According to the author, those firms which have incorporated lean six sigma in their businesses, are growing by leaps and bounds. Following are the strategic process improvement trends in the top-notch firms, extracted by the author: 1) Creating the best process practices for future, rather than absorbing the best practices from other firms. 2) Introducing the new technologies in the firm for the convenience of the clients. 3) Adapting to the changing technology and artificial intelligence and being updated about the frequent changes. 4) Eliminating the complexities and switching to simple, hassle-free and practical ways, by embracing lean six sigma. Read more at http://www.boomer.com/single-post/2017/05/18/5-Process-Improvement-Strategy-Trends-of-Future-Ready-Firms

The culture of an organization has a significant impact on the overall success rate of change initiatives. Weak process culture implies lack of proper teamwork.  The signs of a weak process culture includes no collaboration amongst different teams, morale is low, and process and change initiatives frequently seem to fail. One of its biggest cause is invisible leadership. Now, to turn around a weak process culture, the following steps maybe followed:

      1.  Demonstrate active leadership

      2.  Empower the real process owners

     3.  Sustain momentum – deploy into structured change

     4.  Provide process guidance

     5.  Sustain communication

With the building blocks for a strong improvement culture in place, teams will feel empowered to collaborate on improvement efforts. Engaged teams armed with the right attitude can take any tools and turn their efforts into real improvement for your customers and for your bottom line. Read more at  https://www.processexcellencenetwork.com/organizational-change/articles/how-to-spot-and-fix-a-weak-process-culture

Process improvement is an important part of powering business hubs towards success avoiding major hindrances and problems. Following a bad process often leads to stagnation and failure in business. So it's vital to know how process improvisation can boost efficiency and prevent disaster before they happen. Selecting the correct process in the first place is a difficult task as a wrong process may lead business succumbs to inefficiency and poor performance. It is not necessarily important for one to be a tech-wizard either- all you have to do is follow some basic steps:• Select a process you want to improve
• Define the intended outcome and objective of the process
• Draft and map the ways it can be improved
• Analyze the process and suggest improvement with the help of a team
• Test and deploy the changes .
In short, Process improvement not only boosts efficiency, but also effectively scale a business while staying consistent with your business model. Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/business-innovation/process-improvement-stop-bad-processes-killing-business-01847982#3LfPm82T1HxKGGfE.97

To provide correct business decisions, we need to address data quality consideration like accuracy, timely, consistency, etc. There is a sheer growth of data which needs to be accounted for and properly identified from the source. Quality movement focuses on many diverse aspects. The origins of defects therefore failed to be identified. The challenge is to understand the data, by use of data models and in context. Analysts build models based on continual consultation with business stakeholders. Metrics are established to quantify the relative importance and evaluate progress. Continual improvement is an ongoing discipline which gives breakthrough results and competitive advantage. To know more:
http://www.thoughtsoncloud.com/2015/07/enabling-a-data-culture-through-continuous-improvement/

According to Saritha Rai (Contributor), e-commerce companies like Amazon, Snapdeal, ShopClues, Flipkart etc. find innovative solutions to timely delivery of their products by collaborating with Kirana stores, Dabbawallas in Mumbai, post office for reaching especially in rural areas and gas stations in Delhi and Mumbai. In a Morgan Stanley Report, Indian e-commerce market is expected to boom up to $100 billion in revenue by 2020. Timely delivery in the cities of India is a big challenge for e-commerce firms as roads are congested, streets are not numbered sequentially and customers many times don’t write zip codes or landmarks.  Finding these innovative solutions will not only benefit the e-commerce firms but it will also benefit local sources. To know more about these innovative solution read at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/saritharai/2015/04/15/from-dabbawallas-to-kirana-stores-five-unique-ecommerce-delivery-innovations-in-india/

According to John Mills (Industry week), manufactures have less visibility than others and manufactures can’t wait for a longer period. In manufacturing companies conditions change frequently. In North America, factory activity has been trending down after the fall of 2014 and the Institute for supply Management said US index falling is falling since five consecutive months. Therefore, we need to predict the future of manufacturing firms by conducting some test quarterly. To know more about test read at:

http://www.industryweek.com/leadership/assume-nothing-5-tests-every-manufacturer-should-run-quarterly

Business leaders understand the strengthg and usefulness of managing the improvement of business results through process improvement teams. There is no better approach to process improvement than the application of Six Sigma tools and methods. Moreover, the disciplines of project management and Six Sigma are substitutes but they are complementary. The similarities between project management and Six Sigma include:

• Utilization of established project management techniques to efficiently manage a project and project teams.

• Necessity of proactive project sponsors or champions to help ensure project success.

• Life cycle and phases.

• Need for a well-experienced project facilitator to lead the effort.

Six Sigma adds additional dimensions to project management: 

• Powerful set of process improvement tools.

• Statistical and process thinking to understand and improve results.

• Understanding of variation, to eliminate knee-jerk reactions.

• Quantitative analysis for base decisions on facts and data.

Read more at: 

http://www.microsoft.com/project/en/gb/six-sigma.aspx

The service sector constitutes 62% of the world’s total GDP. It has grown by leaps and bounds over the last two decades. The service sector employs around 40% of the global labour force. The four unique features of services are Intangibility, Inseparability, Perishability and Variability. Service operations are often labour intensive and susceptible to variations. These variations often lead to complexities and customer dissatisfaction. The big challenge is to deliver consistent quality of services across all platforms.  Demand Planning is another big challenge. Services are dynamic and perishable in nature and this can often lead to instances of idle capacity or opportunity loss. Further, the quality in service environment is an experience and not just a measurement against specification so defect definition can tricky. To overcome these challenges, as in other industries, the service industry needs to innovate and continuously improve its processes. Here are four suggested process improvement techniques for services industries:

• Develop a Process Manual

• Automate Processes

• Reduce Failure Demand

• Conduct a Service Blueprinting exercise

To know more about the four suggested process improvement techniques visit:

 http://www.processexcellencenetwork.com/innovation/articles/four-key-process-improvement-techniques-for-servic/

Continually changing markets affect all industries; sooner or later the world will move on. Any product or service will eventually become obsolete if it is not refined to keep up with these ever-changing market demands. Staying still is not an option. A good Continuous Improvement process will deliver rapid evolution into any business. If one can improve faster than their competitors then they will be able to secure more of the market in future. The four basic requirements needed to develop a flourishing Continuous Improvement culture are stating your intention to improve, harvesting opportunity ideas i.e. initiating a continual improvement process, empowering the workforce i.e. deploying a continuous improvement culture, which is easy where the staffs are empowered to improve and measuring the improvement culture by the number of identified success and celebrating the success. To know more about these four requirements go to:

http://adaptivebms.com/How_to_establish_a_Continuous_Improvement_Process/

Lean - a set of tool that improves efficiency and the most important - improves profitability. 

Nowadays, hospitals are also using lean tools. Hospitals and other healthcare institutions are required to spend considerable time with patients which keeps other patients in line waiting. To clear problems of all of them, is a stressful job for doctors who attend them. One way to solve this is to add more staff to your organization. But, this has a flip side also. It will add cost to you. So, you have to think in a different way. You have to think in such a way, so that you clear all your stresses without incurring any extra cost.

This is where the Lean comes handy. By streamlining your process, it will add efficiency to your healthcare institution. Some of the immediate outcomes include reduction of lab turnaround time, reduction of emergency department turnaround time, etc. Apart from this, with effective management, doctors, nurses and other staffs attending patients can ease their stress and also they do not keep other patients waiting. You do not have to add extra workforce. Your healthcare institution’s efficiency will improve and cost will reduce.

Located at Sioux Falls, United States, Avera Medical Group applied lean practices to improve efficiency. Read at http://www.argusleader.com/story/news/business-journal/2014/05/07/health-systems-learn-lean/8781179/  to know how the clinic did it.

An article by Hari Kelachankuttu, Change Facilitation Manager in Messier-Bugatti-Dowty (Safran Group) at Singapore, conveys that some organizations need to go a step further by setting financial savings targets by functions, departments or locations to have more granularities. As the challenges in the markets are getting complex business processes need to be continuously improved to overcome that.

To know more follow http://www.processexcellencenetwork.com/innovation/articles/continuous-improvement-and-the-trouble-with-metric/

Hospitals tend to be less hierarchical than manufacturing, requiring building consensus among stakeholders before taking action. In addition to cost cutting in healthcare, Lean initiatives improve patient safety and reimbursement rates and create new standards. Lean combined with Six Sigma, a process-improvement strategy, can help in reducing variability in business processes. An article by Susan D. Hall, experienced writer and editor in Dallas, talks about how Lean Six Sigma improves outcomes and saves costs by employing better care coordination and implementing a culture of efficiency, data-rich technology and real-time operation performance measurement.

To know more visit http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/lean-leadership-healthcare-what-does-it-take/2012-08-22