Process optimization to earn more or to better satisfy your customers? In this post you will find reflections on the importance of implementing and monitoring continuous improvement actions in the company.
- Does your company have problems due to delayed deliveries? Do you suffer from repeated customer complaints? Are there bottlenecks that you cannot detect?
- Using tools, such as ERP solutions, that can be modeled, adapted, customized to multiple needs and business areas, will be key to optimizing processes.
One small step for man, one giant leap for humanity is what Neil Armstrong said when he walked on the Moon.
For a company, taking small steps of continuous improvement, in the end, translates into great leaps for the organization. This is what the Kaizen method, which originated in Japan in the 1950s, is based on as a tool to help business optimization . Major brands such as Toyota, Honda and Sony successfully apply this philosophy, of Japanese origin, in their business framework. Summarizing it very much, his idea is that small gradual changes bring better results than a large one as the only objective.
TWEET IT! Do you have continuous improvement plans? Discover how to encourage process optimization with an ERP.
Many times we set ourselves great challenges and we want to achieve them all at once. Which translates into dissatisfaction. We get discouraged and give up before reaching the goal. Which leads us to think that we have failed and we will never be able to achieve it.
For example, if you want to run a marathon, the first day you are not going to cover 42,195 km, right? It is best to start with more affordable goals to earn funds, get to know you, etc., and gradually expand until you achieve your goal.
Well, in the company something similar. Of course, the involvement of all is necessary to achieve the objectives that are set. There are many more methods, but this is one of those that can be applied easily and practiced in any organization.
If you improve just 1% each day, at the end of the year you will be 38% better than the first day. If you get 1% worse every day, at the end of the year you will get 97% worse
Your client, the best excuse to encourage process optimization
And you, do you have continuous improvement plans? Any proposal to optimize or improve the organization is surely based on some incident or situation that triggers a study on it. Other times, it starts as an internal evaluation initiative when the company grows and processes begin to destabilize on the primary structures.
However, prioritizing process improvements or optimization should almost always be related to the customer. Since we are thanks to them. And they are the ones we should take into account to apply internal or external improvement plans, in order to build loyalty and improve our service. You are a company in the primary, secondary or tertiary sector.
What better than asking them about key issues that lead us to improve for them. What better way for them to see that we care about offering them better services or products or giving them positive feelings.
And for this, a 10-question survey is not necessary, but rather asking the right question that gives us the reason to evaluate ourselves and optimize accordingly.
For example, on every business call, ask that question. At each visit, ask about specific topics. In each online interaction, end with the corresponding question. Better if you use ERP or CRM technology to measure, collect and project results.
And according to the results, evaluate the corresponding circuits.
- Issues with delayed deliveries: review supply chain processes from top to bottom.
- Poor quality of a product: review the production chain to detect what is happening.
- Unresolved service issues or repeated complaints: Assess how well our customer service and all communication channels work.
This could be a way to detect reasons for continuous improvement and process optimization, directly related to your customers.
In short, it is about optimizing internally to improve externally.
Your team, source of wisdom and experience
In the introduction, mention was made of the importance of your collaborators, employees, management, etc. In short, of all the figures that make up the company to apply continuous improvements. And that is where another of the key factors for process optimization lies. Give the green light for them to be the ones who analyze what they do every day and propose proactive improvements to their work .
Another thing will be that they can be implemented immediately. However, they will remain as contributions to be analyzed and debated later.
If you get involved in it, detecting and contributing ideas for improvement, you will feel like a loyal part of the group . If you are listened to, your proposals are discussed and applied according to priorities, success is assured. In general, improvements will arise to be adopted in topics such as, for example:
- shifts.
- Effective working times.
- Number of active people at key moments.
- retainers
- substitutions.
- Use of work equipment or tools.
- Etc.
That a certain document is delayed in its completion, delivery or validation, or a succession of chain approvals by someone that, as a consequence, affects other processes.
It may also happen that certain remote activities are recorded through manual means and delay information and decision-making.
Or perhaps, a physical element, in a given process, is obsolete or needs to be replaced or evaluated and affects others that are already optimized.
And surely many more can be improved. And in all cases it is our team who knows it, who suffers from it and does not have the security or means to make it known. Well, let’s break these taboos and empower them to be free, in order to identify those possible bottlenecks and provide objective and real improvements .
ERP’s as an aid for process optimization
Investing in technology, in ERPs , especially as a solution, without further ado, to optimize processes, would not be the most appropriate, because on their own, just like they came out of the factory, they are not capable of giving the answer that is needed.
Now, knowing the needs, the incidents, the evaluated and projected improvement proposals, if this ERP is customized to respond to those requirements, then it will become part of the solution and will provide the organization with the necessary help, scalpel mode, providing it with useful tools to improve, measure and check that process optimization is giving the expected results.
Because evaluating results is essential to know if all of the above bears fruit. In that an ERP will be of great help. The indicators or KPI’s that we have created will give us visibility of it.
And if, in the end, the result is not what you expected, don’t give up. Let’s go back to the starting box. It is time to study the reasons for all this and prepare a new, more efficient and decisive action plan.
In this sense, using tools, such as digitaltechupdate’s ERP solutions, which can be modeled, adapted, customized to multiple needs and business areas, will be of great help to organizations to optimize their business processes.
In short, thanks to the application of continuous improvement actions on ERP technology, it helps us increase productivity and competitiveness, customer satisfaction, self-esteem and growth of our team, the agility of response to incidents and errors, and the internal and external communication.
