Business Process Management System with Lean Six Sigma

A Business Process Management System with Lean Six Sigma as an overall encompassing approach will be described in this blog.  This methodology has many benefits over traditional independent Business Process Management (BPM) and Lean Six Sigma deployments.

Business Process Management (BPM) with Lean Six Sigma (LSS) has much to contribute to each other. Both BPM and LSS have a similar basic objective, which is to allow companies to better manage and optimize processes.  However, often both Business Process Management and Lean Six Sigma deployment work in organizations occurs in silos that don’t benefit the enterprise as a whole.

The suggested Business Process Management System with Lean Six Sigma approach in this blog provides the means to overcome these shortcomings.

Objectives of BPM and LSS in a Business Process Management System with Lean Six Sigma

Business process management (BPM) is a discipline of aligning an organization’s business processes so that they are more coordinated, enabling the organization to adapt to an ever-changing business environment, which promotes business efficiency and effectiveness. BPM emphasis on managing processes rather than a task can result in improved business performance and operational agility. What is suggested is a systematic approach of the combination of several steps including analyze, re-design and modeling, implement, monitor and manage.

On the other hand, like BPM, Lean Six Sigma (LSS) is also a process management methodology designed to improve the quality of process outputs by finding and removing the causes of variation (inconsistency) and errors within the business processes.  Often in organizations the measurement for success of a Lean Six Sigma deployment is how much money was saved through the execution of improvement projects or design projects; however, often much money might be reported in saving but the executives cannot find the money since the reported savings are in silos that do not necessarily impact the enterprise as a whole positively.

Offerings of BPM and LSS in a Business Process Management System with Lean Six Sigma

Generally, the integrated BPM with Lean Six Sigma approach would be used by larger companies; however, the techniques apply equally well to small organizations. In companies, Six Sigma tools can be used to implement a driving force that influences BPM. So BPM could be regarded as a broad or inclusive approach, while Lean Six Sigma contributes useful tools and methods. Lean Six Sigma can support not only the execution of projects but also how measurements and data are examined and conclusions are made from this examination.

The Integrated approach of Business process Management (BPM) and Lean Six Sigma has two key principles:

• Improve business process flow and speed
• Delight the customers with speed and quality

A Business Process Management System with Lean Six Sigma approach potentially has several benefits, which are:

1. Framework Provided by Business Process Management System with Lean Six Sigma

Normally, Lean Six Sigma techniques are focused on dealing with specific and fairly narrow problems. This technique helps to uncover the information that supports eliminating the non-value added work in the way of improving a well-defined activity or groups of steps. But, Lean Six Sigma alone can’t able to support the broader picture.

Organizations benefit when there is a roadmap framework for integrating Lean Six Sigma and Business process Management (BPM).

2. Covering of Weaknesses with Business Process Management System with Lean Six Sigma

Lean Six Sigma applied in the context of individual processes has two serious weaknesses:

• First, improvement achieved from Lean Six Sigma tends to be narrowly focused and isolated improvements are always causing problems in the flow of goods and services in the broader context, as in across the enterprise.
• Second, Lean Six Sigma relies on resources collecting from the competing business groups and a cooperative view for work priorities. As different units of business have their own high priority ratings, assessment of appropriate priority can slow down the improvements.

On the other hand, the weakness of BPM is that it is not a statistical method like Lean Six Sigma to define opportunities for improvements. But it can provide the framework for change in its process and workflow models to apply the improved outputs from Lean Six Sigma.

3. High Profit Margin with Business Process Management System with Lean Six Sigma

It has been shown that on average companies that are using either BPM or Lean Six Sigma have a higher Return on Sales than those which  haven’t any initiative; those with an integrated approach are the most profitable and successful ones. It is not so difficult to conclude that an integrated approach can work very well.

Consider the following manufacturing example: A parts supplier decides that it will differentiate itself from the competition by reducing the delivery time. Using Lean Six Sigma technique, this manufacturing company develops a value stream map (VSM) to identify key focus areas (non-value added activities) and metrics that contribute to overall lead time. This VSM is decomposed down to the lower level processes until the improvement team knows the key points of waste and failure that need to be addressed in order to make the initial improvements to delivery time.

At this point, Business Process Management technology could be used to automate processes that would minimize non-value added time identified in the VSM. For example: reduction of excessive material handling time and time spent waiting for approvals of orders. As a result, the parts supplier enables the company to drive down the delivery time successfully.

Roadmap for Business Process Management System with Lean Six Sigma

A detailed Business Process Management System with Lean Six Sigma is available.  This orchestrated methodology provides a roadmap described in books that mitigates what is lacking in processes.  This methodology ensures improved performance, revenue, and growth of the business or enterprise as a whole.

Contact Us to set up a time to discuss with Forrest Breyfogle how your organization could gain much from an Integrated Enterprise Excellence (IEE) BPM/LSS Integration.