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1 – 10 of over 121000Alaa Mashan Ubaid and Fikri T. Dweiri
This research paper aims to develop and validate an enhanced business process improvement methodology (EBPIM) by integrating the DMAIC (define, measure, analyze, improve and…
Abstract
Purpose
This research paper aims to develop and validate an enhanced business process improvement methodology (EBPIM) by integrating the DMAIC (define, measure, analyze, improve and control) and the comprehensive business process management (CBPM) methodologies.
Design/methodology/approach
A systematic literature review and analysis were conducted to prove the novelty of the research approach and identify the similarities, differences, strengths and weaknesses of the DMAIC and the CBPM methodologies. The EBPIM was proposed based on the analysis results. Then, a focus group approach was used to evaluate and validate the methodology.
Findings
The EBPIM consists of nine activities: preparation, selection, description, quantification, modeling, enactment, improvement opportunities selection, analysis and improvement and monitoring. The proposed methodology adopted the systematic and structured process of the DMAIC methodology by having one tollgate between every two activities to check the progress and authorize the team to go to the next activity. At the same time, it has the ability of the CBPM methodology to enhance the interaction between human activities and business process management systems (BPMS).
Research limitations/implications
The EBPIM was evaluated and validated by a focus group of academic professors. However, the main limitation of the proposed methodology is that it is still theoretical and needs to be empirically tested. Therefore, future work will focus on testing the EBPIM in different industries and organization sizes.
Practical implications
From the theoretical perspective, the proposed methodology adds value to the knowledge in the scope of business processes improvement methodologies (BPIMs) by integrating the DMAIC and the CBPM methodologies. It takes advantage of and combines the strengths of the DMAIC and CBPM methodologies. From the practical perspective, the proposed methodology presents a valuable tool that can facilitate the organization’s mission to improve the areas that need improvement using a systematic improvement methodology that will effectively enhance organizational performance (OP).
Originality/value
The BPIMs literature analysis proved that most of the reviewed methodologies could not support all phases of the business process improvement (BPI) activities. It was concluded that integrating the DMAIC and the CBPM methodologies is a novel approach. The proposed methodology will enhance the efficiency of both methodologies, fill the gaps that may exist in both of them and lead to better results in terms of BPI.
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Ravi Seethamraju and Olivera Marjanovic
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the importance and role of process knowledge in the business process (BP) improvement methodology with the help of a case study.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the importance and role of process knowledge in the business process (BP) improvement methodology with the help of a case study.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach takes the form of a literature review that highlights the challenges and issues in the existing BP improvement methodologies. An in‐depth case study that has embarked on a major BP improvement initiative that emphasizes individual and collective process knowledge in a real‐life complex organization is presented.
Findings
The paper confirms that BP improvement is, in fact, a complex, knowledge‐intensive, collaborative process that consists of a set of coordinated, contextualized knowledge management processes. The design of the “to‐be” process in this study is a knowledge co‐creation process that uses collaborative exploration of different scenarios and contexts. Compared with the traditional BP improvement methodologies where the main emphasis is on the design of a new process model, the focus of the methodology employed in this case study is on the process of knowledge co‐creation and transfer.
Research limitations/implications
The paper leads to increased recognition of the knowledge and experience people develop, use and share while modeling, executing, and improving their BPs. It offers anecdotal evidence and general case study research limitations apply.
Practical implications
Practitioners should focus more on key knowledge processes rather than BP models that often obscure the role of individual and collective process knowledge. Rather than investing limited resources in the mapping and modeling of existing processes, practitioners will be able to better serve their organizations if they concentrate on the improvement of the process by tapping the contextualized process knowledge possessed by the individual actors.
Originality/value
In the expanding field of BP management, the study explores the increasing importance of individual and collective process knowledge in process improvement methodologies and provides guidance to user organizations on ways to exploit the value of process knowledge in designing new processes as well as collaborative knowledge sharing and creation process.
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Ben Marriott, Jose Arturo Garza‐Reyes, Horacio Soriano‐Meier and Jiju Antony
Several authors have proposed different approaches to help practitioners deal with the complexity of prioritising improvement projects and initiatives. However, these approaches…
Abstract
Purpose
Several authors have proposed different approaches to help practitioners deal with the complexity of prioritising improvement projects and initiatives. However, these approaches have been developed as “generic” methods which do not consider the specific needs, objectives and capabilities of different industries and organisations. The purpose of this paper is to present an integrated methodology that prioritises improvement projects or initiatives based on two key performance objectives, cost and quality, specifically important for low volume‐high integrity product manufacturers.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reviews some of the most commonly used prioritisation methods and the theory and logic behind the proposed prioritisation methodology. Then, the prioritisation methodology is empirically tested, through a case study, in a world class manufacturing organisation.
Findings
The results obtained from the case study indicate that the integrated methodology proposed in this paper is an effective alternative for low volume‐high integrity products manufacturers to identify, select and justify improvement priorities.
Practical implications
Selection and prioritisation of projects and initiatives are key elements for the successful implementation of improvements. The integrated methodology presented in this paper intends to aid organisations in dealing with the complexity that is normally handled over the selection and prioritisation of feasible improvement projects.
Originality/value
This paper presents a novel methodology that integrates two commonly used approaches in industry, Process Activity Mapping (PAM) and Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA), to prioritise improvements. This methodology can help, in particular, organisations embarked in the manufacture of low volume‐high integrity products to take better decisions and align the focus of improvement efforts with their overall performance and strategic objectives.
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Jagdeep Singh and Harwinder Singh
– The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the history and existing research on continuous improvement (CI).
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the history and existing research on continuous improvement (CI).
Design/methodology/approach
Extensive review of the literature.
Findings
This paper provides an overview of CI, its inception, how it evolved into sophisticated methodologies used in organizations today, and existing research in this field in the literature.
Research limitations/implications
The literature on classification of CI has so far been very limited. The paper reviews a large number of papers in this field and presents the overview of various CI implementation practices demonstrated by manufacturing organizations globally. It also highlights the sophisticated CI methodologies suggested by various researchers and practitioners in the field of CI.
Practical implications
The literature on classification of CI has so far been very limited. The paper reviews a large number of papers in this field and presents the overview of various CI implementation practices demonstrated by manufacturing organizations globally. It also highlights the sophisticated CI methodologies suggested by various researchers and practitioners in the field of CI.
Originality/value
The paper contains a comprehensive listing of publications on the field in question and its classification. It will be useful to researchers, improvement professionals and others concerned with improvement to understand the significance of CI. It should be of value to practitioners of CI programmes and to academics who are interested in how CI has evolved, and where it is today. To the authors’ knowledge, no recent papers have provided an historical perspective of CI.
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Paul Alexander, Jiju Antony and Bryan Rodgers
The purpose of this paper is to explore the most common themes within Lean Six Sigma (LSS) relating to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) within manufacturing…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the most common themes within Lean Six Sigma (LSS) relating to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) within manufacturing organisations and to identify the research gaps in the existing literature.
Design/methodology/approach
Tranfield et al.’s (2003) systematic review methodology was utilised encompassing three stages: planning, conducting and reporting/dissemination.
Findings
The literature revealed that there are many areas in which LSS has been utilised with varying successes. In total, 52 journals have been reviewed and it has been concluded that although LSS is a powerful methodology, there are many gaps that exist in the literature and further research is needed to address these in the field of LSS.
Research limitations/implications
The papers included in the systematic review were peer-reviewed papers available in English. Due to these limitations, relevant papers may have been excluded. Moreover, the authors have excluded all conference and white papers for their inclusion in this study.
Practical implications
It is vital that LSS practitioners are fully aware of the benefits, limitations and impeding factors when implementing a LSS initiative. Therefore, this paper could provide valuable insights to ensuring maximum value, is obtained from LSS implementation in SMEs.
Originality/value
This systematic review identifies research gaps in the current literature and highlighting areas of future research which will be beneficial to many SMEs in their pursuit of value optimisation.
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Hesham Metwalli Mousli, Iman El Sayed, Adel Zaki and Sherif Abdelmonem
This study intends to improve the quality of venous thromboembolism (VTE) prophylaxis practices including proper VTE risk assessment and the appropriate prophylaxis measures for…
Abstract
Purpose
This study intends to improve the quality of venous thromboembolism (VTE) prophylaxis practices including proper VTE risk assessment and the appropriate prophylaxis measures for surgical urology patients.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors applied the Six-Sigma define, measure, analyze, improve and control (DMAIC) improvement methodology in a pre–post interventional study that involved all adult patients above 18 years old indicated and scheduled for urology surgical interventions including endoscopic urological surgeries in a urology specialized 60-bed hospital. The pre-intervention sample included all patients meeting the inclusion criteria over a period of six months. Post-intervention sample included all patients meeting the inclusion criteria over a period of six months. The improvement areas included both the VTE risk assessment as well as the VTE prophylaxis prescription.
Findings
DMAIC methodology has achieved a substantial sustained improvement in surgical urology VTE prophylaxis practices with an average of 70% on both levels; VTE risk assessment practices and VTE prophylaxis prescribing practices were statistically significant. The post-intervention results also showed a statistically controlled process with no special cause variations. Based on the study results, the Six-Sigma DMAIC methodology can be considered of high value when applied in healthcare clinical practice improvement projects.
Research limitations/implications
The project study includes some pitfalls that can be addressed as follows: 1. The lack of VTE rate incidence tracking. This limitation can be partly refuted when the authors conduct a literature review and explore that the VTE prophylaxis effectiveness had been proven with sufficient evidence to an extent that pushed several scientific societies to develop their own guidelines to support VTE prophylaxis. (Algattas et al., 2018). 2. Another limitation of this study can be that it handled only surgical patients and more specifically surgical urology patients. Of course, VTE prophylaxis is a crucial life-threatening problem not only for the surgical admitted patients but also for all the medical admitted patients either in hospital wards or ICUs. However, the prediction that surgical patients especially surgical urology patients are more prone to VTE development risk as they have -in several cases-two or three main additive risk factors which are age, procedure duration and malignancy in elderly men. (Tikkinen et al., 2014). So, the authors consider the study project to be a prototype that hopefully can be utilized for future study projects that will manage both other surgical specialty patients and medical patients on the national level and can track accurately and effectively report the VTE incidence rates.
Practical implications
Several recommendations can be extracted from the research project that is summarized in the following points: Paying focused attention to continuous healthcare quality improvement initiatives and projects as a main approach for healthcare improvement especially for the public health-related problems. This might be achieved through periodic region-specific or specialty-specific focus groups from which public health problems could be addressed and prioritized to be considered as a part of country healthcare campaigns regarding cost-utility and feasibility studies. The adoption of a system thinking approach in dealing with the improvement strategies; all efforts and resources are to be employed to achieve a common objective. This includes the generation of a national-wide electronic health information system that can aid in healthcare resource allocation and direct the healthcare efforts towards the most important, high-priority public health problems. Electronic national-wide health record is really an effort, and resources consuming activity, but actually, it's worth exerting efforts, and its valuable outcomes may be seen several years later. 3. Development of unified national specialized VTE prophylaxis pathways to standardize the patient-specific VTE prophylaxis plans. Standardization of healthcare pathways enables healthcare professionals to follow an evidence-based practice which will be reflected on the improvement of healthcare quality level, cost-effectiveness enhancement, and timely patient care on all levels especially in high critical areas like ER and ICU. 4. Incorporation of VTE prophylaxis costs in the universal health insurance diagnosis-related group (DRG) insurance packages and service pricing. Universal health insurance is a nationwide strategy that is aiming to cover all Egypt residents by the year 2030. Universal health insurance is being following the DRG reimbursement policy that is thought to control all the healthcare-associated costs so, the VTE prophylaxis costs shall be added as the main cost item to encourage all healthcare facilities to follow an evidence-based VTE prophylaxis pathway taking into consideration the high-risk patient categories who will definitely represent a high-cost burden on the long run if they suffer a VTE event.
Originality/value
DMAIC improvement methodology applications in healthcare are still relatively limited, especially on the clinical level. The study can be considered one of a kind in Egypt dealing with a comprehensive DMAIC methodology application on the clinical level.
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Colm Heavey, Ann Ledwith and Eamonn Murphy
– The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a new framework for continuous improvement.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a new framework for continuous improvement.
Design/methodology/approach
The literature review on customer value and strategic quality provides the basis for the identification of a conceptual framework for continuous improvement. This conceptual framework is validated using the in-depth interview and the survey approach.
Findings
The empirical study concluded that the new framework contains all the core components or forces of continuous improvement. These forces are customer value focused co-leadership, customer value focused strategic objectives, improvement specialists with people performance knowledge and improvement methodology. By adopting this framework, all process personnel can have a role to play in process improvement leading to increased organisational returns on investment. Overall, it is an effective framework that is easily understood and can be applied throughout any process led organisation. This is supported by the empirical data.
Practical implications
This new framework can demonstrate to each organisational employee where they fit into the organisational continuous improvement strategy. This paper provides practitioners with a new validated continuous improvement framework that has application in all organisations that are involved in process customer value improvement. The researchers contend that this new framework can compliment existing continuous improvement frameworks.
Originality/value
This paper develops and validates a new framework for continuous improvement. By adopting this framework, all process personnel can have a role to play in process improvement leading to increased organisational returns on investment. This is supported by the empirical data. Also, the authors contend that this framework embraces the systems thinking approach (Conti, 2010) or systemic approach as people interact with customers, processes, improvement methodologies and each other to drive customer value improvement. Consequently, this generates a need to take global view of the combined effect of all customer value improvement components. This systems thinking can feed into future research.
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The purpose of this paper is to assess Lean Six Sigma to identify important advances over the last ten to 15 years and discuss emerging trends that suggest how the methodology…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to assess Lean Six Sigma to identify important advances over the last ten to 15 years and discuss emerging trends that suggest how the methodology needs to evolve. The goal is to aid those who want to use the method to improve performance as well as assist those developing improvement methodologies.
Design/methodology/approach
The use and development of Lean Six Sigma is reviewed including the origins of the method, the what, why and benefits of the method, how the approach is different, the integration of Lean and Six Sigma, implementation mistakes made, lessons learned and developments needed in the future.
Findings
It is found that organizations have many different improvement needs that require the objectives and methods contained in the lean and Six Sigma methodologies. It is also found that deployment and sustaining improvements are major issues that can be overcome by building a sustaining infrastructure and making improvement a business process. Critical issues include using Lean Six Sigma to generate cash in difficult economic times, development of data‐based process management systems and the use of working on improvement as a leadership development tool.
Practical implications
These findings suggest that improvement is most effective when approached in an holistic manner addressing improvement in all parts of the organization using a holistic improvement methodology such as Lean Six Sigma. Improvement must address the flow of information and materials thorough processes as well as the enhancement of value‐adding process steps that create the product for the customer. This leads naturally to making improvement a business process that is planned for, operated and reviewed as any other important business process is.
Originality/value
The roadmaps, guiding principles, and deployment pitfalls identified will be of value to those initiating and operating improvement processes in their organizations enabling them to rapidly create useful and sustainable improvements. The discussion of needed enhancements will be of value to those who are working to improve the effectiveness of the approach.
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Djoko Setijono and Jens J. Dahlgaard
This paper presents a methodology to nominate and select improvement projects that are perceived as adding value to customers (both internal and external). The structure of the…
Abstract
This paper presents a methodology to nominate and select improvement projects that are perceived as adding value to customers (both internal and external). The structure of the methodology can be explained in three “stages”. First, the methodology suggests a new way of categorizing improvement opportunities, i.e. reactive‐proactive, to “upgrade” the little Q ‐ big Q categorisation. Then, it develops a roadmap that links performance indicators and improvement projects for both reactive and proactive improvements. Finally, it suggests an algorithm to select the improvement project, where the assessment of to what extent the nominated improvement projects add value to customers relies on the comparison between Overall Perceived Benefits (OPB) and Overall Perceived Efforts (OPE). The improvement project perceived as having the largest impact on adding value to customers receives the highest priority.
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The complexity of today’s business environment has made itnecessary to evaluate all the alternatives before committing resourcesto an improvement process. Combines total business…
Abstract
The complexity of today’s business environment has made it necessary to evaluate all the alternatives before committing resources to an improvement process. Combines total business management, total cost management, total productivity management, total quality management, and total technology management into a new methodology called total improvement management.
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