Targeting Efficiency through the Weakest Link

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Every business has some kind of weak link that affects efficiency. Improving that efficiency means identifying and improving these weak links in a company.

This article will discuss the importance of identifying the weakest link, reasons for employees not following protocol, and ideas on how to address weak links in the business process.

Why Is It Important to Identify the Weakest Link?

According to Acadia, human error is responsible for 23% of unplanned downtime in manufacturing. Bad customer service is also responsible for $62 billion a year in lost revenue, a number that rises every year.

Those numbers illustrate the importance of identifying and fixing your company’s weakest link. However, it is impossible to eliminate all weak points in a company. It is essential to avoid making mistakes within efficiency. 

Reasons for Not Following Protocol

Acadia has a list of why people do not follow protocol. These are some of the reasons:

• Employees do not know the correct protocol
• People have not been trained properly
• Someone showed employees a different way to do something
• Not having the resources to do it correctly
• Employees think they have a better way

There are ways to address all of the above reasons for not following protocol. The following section will address these ideas.

Six Sigma Platform-Software

Lean Six sigma platform-software is a data-driven process that reviews limit mistakes and defects. Basically, this process helps identify and fix errors in the manufacturing processes.

Key Points to Understand

Investopedia has a few important key points to understand Six Sigma platform software. They are as follows:

• This process is a quality control process used to eliminate defects and improve overall operations.
• A scientist that worked for Motorola created this process in the 1980s.
• Many businesses use this to boost their profits.
• Initially, they implemented this method to increase work speed with fewer mistakes. Now, the process is an industry standard. There is a certification for its practitioners.
• The process is a manager and team-focused option meant to improve performance by removing any defects. It also boosts the standardization of work.

There are other vital parts to this process. However, these are the most essential points to understand when deciding if you want to use this process.

How to Get This Certification

Unfortunately, there is no overall coursework requirement for this certification. The type of curriculum you get will depend on where you do the certification class.

When it comes to where to do the classes, most businesses and colleges offer the courses required to gain the certification.

Other Ideas on How to Improve Efficiency

There are many ways to improve efficiency in your business. Below are some ideas. However, it is essential to note that not all these ideas will be best for your business. You, as a leader, need to decide what you think will work best for your employees and company.

Checklists

Most people do not truly learn information in a classroom setting. So classic training will not drive home the points of protocol. Plus, training is an information overload. It can be hard to remember all the information coming at someone.

Creating a checklist that employees can follow as they do their duties. Including videos, diagrams, and other visual aids could help drive the important points home.

Arcadia gives a great real-world example of how adding a checklist improved efficiency. One of their clients started using a list on one of its product lines to see how it would affect efficiency.

They found that using the checklist for six months or longer exceeded their gross line yield target for the year.

Feedback

Your employees are working on the processes every day. They have more knowledge of what works and doesn’t than any leader might have. It is essential to make sure that your employees know they can submit their ideas to improve processes and actually be listened to.

Not every employee’s idea will be implemented. However, it is crucial to implement a few ideas, so employees know the feedback is not landing on deaf ears.

This implementation was proven to work for Arcadia. After opening one plant, the night shift workers submitted feedback about a machine that kept jamming for an unknown reason.

The plant manager heard the concern and had the machine checked out. It turned out there was a faulty part, and the manager fixed it. Once the employees saw the quick changes made and felt their voices were heard, Arcadia saw an uptick in feedback to improve the process.

Helping Problem Employees

Every company has employees that are constantly making mistakes. These employees typically lose their jobs and have a hard time finding a new one.

However, identifying these employees is essential to improve overall efficiency. Identifying why they behave the way they do could also help both parties in the long run. You will be able to stomp out some issues in your manufacturing, and the employee stops the cycle of losing jobs.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there are many reasons why employees might not be following all business processes. To improve efficiency, you may need to implement changes that can take a while to get right.

One way to implement change is through the Six Sigma platform software. Getting a certification in that process would be a significant first step. Some other ideas are creating checklists, listening to feedback, and helping employees.

There are ways to improve the weakest parts of your business. It will just take some work to find what works best for your employees and business.

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Process Improvement involves analyzing and improving existing business processes in the pursuit of optimized performance. The goals are typically to continuously reduce costs, minimize errors, eliminate waste, improve productivity, and streamline activities.

As we continue to deal with COVID-19 and its economic aftermath, most organizations will prioritize Business Process Improvement initiatives. This is true for a few reasons. First, Process Improvement is one of the most common and effective ways of reducing costs. As the global economy slows down, Cost Management will jump to the forefront of most corporate agendas.

Secondly, a downturn typically unveils ineffective and broken business processes. Organizations that once seemed agile and focused during periods of growth may become sluggish and inefficient when demand drops off.

Lastly, COVID-19 has expedited Digital Transformation for most organizations. One of the quickest and most impactful forms of Digital Transformation is Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Thus, we have included numerous RPA frameworks within this Stream.

Learn about our Process Improvement Best Practice Frameworks here.