You could describe process improvement as ’the act of making internal business processes better’. Process simplification is defined as ’the action to make internal business processes simpler’, whereas process alignment means something like ’the action to align internal business processes’.
In business process management people are constantly looking for ways to improve, simplify and align the organization’s processes in order to increase the organization’s ability to respond quickly, efficiently and effectively to events. They eliminate unnecessary procedures, work and all kinds of excess and waste and standardize the remaining work. Employees in this branche combat information overload, work according to the just-in-time principle, the right-size concept and process re-engineering to improve process speed. They seamlessly align all processes to eliminate bottlenecks and disruptions. By connecting all elements in the value chain and applying efficiency models to the value chain, they achieve continuous process optimization. To improve, simplify and align processes you need to have a strong system perspective, which allows you to oversee all aspects of a function, making it as simple as possible, and by being able to quickly develop and implement new ways of working.
But how to realise process improvement?
Below we will point out some ideas to improve, simplify and align the business processes of your organisation!
- Focus, focus, focus! Choose a limited number of improvement initiatives that you want to implement and make it clear how important these initiatives are in relation to everyday work.
- Nobody can start an improvement project without first discussing a plan with clear responsibilities, deadlines and what needs to be achieved.
- Only start a new initiative if the previous one has been completed, within the time and budget foreseen and with the expected results.
- Talk continuously within the organization about the improvement projects, so that everyone knows that they are important and also knows what the status of those projects is.
- Appoint a permanent person, a chief improvement officer, who is responsible for the systematic development and improvement of all processes.
- Ask for tailored advice from a specialised company, like https://valueblue.com/.