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Abandonment improves the process

Even if we can look back on over twenty years of Business Process Engineering, the business processes are still loaded with activities that waste the scarce means, lead to delays and demotivate the employees. For this reason, there is regularly the need to purge the processes by improving procedures through abandonment.

Prozessoptimierung

In order to facilitate them, the procedures should be available in a documented form. If the appropriate descriptions are missing, one cannot help but to determine the flows with the required details. Already on the highest layer, the process map, possible candidates can be found, e.g. entire areas that can be outsourced. Then, the actual business processes can be scanned for unnecessary process steps by looking at the following aspects.

  • Put the emphasis on core tasks
    Originally, enterprises handled the entire value creation internally, from the steel production, to the finished vehicle. Meanwhile, service providers offer almost all functions as services – from the food supply, to the facility and the vehicle fleet management, to the services of IT and product development.
    In order to align the processes to the core tasks, the strategic core is specified and other functions are outsourced. Only the coordination of external partners remains internally.
  • Simplify activities
    Frequently the procedures are contaminated with old activities that are no longer necessary, e.g. administrating documents or distributing minutes. Since the information is stored electronically, with the appropriate access, the required information is available to the employees at any time.
    The activities can be simplified by constantly using the current IT in various places.
  • Eliminate control tasks
    Depending on the existing culture the processes are filled with controls and rework loops. With the Four Eyes Principle the participants are deprived and the flow is slowed down.
    By dissolving the control tasks, the processes will be faster and the quality of the results increases with the authorized self-control of the participants.
  • Shorten Processes
    The tendency to keep the number of processes small leads to overloaded monsters. Quickly different activities are integrated into one process, e.g. the sales process, the HR process, the development process.
    By looking at the natural breaking points, these monsters can be divided and/or shortened.
  • Delete senseless wasting
    Actually, there are no senseless activities, since there are always unquestionable explanations that show the benefit for the one or the other.
    For this reason all activities should be questioned whether they provide a value-add to the results. If this justification is not comprehensible on an objective basis, the activity should be eliminated without replacement.

Bottom line: Business processes can be designed with less friction loss by abandoning activities. They become faster, obtain better results and give the employees enough time to fulfill the core tasks intently.

Sometimes we simply misestimate

After a two-week visit in Japan, the production manager of a bolt manufacturer decided to transform the pond in his garden to a water lily pond. The special kind of flower that he received doubled weekly. Since only half of the pond should be covered, the gardener recommended calling early enough. On August 24, the manager was completely surprised that the entire pond was covered with water lilies. Sometimes we simply misestimate. When was the right time to call the gardener?

waterlilies

Such questions become even more difficult for time-lagged effects that result from our actions. Let us take a second example.

Our production manager has 100 employees, who produce screws and nuts in two shifts. After some organizational changes, he discovers in his monthly meeting that five employees are dissatisfied. The HR department reports that one unsatisfied employee is followed within every two weeks by an additional one. The company pursues the principle, if a quarter of the staff is frustrated, they must initiate an organizational development (OD). To prevent the OD, the production manager decides to have prophylactically every two weeks a conversation with two discontented employees. Each dialogue is successful. When does he get the situation under control?

The inventor of chess already exploited the inability of imagining the exponential developments for his own benefit. He demanded the Indian ruler Shihram as a reward for the invention of the chess game grains of wheat. On the first field of the chessboard one, on second two, on third four and so on with duplications. The ruler agreed immediately. Only after days, the computing masters of the ruler determined an insane number of wheat grains (see  http://www.chess.com/news/a-beautiful-story-of-chess-1078 ).

As the Indian ruler, we misestimate dynamic developments. Did you estimate that the gardener should have been coming on August 23? (If on the 24. the entire pond is covered, a day before, it should only be half covered. Do you agree?).

By the way. Since the production manager started the dialogues only after two weeks, he already has to initiate an organizational development after six weeks.