Process improvement projects shortcomings and resolution

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe a business management system that addresses the following issue: Lean Six Sigma, total quality management, and other process improvement efforts center on the execution of process improvement projects; however, often these projects (e.g. Lean Six Sigma Black Belt projects) are identified in silos and do not benefit the business as a whole, e.g. $125 million is reported saved, but nobody can find the money.Design/methodology/approachThe paper “Where process‐improvement projects go wrong,” Wall Street Journal, January 25, 2010 (www.smartersolutions.com/blog/forrestbreyfogle/?p=2726) elaborates on the shortcomings of typical process improvement efforts by building an analog between process improvement programs and a spring's stress‐strain curve – stretching, yielding, and failing. To address the described issues, process improvement efforts need to be part of an overall enhanced business management system in order to have long‐lasting success. This structured organizational framework should integrate predictive scorecards with targeted strategies creation that blends analytics with innovation, which lead to the establishment of functional performance goals that pull for the creation of enterprise‐as‐a‐whole‐beneficial improvement projects, which positively impacts these target objectives.FindingsThe described nine‐step Integrated Enterprise Excellence (IEE) business management system provides the framework for achievement of these above‐described needs. The IEE system, for example, blends analytics with theory of constraints, competitive assessments, and economic environment so that created project work efforts have a whole‐system‐performance measurement benefit.Research limitations/implicationsIn Lean Six Sigma and Lean kaizen event programs, improvement projects are often selected from a brainstorming‐list of potential opportunities. Initial gains when starting such a deployment can be achieved; however, this effort typically stalls out and the process improvement teams are laid‐off when times get tough. The reason for this rough‐time downsizing is that the previous team process improvement project efforts were not, in the eyes of executives, expended in areas so that a significant overall enterprise benefit was achieved. IEE provides a business management system for addresses these issues so that business improvement efforts have a whole‐organization benefit.Practical implicationsThe IEE system can be used by management to address the business management problems of the day, e.g. management issues that led to the financial crisis and the problems that Toyota is now experiencing.Originality/valueMany who have studied the IEE system have said that this system provides a framework for how business should be run and should be taught in business schools.