To maintain their competitive advantage organizations must streamline their operations and processes. Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) is a strategic approach for developing a culture of continuous improvement in the areas of reliability, process cycle times, costs in terms of less total resource consumption, quality, and productivity. Deployed effectively, it increases quality and productivity, while reducing waste and cycle time. Since many business processes rely on information and participation from more than one department and even different organizations, CPI is designed to facilitate these processes by integrating the various components into one streamlined system that runs smoothly and efficiently on a partially or completely automated flow of steps.

PBSI works with our clients to introduce CPI within their organization and delivers workshops needed to develop the necessary framework  and integration components. Our workshops include:

 

Introducing CPI to your organization

• Gaining business commitment around continuous process improvement
• Understanding the value of CPI in the long term
• Introducing the CPI framework, Critical Success Factors, Principles and Phases

 

Developing a business case

• Identifying the key metrics
• Understanding that CPI is a long term buy-in, not just a short-term project
• Creating a best practice model that integrates workflow
• Recognizing the top CPI drivers: business agility, innovation and process quality

 

Obtaining management buy-in for CPI initiatives

• Gaining business acceptance of CPI as an organizational discipline
• Changing perceptions about CPI's ability to achieve business results
• Adopting a legislative and structural approach
• Embracing a ‘process thinking’ style of management

 

Understanding the relationship between CPI and Lean Six Sigma (and other tools!)

• Realizing the extent to which Six Sigma tools enable the CPI framework
• Evaluating Lean Six Sigma methodology and metrics: “a cooks tour”
• Real world examples: success factors for making CPI and Lean Six Sigma work in your organization

 

Optimizing business processes

• Analyzing current processes and exploring new possibilities
• Integrating workflow management

 

CPI and organizational change management

• Moving towards an enterprise process-driven organization
• Dealing with employees who have ownership over their processes
• Understanding why organization change management has been tagged as the major factor behind CPI success

 

CPI governance: supporting both business process and the individual

• Adopting flexible CPI guidelines to increase adoption rates
• Understanding the importance of process ownership and champions in continued success
• Providing “people-ready process” solutions
• Valuing local information and knowledge networks

 

Achieving business and IT alignment through CPI

• Bringing business and IT closer together by creating new dialogue
• Executing CPI for IT into a proactive leadership role
• Using CPI as a catalyst to re-evaluate the business/IT relationship
• Using alignment maturity to make your CPI projects successful