Applications of Process Improvement

In nearly every organization, there has been at least one project related to process improvement. After the first project, the organization usually wants to implement continuous improvement as a means of continuing its organizational development and change. Without a goal of improvement, an organization will become less competitive. Here are a few examples of process improvement that used systematic methods to assess a situation, complete a flowchart analysis of the current process, analyze the aspects of the process, and recommend a solution.

Specific Examples of Process Improvement

Banking Industry Improvement

During a bank's research program, customers provided feedback that they needed a faster and more flexible way to withdraw funds from their accounts. In the past, a person had to stand in line at the bank teller's window, complete a withdrawal form or write a check, present the document to the teller, and receive the funds after the bank teller counted them twice or three times. To address this situation, studies were completed to determine how to automate the process. Now automatic teller machines, commonly called ATMs, are located in convenient places and available for withdrawals, deposits, and balance checking 24 hours a day.

A Doctor's Office Improvement

Upon arrival for a doctor's appointment, patients had to wait to be checked in by the receptionist, who would then proceed to ask a series of questions about address, insurance coverage, and emergency contact. In order to speed the process and reduce lines, self-service kiosks were determined to be a way for patients to complete the check in process privately. With more than one kiosk available, patients can check in for appointments without waiting in long lines. This has helped reduce patient waiting and has helped keep the doctor's visits timelier.

A Business Process Improvement

Another example of a business that improved it processes to save time and money appears in an Example of Business Process Improvement by Martin Smith and is depicted in an article by Bisson, Folk, and Smith (2000). An accounting department of a local telephone company with approximately 500 employees issued about 3.5 million telephone bills monthly to business and residential customers. The process improvement team wanted to reduce expenses by 8–10% in each of the next five years. The company reviewed the cash process for the receipt of the customer's payments, credit of the payment to the customer's account, and deposit of the funds into the company's bank account. The process was flowcharted. The categories of disconnect were determined to be the following (from page 6 of Example of Business Process Improvement):

1. duplication of effort,
2. steps that should be performed by other departments,
3. discrepancies between the two processing centers,
4. unnecessary steps,
5. cycle time delays, and
6. opportunities for automation.

The recommendation categories (from page 6 of Example of Business Process Improvement) were:

1. automation of manual activities,
2. work elimination,
3. transfer of responsibilities and personnel from one department to another,
4. job redesign,
5. measurement plan for tracking process performance,
6. documentation of work procedures,
7. training to cover the new procedures, and (8) re-arrangement of the work force.

The end results were a 44% reduction in process steps, a 90% reduction in manually processed payments, 43% reduction in unplaced cash that couldn't be credited to any account, a 44% reduction in customer queries about payment processing, 45% fewer employees assigned to the cash process, and a $930,000 reduction in annual expenses.

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