Process Improvement and Process Innovation: What is the Right Tactic?

Following certain processes is vital for almost everything we do in our everyday lives, whether it is a professional matter or a personal one. However, we hardly even consider whether the processes, we follow, need evaluation, and improvement. That evaluation comes when we realize that processes could have been better, more efficient, maybe by spending less resources. Delays and confusion are two good reasons to start considering evaluation. Above all, the focus, and the major objective of such an evaluation is process improvement. This concept was considered among the “big business ideas of the 1990s”. It is all about process re-engineering. As experts suggest, improving processes is essential for organizations that aim at gaining market share from direct or indirect competitors and increasing their profits. Improving manufacturing processes was also very common through the next decade, it became a trend, and many organizations were trying to find the right and most appropriate techniques to make process improvement a norm and not something you just do occasionally when suddenly a problem arises.

Coming into the “how”, is even more challenging than actually defining process improvement. There are three common, well-established techniques to achieve that improvement. Reducing waste, enhancing quality, and improving user experience all became a trend very quickly, as organizations were trying to achieve all of them at the same time. However, at some point, it has been realized that this was not enough. Process innovation was introduced to supplement those techniques. First of all, it is critical to mention that collective and continuous improvement might be the one that will bring about that innovation. Process innovation involved also a new technique regarding process improvement that had four main steps to undertake: planning to change certain steps in the process (PLAN), testing potential new processes and applying small adjustments (TEST), researching on and evaluating the results of testing those new processes (CHECK) and eventually applying all the improvements based on the evaluation that has been undertaken (ACT).

Most organizations that are willing to go through continuous and detailed processes improvement, should consider having certain checkpoints (points where they keep questioning procedures that are not efficient). What will be improved is important to be determined first along with finding the way it will be improved, driving up ideas, and enhancing process innovation. How the success or failure will be measured is also another essential question a manager would need to answer before even starting on planning the process improvements. Eventually, monitoring the results of the actual improvement and finding the way of this monitoring, are still important after finalizing the improvements. BizXL Solutions are offering the most appropriate services to help organizations improve their processes and at the same time focus on new, innovative procedures that will eliminate waste and maximize quality.