Thinking of how organisations such as yours can bloom where you are planted. In our last newsletter we established that when things change, so must we in order to – not just survive – but thrive.
One Key pillar is Increased visibility. How can you establish and increase visibility throughout your organisation?
This can be achieved through implementing systems that provide data and information about Operation Time, Quality, Safety, HR, Supply chain, Environment etc. Without this information, the threat of waste, Quality and service defects, unnecessary downtime and poor decision-making is going to continue to be real.
Where we go wrong…
Many businesses delegate process responsibility. We let processes evolve without formal review and approval.
We make ad hoc changes along the way to suit the needs of individual employees. Consequently, we lose precious understanding of process dynamics and the holistic process approach that is crucial for the implementation of sustainable management systems.
How to develop increased visibility of your processes: In 3 Steps…
You can actually obtain basic visibility into processes by:
Documenting the processes - in words or diagrams. Identify the key inputs into your process and the expected outputs. Know who your customers are.
Evaluating them for opportunities for improvement. This could come from keenly establishing strengths you can leverage on, weaknesses you could work on etc
Deciding which key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor for the health and speed of each process. KPIs provide a strong foundation for building reports and dashboards that give additional visibility to ongoing process performance.
Every leader at whichever level of the organisation needs visibility into operations and they need it as close to real-time as possible. To avert catastrophe, there’s a need to intervene as soon as you see the needle moving into the danger zone. As a leader, you must be able to show, through meaningful and relevant data, that what you are managing or your processes are efficient.
The need to have increased visibility has actually been emphasised in ISO 9001 version 5. (2015 Edition) in one of the principles of Management; Evidence-Based Decision Making. In summary, WE ALL TRUST IN GOD but for everything else kindly insist on analysed data for any decision making.
IMS Africa Ltd runs operational excellence programs with businesses aiming at attaining efficiency in their processes, products or services and driving the right culture for sustainable accelerated growth and performance. Operational Excellence is one of our pillars. To know more about how we unlock potential and our unique approach to management systems, contact us today and let us redefine the limits together!
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