ARTICLES (INTERNET)

These articles (Internet) papers, which were written by Forrest Breyfogle and/or a Smarter Solutions’ team member, were provided through outlets such as BPM Enterprise, Quality Magazine, Inside Six Sigma Newsletter, Quality Digest, PMHut, Isixsigma, IQPC PEX, BPTrends, and Supply & Demand Chain Executive. Topics addressed in these articles include business process management (BPM), lean Six Sigma deployment, Business Management System enhancements, lean Six Sigma process improvement tools, performance management process-output tracking, business management system, process improvement selection so the big picture benefits, and systems thinking.

Business Process Management Tools and Techniques

To achieve a successful BPM deployment that meets all the objectives, organizations have a number of risky factors to avoid! Check out this paper to understand the seven deadly sins that stifle a successful BPM implementation. Learn how common practices like automation, strategic planning by a committee, and intuitive decision-making can all be detrimental to your BPM deployment and even business.

Lean Six Sigma Project Selection Methodology so Enterprise KPIs Benefit

To be competitive, organizations need continuous improvement efforts working internally and throughout their supply chains. How can this type of system be created so that it is both immediately beneficial and able to maintain its integrity through inevitable leadership and organizational changes? This article presents a clear mechanism for selecting improvement projects that benefit the business as a whole and avoids projects that profit a single silo.

Enhanced Hoshin Strategic Planning Process

Hoshin kanri, also called hoshin planning or policy deployment, is a technique that can establish a structure for implementing executive-defined strategies. However, the wording of strategic statements can lead to executions that are very team dependent. In addition, these statements can also lead to activities that are not healthy for the organization as a whole. In this article, Forrest Breyfogle will show how creating and executing strategic planning statements also can contribute to a company’s decline.

Enhanced Risk Management Plan in an Overall Business Management System

Organizations need a systematic approach for risk containment when quality, delivery, and design product and service issues occur. Such a system should also help them to recover quickly from errant decisions made by executives, operations personnel, and the quality department. This article describes how well-chosen metrics can help mitigate these risks if the measurements contain good tracking and reporting methods that lead to the most appropriate action.

Enhanced SPC P-chart can Include Capability Statement in One Chart

An enhanced  Statistical Process Control SPC p-chart approach provides in one chart both a process stability and capability assessment/statement. The Integrated Enterprise Excellence (IEE) enhanced SPC p-chart 30,000-foot-level measurement approach for non-conformance rate time-series tracking of data (i.e., from a high-level overall process output point of view) also provides a prediction statement when a process …

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Advantages and Disadvantages of the Balanced Scorecard: Its Pros and Cons

The disadvantages out weigh advantages when assessing balanced scorecard pros and cons! Having a balance in organizational scorecards is important but a natural balance, not forced balance, is much more beneficial. In addition, scorecards should give focus on the alignment of its performance scorecard measures to what is done when producing its product and services.  …

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Enhanced Lean Implementation Roadmap

Lean, Lean Six Sigma, total quality management (TQM), and other techniques have helped companies improve processes through the execution of projects. However, much of these efforts have resulted in siloed process improvements that don’t benefit the enterprise as a whole. Lean Six Sigma and other process improvement programs have striven to improve their project selection process; however, often the gains from those projects have been minimal. It seems that what needs to be done to resolve this issue is for process improvement efforts to become more integrated within the overall business system (e.g., scorecard creation/management and strategy development/execution.) This article describes is a system for accomplishing this orchestration, where lean and Six Sigma tools enhance the overall business system so that the organization moves toward achieving the three Rs of business: everyone doing the right things, the right way, at the right time.

Enhanced Process Improvement Methodologies for Business and Projects

There is often much contention between Six Sigma and lean communities. Lean disciples often believe that their methodologies should come first or be above Six Sigma, relative to organizational application, while others with a strong Six Sigma background propose just the opposite.Many process improvement programs now refer to their deployments as lean Six Sigma; however, these programs still tend to consider the tools in isolation without a true tool-integration road map. To address this integration issue, an examination of the measurement that is to be improved can provide insight into which tool or tools would be most applicable for any given situation.

Executing Theory of Constraints Principles in a Business Management System

In lean Six Sigma and lean kaizen event programs, improvement projects are often selected from a list of potential opportunities that were determined from a brainstorming session. This effort might provide some initial gains when starting a deployment; however, it typically stalls out and the process improvement teams are laid off when times get tough. The reason for this downsizing is that often process improvement efforts are not expended in areas where the overall enterprise benefits the most; e.g., focusing on sales and marketing when excess production capacity is available. This article walks through some of the frequent short-comings of Theory of Constraints and how it can best be applied to the enterprise.