Continuous Improvement of Processes
High priority for making improvements focuses on processes. An organization is made up of many processes,of both a business and manufacturing nature.In general, this is where lasting solutions are best made.Improving the organization is necessary to have the climate favorable for a company to do the right things , but this improvement takes a long time.
For processes, changes that last can be made quickly. Probably 85% of the problems in a company are due to inadequate processes. Much of the necessary improvement is in the business processes, not in those processes making the product. The small reminder of problems can be corrected by working solely with individuals within the processes.
There are surprisingly large numbers of business, and manufacturing processes in a company. For the most part, business processes are run by white-collar workers who support selling or scheduling the product. Others are concerned with the design of the product and production equipment. Manufacturing processes are usually run by blue-collar workers who make the product.
Determining how critical a process may be easier for manufacturing than for business processes.Techniques such as DFMEA (Design failure Mode Effects Analysis) and PFMEA (Process for Failure and Effects Analysis) can be used for manufacturing processes. A consensus of the members of a steering committee may be the best way of identifying critical business processes. Although there can be a large number of these processes,often less than thirty are critical to a company. At this point,the steering committee can rate how the company performs on each critical process. One basis for the rating is how each process supports the values and beliefs envisioned for the company. based on the analysis, specific goals can be assigned for cross-functional improvement teams.
The setting of clear goals that are realistic but challenging is the starting point of quality improvement. Motorola, another winner of the Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award,achieved its goal of a ten-fold increase in quality over a five year period. Bench marking the performance of other companies is often useful in setting the goals to a realistic level.For example, a competitor may have 30% fewer field problems. For this company, a reduction in field failures by 30% would be realistic. Achievement of this goal also would be necessary to remain competitive in the market place.
Conceptually, a process is an activity that transforms inputs into outputs. Simply,inputs could be people,material,equipment and information. Inputs are mostly received from other processes within a company. The output from each process is either a product or service. The output is furnished to a customer. Within a company,there are many processes intricately linked together and each successive process is a customer for the preceding process. In a like manner,the pending process is a supplier to the following process.Collectively,the processes form the system that delivers products to customers of the company. The output of the last process in the chain is delivered to the customer who placed the order within the company. A process is usually represented by input-output box.within the process there may be many operations dedicated to making a transformation. These operations may be in several different functions of a company.take,for example,the product design process. This process is a customer of the scheduling process. It also is a supplier to both the purchasing process and production engineering process. The scheduling process must furnish information about detailed customer needs. How thoroughly this job is done has a lot to do with the effectiveness of the design process. Each process acts as a link in an intricate chain.The chain is as good as the weakest link. Priority for quality improvement should be given to the weakest link. Reaching solutions is often complex because each process may involve several functional areas in a company. Under these circumstances, no one functional area feels an "ownership" of the process. Usually there is a total lack of ownership,which is why many problems occur.
The operations in the product design process can be viewed simply as:
Step Functions Involved
Product Definition Marketing,Product development
Preliminary Design Marketing,Product development,suppliers,production
engineering, purchasing
Design review Marketing,Product development,suppliers,production
engineering,production, purchasing
Validation Product development,Quality
Final design Marketing,Product development,suppliers,production
engineering,production, purchasing
Release for production Marketing,Product development,suppliers,production
engineering,production, purchasing
There are seven functional areas involved in the process. Getting an improvement in the process is complex. No one functional area is the natural owner of the entire process. Many companies have solved this dilemma by using cross-functional improvement teams. members of the team represent each functional area in the process. The team is recognized as the natural owner of the process.Consensus is sought to obtain the best solution for the company.
A popular strategy for improving processes is to evaluate variations in the parameters for both manufacturing and business processes. performance measures are sought for the process to be improved. For a manufacturing process,they may be such things as downtime or level of inventory. A business process such as product design, may make a number of changes after release for production. Changes in design after tooling is complete are usually very disruptive.There is also a large risk of making a mistake.
The performance measures may be chosen at the output of the process. In this way, the measures reflect what the entire process is doing. For many companies,the measure of the output is the key issue in process performance.
In a process where operations are done by different functional areas,additional measures may be identified. Usually,these measures are at the interfaces between two functional areas. Many companies have found that most problems occur at these interfaces. Often these problems are due to confusion between the functional areas about what is required. This confusion can be cleared up in team meetings after being pointed out.
Properly selected measures will vary over time. The variation will be stable if it is due to the inherent nature of the process.It will not be stable if it is due to something else.(such as workers not paying attention).When plotted on SPC charts,this will be clear.
A major auto producer used this approach in a product design process. There were 17 designers involved. Management was not pleased with the large number of design changes after release to production. SPC charts showed that there was only one designer who needed individual help. The other 16 were victims of the process. Though unacceptable, they could do no better until the design process was changed. Dramatic improvements came about through rethinking the process.
This example shows the advantages of improving processes. Without this,analysis, the designers would,rightly become more frustrated. Pressure would undoubtedly be used on each designer to improve performance.If the process was not changed, most of them would fail/ They would be unhappy and productivity would likely suffer.
There are other ways of showing process measures. so they can be analyzed for improvement. Various means of doing this will in due course.
