Process Management

...the key activities necessary to achieve a high level of performance in key value creation and support processes,
identifying opportunities for improving quality and operational performance, and, ultimately, customer satisfaction
% Design Control % Improvement

AT&T Process Management Principles

Process quality improvement focuses on the end-to-end process.
The mind-set of quality is one of prevention and continuous improvement.
Everyone manages a process at some level and is simultaneously a customer
and a supplier.
% Customer needs drive process quality improvement.
Corrective action focuses on removing the root cause of the problem rather
than on treating its symptoms.
% Process simplification reduces opportunities for errors and rework.
Process quality improvement results from a disciplined and structured
application of the quality management principles

Designing Quality Goods and

Services
o Concept development, in which product functionality is determined based upon customer requirements,
technological capabilities, and economic realities.
o Design development, which focuses on product and process performance issues necessary to fulfill the
product and service requirements in manufacturing or delivery.
o Design optimization, which seeks to minimize the impact of variation in production and use, creating a
"robust" design.
o Design verification, which ensures that the capability of the production system meets the appropriate level of
performance.

Concept Development and

Innovation
o Concept development is the process of applying scientific, engineering, and business to produce a basic
functional design that meets both customer needs and manufacturing or service delivery requirements.
o Creativity is seeing things in new or novel ways.
o Innovation involves the adoption of an idea, process, technology, product, or business model that is either
new or new to its proposed application.

Quality Function Deployment

(QFD)
• ..a process of translating customer requirements into technical requirements during product development and
production. QFD benefits companies through improved communication and teamwork between all constituencies in
the value chain, such as between marketing and design, between design and manufacturing, and between
purchasing and suppliers.

Building the House of Quality

o Identify customer requirements.
o Identify technical requirements.
Relate the customer requirements to the technical requirements.
• Conduct an evaluation of competing products or services.
* Evaluate technical requirements and develop targets.
Determine which technical requirements to deploy in the
remainder of the production/delivery process.

DEMEA
• Design failure mode and effects analysis
(DFMEA) - identification of all the ways in which a failure can occur, to estimate the effect and seriousness of the
failure, and to recommend corrective design actions.

DFMEA Specifications
o Failure modes
 o Effect of failures on customers
o Severity, likelihood of occurrence, and detection
rating
o Potential causes of failure
o Corrective actions or controls

Design for Manufacturability

o Design for manufacturability (DFM) is the process of designing a product for efficient production at the
highest level of quality.
o A Samsung manager noted that 7o to 80 percent of quality, cost, and delivery time is determined in the initial
design stages.
o Simplifying designs can often improve both cost and quality.

Design and Environmental

Responsibility
o Design for environment, or DFE, is the explicit consideration of environmental concerns during the design of
products and processes, and includes such practices as designing for recyclability and disassembly.
o DFE offers the potential to create more desirable products at lower costs by reducing disposal and
regulatory costs, increasing the end-of-life value of products, reducing material use, and minimizing
liabilities.

Design for Services

o Outputs not as well defined as in manufacturing
o Higher interaction with customers
o Involve both internal and external activities

Service Process Design

o Three basic design components:
o Physical facilities, processes and procedures
o Employee behavior
o Employee professional judgment

Designing Quality Processes

Identify the product or service: What work do I do?
1. Identify the customer: Who is the work for?
2. Identify the supplier: What do I need and from whom do I get it?
3. Identify the process: What steps or tasks are performed? What are the inputs and outputs for each step?
4. Mistake-proof the process: How can I eliminate or simplify tasks? What
"poka-yoke" (i.e., mistake-proofing) devices can I use?
5. Develop measurements and controls, and improvement goals: How do I evaluate the process? How can I
improve further?

Design for Agility

Agility is a term that is commonly used to characterize flexibility and short cycle times.
o Agility is crucial to such customer-focused strategies as mass customization, which requires rapid response
and flexibility to changing consumer demand.
o Enablers of agility include close relationships with customers to understand their emerging needs and
requirements, empowering employees as decision makers, effective manufacturing and information
technology, close supplier and partner relationships, and breakthrough improvement.

Poka-Yoke
• An approach for mistake-proofing processes using automatic devices or methods to avoid simple human or machine
error, such as forgetfulness, misunderstanding, errors in identification, lack of experience, absentmindedness, delays,
or malfunctions

Two Levels of Mistake-Proofing

o Prediction, or recognizing that a defect is about to occur and providing a warning; and detection
o Recognizing that a defect has occurred and stopping the process
Service Errors (1 of2)
* Task errors include doing work incorrectly, in the wrong order, or too slowly, as well as doing work not requested
Treatment errors arise in the contact between the server and the customer, such as lack of courteous behavior,
and failure to acknowledge, listen, or react appropriately to the customer
Tangible errors are those in physical elements of the service, such as unclean facilities, dirty uniforms,
inappropriate temperature, and document errors
• Customer errors in preparation arise when customers do not bring necessary materials to the encounter, do not
understand their role in the service transaction, or do not engage the correct service

o Customer errors during an encounter can be because of inattention, misunderstanding, or simply a memory
lapse, and include failure to remember steps in the process or to follow instructions
o Customer errors at the resolution stage of a service encounter include failure to signal service inadequacies,
learn from experience, adjust expectations, and execute appropriate post-encounter actions

Control
• ...the activity of ensuring conformance to requirements and taking corrective action when necessary to correct
problems and maintain stable performance

Components of Control Systems

• Any control system has three components:
1. a standard or goal,
2. a means of measuring accomplishment, and
3. comparison of actual results with the standard, along with feedback to form the basis for corrective action.

Statistical Thinking
o All work occurs in a system of interconnected processes
o Variation exists in all processes
o Understanding and reducing variation are the keys to success

Problems Caused by Variation

Variation increases unpredictability
• Variation reduces capacity utilization
Variation contributes to a "bullwhip" effect
Variation makes it difficult to find root causes
* Variation makes it difficult to detect potential problems early

Statistical Process Control (SPC)

o .... a methodology for monitoring a process to identify special causes of variation and signal the need to take
corrective action when appropriate.
o When special causes are present, the process is deemed to be out of control. If the variation in the process
is due to common causes alone, the process is said to be in statistical control. Basically, statistical control
means that both the process average and variance are constant over time.
o SPC relies on control charts

Process Control in Action

o Lexus
o The Kroger Company
o Chugach School District