changes are part of their culture and show their ability to be flexible, but the aftermath of schedule changes was frustrating and inefficient.

Process analysis helped denote a much clearer process for making the needed changes and communicating those changes to the workforce.  The process became an official process for the company and could then be measured for effectiveness.

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Process analysis sessions are a tremendous way for companies to open communication lines in an organization.  People want stable processes that allow them to work efficiently and effectively.  The vast majority of employees prefer a stable workplace grounded in sensible, streamlined processes instead of chaotic settings and situations.

Successful companies manage the exceptions and let the mainstream work flow through their documented, efficient processes.  Without solid processes or regular review of their processes, everything can end up being an exception and eating up valuable time across the company.

Benefits:
1. Lower costs by eliminating unnecessary steps and waste from processes
2. Increase productivity by making sure that processes only include people who contribute to a process – allowing them more time to work on other tasks
3. Improve morale by opening communication lines, minimizing stress and frustration for those who are the process players, and validating employees’ contributions to the organization’s major processes
4. Develop management by giving them a vehicle for streamlining workflow so that resources are maximized and productivity is improved

Best Practices:
1. Conduct a process analysis session for your major processes every 6 to 9 months
2. Make sure that the process champion and process sponsor participate in the session
3. Use a facilitator from outside the area (or organization) to bring fresh perspectives and unbiased suggestions to the group

Until next month!