4.4 Process management
Activity 4.3
Why is it necessary for a process to be repeatable and measurable for it to be improved and made mistake-proof?
The aim of continuous improvement is to drive out poor quality. To be able to do that, measuring of variance from the set standards and repeatability of processes are important. These allow proper management of the activities that an organisation carries out.
Process management is a function that exists in every well managed organisation. Indeed, process management is what we practice in our daily living. Generically, process management follows the following fundamental steps:
- Identify the problem.
- Analyse it.
- Generate possible solutions.
- Select best solution.
- Implement the selected solution.
- Evaluate results and fine tune the process.
The aim in any process management or improvement should be to identify and eliminate root causes of problems. If this is not done, problems will recur. Japanese management philosophy has identified seven tools to improve processes, which we will briefly discuss in this section. These tools are:
- Flow charts
- Check sheets
- Pareto diagrams
- Histograms
- Cause and effect diagrams
- Scatter diagrams
- Control charts
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