Process Improvement Discussion

LA 2-1: From what you know from experience and course readings, imagine you were hired (for big bucks) to lead a BPI Team for K-Mart.

· Identify 3 business objectives similar to those in  Using Organizational Business Objectives to Guide a Process Improvement Program , that you might suggest to your BPI Team during the kick-off meeting. 

· For each objective you choose, provide verb-led bullets as to why it is important to Kmart’s survival.   

LA 2-2: Based on the 3 objectives you've chosen in LA 2-1:

Identify 3 ways – with verb-led bullets for your reasons - you might gain stakeholder buy-in or support based on ideas gained from Best Practices for Socializing Business Process Improvement Initiatives

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Theme 1: What is BPI?

Business process improvement (BPI) is a systematic approach to help an organization optimize its underlying ways of doing business to achieve more efficient results.

The methodology was first documented in H. James Harrington's 1991 book Business Process Improvement. As a very new field of study, its infancy is as important as its evolution.

Pioneers like Frank W. Taylor, efficiency expert and father of the study of industrial engineering, and Lillian and Frank Gilbreth, who introduced psychology and time and motion study to business management, suggested to the business world the idea of dissecting and analyzing business operating procedures and the people who performed them, in an effort to create more efficient and cost saving ways of making and delivering products.

As the nature and types of products evolved it became apparent that specific types of business methodology was needed to examine all areas of business operations.

Major Fields of study emerged as a result. In particular, the field of study known as Industrial Engineering resulted directly from Taylor’s work. This area studies ways in which machinery efficiency in the manufacturing of goods can save money.  

Two other areas of study that evolved from the early work and most relevant to our class work today are those found in the field of Business Process Management (BPM). BPM is broken into two main areas, Business Process Improvement and Business Process Re-engineering.  BPM deals in the systematic approach to improving business processes.  

A business process is an activity or set of activities that will accomplish a specific organizational goal. They can range from how to operate a machine to how the accounts receivable are collected.

BPR is about re-engineering processes that are antiquated, broken down, or just not working well. In this class we will not be dealing with BPR. Instead we are going to look at the area of process improvement that covers all other types of processes. We will be discovering the value of business process improvement to the workplace.

In the 21st century as we move away from the traditional movement of goods into the realm of moving people the study of how we examine process improvement to better the organization is also changing.

New theories used in mainstream business like Six-Sigma, Lean, and TQM have arisen to help integrate new technology with process improvement.

Examination and application of some of the ideas presented in these methodologies will be discussed with in the class work.

Theme 2: What BPI Means to the Organization

Key benefits to using the methodology of business process improvement includes higher productivity, streamlined procedures, and an empowered work force.

A standardized process improvement methodology lets us focus on how we perform work. When all of the stakeholders are involved in process improvement, they can collectively focus on eliminating waste—of money, people, materials, time, and opportunities.

The ideal outcome is that jobs can be done cheaper, quicker, easier, safer, and with a great deal more job satisfaction.