PROCESS INTENSIFICATION AND REDESIGN: CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT THROUGH VALUE CHAIN MANAGEMENT

Businessprocess mapping, as business viability assessment, calls for charter communication, flowcharting, cycle time definition, and knowledge management and continuous process improvement definition. Over the past several decades, a great deal of time and effort has been exerted in a quest forcontinuous improvement through value chain management or for the redesign of enterprise processes to add value. The principals and consultants of LX Consulting have been at the forefront of many of these efforts. One of the legacies of the quality and reengineering movement has been the sharp focus it placed on the simple but powerful notion of examining and continuously improving the way work is done and value is added - in short, process intensification.

Vertically structured organizations have come to understand work takes place horizontally, often flowing cross-functionally. They have initiated systematic searches for ways to streamline work with an eye toward improving the capability, efficiency, and effectiveness of their business processes. Additionally, they have focused on specification, flowcharting, documentation, standardization, improvement, and innovation for improved enterprise effectiveness. This has led to global and local certification and specification activities, as well as a focus on adding value to maximize profitability and productivity.

At the core of ’s process intensification consulting work is this very type of Process Improvement and Redesign, including our Supply and Value Chain Management work. Process improvement results like reduced operating costs, quicker cycle times, less manpower, faster transaction processing, better yields, and more frequent inventory turns are commonly realized. These, in turn, lead to a reduction in frustration, handoffs, breakdowns, waste, and rework. Typically, both quality and customer satisfaction increase.

Knowing what it takes to be successful,  has developed a well-tested methodology for ensuring measurable and predictable change and improvement. Our approach to work processes has been used in a variety of client settings and industries, from very large Fortune 50 organizations to smaller, family-owned businesses. Our process improvement expertise and experience have helped organizations realize these kinds of results: $10,000,000 reduction in manufacturing costs in one year; a 50% reduction in manufacturing cycle time; a 25% decrease in inventory; a 3% yield improvement representing millions in reduced operating expense; a radically redesigned and standardized new product introduction process; a 30% reduction in “out of stocks”; a 15% improvement in order fulfillment and on-time delivery.

The methods we employ are fast, flexible, and focused on achieving results. We guide your team of people, those most involved in and knowledgeable about the work, through a provenbusiness process mapping and process intensification approach for changing and improving the way that work gets done. Our bias is to apply knowing and doing techniques rather than thinking and conceptual models. In addition, we pay close attention to the cost/benefit impact of any process changes to the organization. And consistent with our overriding purpose, we ensure the process has current and future strategic relevance. In other words, we focus effort and attention on core business processes, those select few you must execute flawlessly, effectively, and efficiently to achieve your strategic objectives and priorities.

While every process improvement intervention we undertake has unique requirements, we typically use the following approach with clients. Based on the strategic needs of your organization, high-leverage, high-return, strategic processes to be worked on are designated. A charter communication provides a generic overview of the business of process improvement begins establishing an improvement goal or target that addresses a specific set of customer requirements and/or strategic issues. The next activity entails analyzing the process throughblueprinting or flowcharting, depending on the complexity of the process itself. Following documentation of the “as is” process is the selection of the most problematic or out-of-control areas within the process. This is coupled with data collection to determine the root causes of these urgent problems. Precise data collection, like clear measures, helps pinpoint opportunities to focus on, steps to take, and results to spotlight.

As a result of the fact-based root cause analysis, cost effective solutions are generated to overcome the most pressing and significant problems within the current process. These solutions are thoroughly tested (weighing cost/benefit). If successful, they are recommended as changes which are institutionalized within the operation of that process. Our unwavering focus and reliance on hard data dictates a monitoring and measurement plan is put in place to track the process changes to ensure the desired effects of process intensification are realized on a continuing basis.

In today’s world of intense, demanding competition, no organization has the luxury of overly complex, unresponsive, and costly business processes or broken supply and value chains. The relentless pursuit of process improvement and redesign is a pivotal component of the drive to secure and maintain competitive advantage. At LX^x Consulting, we have a proven track record of helping organizations make quantum improvements in high-quality performance. Our people and approaches are tried, tested, and true.

Ambitious strategic objectives will not be achieved with poorly-performing, non-value-adding business processes. Using a powerful combination of your own empowered team of people along with LX Consulting's experienced process management consultants, produces measurable, repeatable, and predictable results like those outlined above and leaves you self-sufficient and in control of yourenterprise's knowledge management and continuous process improvement definition thus ensuring continuous improvement through value chain management. In an era of integrated supply chains, up-to-instant response times, sophisticated customers, outsourcing, volatile market conditions, and globalization, can you really afford business as usual?