The Choice Of Effective Business Process Improvement Tools

Business process improvement tools are aids used to help a particular organization make radical and significant changes in the way it does business. That particular organization may or may not be involved in profit driven business like a government agency or a non-profit organization.

These tools are important in business process improvement as they help define or redefine an organization’s strategic goals, vision or purpose, determine the organization’s stakeholders or customers and realign the business processes used in achieving the organization’s business goals.

There are at least ten fundamental tools for business process improvement which any organizations could utilize. Some of these are:

* Concepts on BPI Flowcharting
Flowcharting is a tool that aims to make it easier for your team to understand concepts relevant to the organization.
* BPI measurement methods
BPI measurement methods help the team plan concepts based on the following factors: cycle-time, cost, efficiency, adaptability and effectiveness.
* Interviewing techniques Interviewing techniques involve the extraction of high-quality information which your team could later review.
* Bureaucracy elimination methods
Bureaucracy elimination methods help the team map-out a strategy which would promote streamlined and more efficient processes by removing unnecessary tasks, paperwork and approvals. Others are:
* No-value added activity elimination methods
* Process and paperwork simplification techniques
* Cost and cycle time analysis
* Process walk-through methods
* Simple language analysis and methods

Aside from the ten fundamental tools, there are also ten more sophisticated business process improvement tools which the analysis team could utilize, once they master the ten fundamental tools. The mastery of these tools helps the organization take on higher goals.

These ten advanced tools include program evaluation and review technique (PERT) charting, Quality function deployment, Process analysis technique, structured analysis and design (SA/SD), Business Systems Planning, Value analysis, value control, Benchmarking, information engineering and poor quality cost.

Benchmarking is a sophisticated BPI tool; it is an act of systematically defining and adopting the best systems, processes and practices to be used. Benchmarking opens organizations to new concepts, methods and tools to improve and helps prevent paradigm blindness. Paradigm blindness is often defined as the mentality of “the best way to do it is the way we’ve always been doing.” Paradigm blindness leads to stagnation once an organization become habitually resistant to doing something new.

Information engineering is an evolutionary and an integrated set of techniques and tasks that enhance a business or organization’s communication methods. It aims to develop people, systems and procedures that will help to achieve its vision. Among the purpose of information engineering are organization planning, business re-engineering, information systems planning, application development and systems re-engineering.

These tools offer a radical analysis and are prone to resistance coming from those within the organization structure as it has often been the reason for lay-offs in large companies and businesses. But an organization using BPI and utilizing the many tools that come with it should have the appropriate workforce that the company or organization will need to face new challenges.

There are many BPI tools to choose from, but one of the primary considerations should be the involvement of the organization’s stakeholders particularly the management and those who are key in the workforce.