Supply chain management resources


Integrating Six Sigma with Business Process Management by Thomas Gomez

The concept of Six Sigma was first developedincorporate various critical elements of the
by Motorola Corporation as an approach toprocess. These would include business
address the high defect rates within thesystems, people and resources that are
company's manufacturing processes. With theinvolved in the entire process. The functions
success of Six Sigma, Motorola has registeredperformed by each of these elements are
the Six Sigma brand name to the corporation.defined  and  utilized in the analysis stage.
The concept of Six Sigma advocates that data
be collected from processes to measureAnalyze
performance and determine the extent of
variation from target performanceWith all data and information at hand, an
measurements.analysis is conducted on the business process
to determine areas of weaknesses. What are
This approach had been truly effective inthe key courses for the deviation? How does
ensuring quality in a manufacturingthis deviation affect other processes? Which
environment and was later adopted by thesteps of the processes are too slow? Where is
services industry during the 90s. However, asthe  backlog?
the Six Sigma framework relied heavily on the
collection and analysis of data of individualThe key approach when analyzing existing
processes, synchronizing processes betweenprocesses is to identify parts of the
departments was ignored. This resulted inprocesses which were irrelevant or which does
improvement benefits being limited tonot add value to the process. Most of the
specific functions only, without taking intotime, these areas of redundancy are the
consideration the integration with othercauses of delay within entire processes.
processes. Another weakness of the Six SigmaApart from that, dependency on a
methodology is the lack of control used tocross-functional process may also cause the
sustain improvements achieved. This stemscurrent  process  to  be  inefficient.
from the fact Six Sigma utilizes manual
processes to do this, an approach that lacksImprove
effectiveness.
Once weaknesses are discovered, areas for
In this sense, Business Process Managementimprovement to address these weaknesses will
(BPM) initiatives address areas that Sixbe identified. This would incorporate the use
Sigma falls short of, in line with theof "what if" hypothetical solutions in order
purpose of achieving excellence into shortlist several possible scenarios that
organizations. These two methodologieswould  work  to  improve the current process.
complement each other to compensate for areas
of weaknesses. Although BPM addresses processMany times, process improvements will include
enhancements and monitoring from a holisticthe utilization of automated processes
viewpoint, it fails to address the analyticalthrough the use of technology. Human
requirements required to solve complexintervention will still be required, but a
issues.form of integration between automated and
human  run  processes  will  be  developed.
Therefore, BPM approaches are used to define
current processes and their role acrossAt this juncture, the utilization of machines
multiple functions, identify areas within theor applications for greater efficiency will
process that affect critical success factorsbe customized towards the particular business
and develop process improvements for theseprocess. Data flow between automated
areas of weaknesses. The identification ofprocesses and human operated processes will
gaps between existing processes and idealneed to be smooth. Therefore, all variables
processes are addressed with Six Sigmainvolved in a process will be taken into
initiatives. Finally, process monitoring,consideration  during  the  design  stage.
evaluation and continuous improvement
measures are implemented with BPM techniques.Control
These are carried out for inter-related
processes  across  the  organization.A new process will have limited effectiveness
to an organization if it is not constantly
A step-by-step insight into how a BPM - Sixmonitored for sustainability. This is why a
Sigma  initiative  is  implementedmonitoring and tracking system needs to be
put in place, most probably in the form of a
DefineBPM monitoring system where performance
indicators are constantly measured. This way,
The first step for such an initiative is tothe management team will be able to react to
define the current processes of a function,deviations quickly, and make any amendments
with outputs clearly determined. Data iswhenever necessary. Automated reports will be
collected to determine the health of thetriggered to managers whenever a specific
performance of the particular process asdeviation and review meetings are held to
compared to predefined targets. If there is aaddress  any  process  issues.
deviation in the performance measured from
the particular process, the effect of theIn conclusion, Six Sigma and BPM when
deviation may be translated into monetaryimplemented together will produce outstanding
terms.results for the purpose of organizational
excellence. This is possible through the
Measuresynergy achieved from these two remarkable
methodologies that help to improve
BPM process maps are developed whichorganizational performance the world over.



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