As the year winds down, many companies are looking to establish or refresh strategic initiatives centered on improving operations in the new year. Many of these initiatives include redesigning or reengineering processes. Successful implementation of process redesigns and improvements can increase efficiencies, reduce costs, and drive operational performance.

There are five keys to focus on when assessing and implementing a process redesign:

• Process is King: Strategy sets the direction of the intended operational improvement, but the process implements it. The process should drive all other changes (organization and technology). Do not let personalities or existing technology constraints dilute your “ideal” solution. Create the “ideal” process and then overlay reality to see if you need to scale back your solution. Do not cast the ideal with the constraints of the current organization or technology.
• Measure Pre & Post Performance: Time invested early in the effort to quantify current metrics and establish measurement benchmarks takes the guesswork out of measuring post-implementation success.     
• Account for the End-to-End Process: There is a tendency to define the current state focusing on specific people or functions instead of identifying and accounting for all the touch points before and after the function. It is essential to create a complete end-to-end view from initial input to value-created output to achieve true optimization. 
• Avoid Crippling Day-to-Day Business: Redesign is not synonymous with adversely impacting the day-to-day business while you implement a new idea. Think strategically about your redesign initiative so strategy and implementation can be done during a timeframe that keeps in mind business cycles, seasonal peaks, and critical processing times.
• Challenge Every Activity: Assess every activity within a process to ensure it is contributing to the success of operational performance. In building the “ideal” process, validate every activity does at least one of the following items or the activity should be removed: 
  • Enhances operational efficiency
  • Increases the value to the customer
  • Improves the quality of the product
  • Is a regulatory requirement

Keep these tips in mind to help improve your probability of success in your operational optimization initiatives. Please contact RubinBrown if you need help improving your business processes.

Published: 12/14/2023

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