Implementing Processes For Benchmarking And Lean Six Sigma

Benchmarking and Lean Six Sigma

Discuss about the Implementing Processes for Benchmarking and Lean Six Sigma.

An organization puts in all the effort in ensuring that the products and services that are delivered are as per the best practices and standards to ensure utmost quality and user experience. There are a lot many processes that are carried out at an organization’s end to ensure and measure the quality of the products, operations, procedures and services associated with a particular organization. One such process to measure and achieve the highest level of excellence is Benchmarking. There are also varied categories of wastes that are associated with the operations and processes carried out in an organization (Gordon, 2017). The methodology to reduce and manage such wastes in order to improve performance and efficiency is termed as Lean Six Sigma. The objectives of incorporating Benchmarking and Lean Six Sigma in an organization allows the improvement of efficiency, enhancement of performance and productivity along with the ability to provide best quality results to the customers and offer highest level of customer satisfaction (Buyukozkan, 2012).

Benchmarking is a set of processes and guidelines to understand the highest level of excellence that is associated with the operations, services, procedures and methods carried out by an organization and applying the improvement process and changes to achieve the same. The process involved is a lot more than data collection and comparison from other organizations. Rather, it can be used for a number of different industries to come up with newer ideas and methods to improve the processes that are involved in order to meet the expectations of the customers (Elmuti and Kathawala, 2016).

There are a lot many wastes that are associated in the activities performed by an organization in terms of the activities and tasks that are not required. Lean Six Sigma is an amalgamation of Lean and Six Sigma that provides a set of guidelines to eliminate the waste and improve performance by solving problems in an effective manner (Longo, 2017).

Benchmarking and Lean Six Sigma can lead to continuous improvement and bring about business process change in an organization. There are a number of steps that can be followed in order to achieve a change for good. These steps shall include the activities that shall fall under five phase as Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control (DMAIC) (Desai and Shrivastava, 2008).

Define phase shall include the planning and identification activities to understand and decide the processes and operations that are required to be benchmarked and the wastes that are involved with the same. The second phase shall include the collection of data from various sources such as from the internal documentation of the organization, reports of the competitor organizations, market statistics and trends and likewise (Bargerstock, 2017). The data collected shall then be measured and identified in terms of qualitative data, quantitative data, structured data, semi-structured data and unstructured data. Analyze phase shall then apply analytics techniques to come up with the required areas of improvements and the effort that shall be applied to improve the processes (Arafeh, 2015). The next phase shall focus upon the actual execution in order to apply the improvement and achieve the objectives of Benchmarking and Lean Six Sigma. The last phase shall be Control phase in which the reviews and inspections can be carried out to understand the status of the improvement application and apply modification, if any (Stephen, 2014). 

Achieving Business Process Change

There are a number of industries that have adapted and applied Benchmarking and Lean Six Sigma methodologies in order to improve their processes and operations. One such industry is the Information Technology. IT industry is huge and comprises of a lot many organizations varying at small, medium and large scale. Due to the presence of so many organizations, it becomes mandatory to have certain parameters and attributes to gain competitive edge over the rest of the organizations in the league. Benchmarking and Lean Six Sigma are the methodologies that provide such an opportunity (Guarraia, 2008).

Aberdeen Group has successfully applied Lean Six Sigma and Benchmarking techniques to achieve continuous improvement and competitive edge in the market. There were a number of challenges that were associated with the organization in terms of data collection, middle management, resistance to learn, cost of trainings, excessive cost associated with scrubbing of data and many others. DMAIC process of Lean Six Sigma as described in the section above along with the Benchmarking processes were jointly applied to eliminate the challenges and the same were responded to allow the organization to emerge as a distinguished entity in the market and achieve employee and customer satisfaction as well (Hertler, 2006).

Wipro is another organization that has applied operational benchmarking in policy, process and technology changes to achieve competitive edge. There was lack of policies that as identified in the vendor management system followed in the organization along with the inter-office transactions. There were also issues with processes such as resource tracking and employee travel management systems. At the technological level, the loopholes were present in terms of ERP workflow and database management. With the process of operational benchmarking, data was collected internally and externally to understand all these challenges and solutions to bring about a change in the organization policies, processes and technology. Use of standard policies through the organization, adaptation of automated processes and technology was applied to improve the operations involved (Sehgal, 2013).

There has been an immense rise in the use and application of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) techniques and processes in the IT industry especially at the small and medium scale enterprises. There were a lot many challenges that were identified with such organizations in terms of ERP implementation processes, data collection processes, hidden costs, enhanced implementation time and many more. Lean Six Sigma and Benchmarking was applied to such organizations in order to eliminate the issues and achieve enhanced performance management, customer satisfaction, cycle time management, production linearity and overall improvement in the business processes that are followed (Jha and Saini, 2011).

Case Studies: Application of Benchmarking and Lean Six Sigma

Brazilian Government is an active player in the promotion of innovative initiatives in order to improve the performance and outputs associated with the companies and the small scale firms in the digital communication and manufacturing fields. These organizations adapt to the process of benchmarking by carrying out a survey to understand the areas of improvement and measuring and analyzing of the data that is collected to apply the improvement processes. Cianet Networking is an example of one such organization that succeeded in the application of benchmarking process and implemented competitive intelligent systems (Uriona, Dias and Varvakis, 2010).

Information Technology also has a huge role to play in the education sector with the rise and expansion of e-learning courses and options. There are often issues that are observed in the actual learning of the student through an e-learning course. University Utara, Malaysia carried out an e-learning benchmarking survey to understand the issues that are involved in the process of e-learning and improve the same to make sure that the highest level of learning is delivered. There were significant results that were obtained through the benchmarking process in this case (Sam, 2015).

The current organization is an IT organization that provides web services and solutions to the clients and involves a lot of data that is associated with the organization, third parties, clients and many other sources. There are a number of issues that are associated in the handling and management of such huge volumes of data leading to the problems of inaccuracy and duplication of data. Also, due to the inefficient management of the data, the same reflects upon the processes and procedures that are followed in the organization leading to the issues in efficiency and performance of the employees (Henderson, 2013). The overall services provided by the organization therefore get adversely impacted bringing down the levels of customer satisfaction.

The improvement in these areas can be successfully done by the processes of Benchmarking and Lean Six Sigma. The application of these methodologies shall be carried out in a series of phases or steps to achieve the best results. Initiation and definition stage must incorporate the arranging and recognizable proof exercises to comprehend and choose the procedures and operations that are required to be benchmarked and the squanders that are included with the same (Miguel, 2012). The second stage should incorporate the accumulation of information from different sources, for example, from the inward documentation of the association, reports of the contender associations, advertise insights and patterns and moreover. The information gathered should then be measured and distinguished regarding subjective information, quantitative information, organized information, semi-organized information and unstructured information. Break down stage might then apply examination methods to think of the required regions of upgrades and the exertion that should be connected to enhance the procedures. The following stage might center upon the real execution keeping in mind the end goal to apply the change and accomplish the destinations of Benchmarking and Lean Six Sigma (Mahesh et al., 2017). The last stage should be Control stage in which the audits and investigations can be done to comprehend the status of the change application and apply alterations, if required.

Application of Lean Six Sigma and Benchmarking in the Current Organization

Such a phase by phase approach would ensure that the issues with the current organization are eliminated. The sources of data in the Lean Six Sigma and Benchmarking processes in this case would be the organization itself, employees associated with the organization, customers of the organization along with the peers (Aldairi, 2015). The data would provide an overview of the techniques that shall be applied to manage information, resources and customers with perfection. The issues that are associated with the data and information can then be improved by introduction of big data techniques and cloud databases for enhanced database management and elimination of wastes such as manual errors, replicated data and extra time involved in the data processing and management (Buestan, 2016). Also, the efficient data handling and management would directly have an impact on the resources involved with the organization. Such an approach would therefore lead to the success of the Benchmarking and Lean Six Sigma processes and would allow better delivery of services and solutions and an enhanced level of customer trust and satisfaction as well (Antony, 2017).

Conclusion

Benchmarking is a set of processes and guidelines to understand the highest level of excellence that is associated with the operations, services, procedures and methods carried out by an organization and applying the improvement process and changes to achieve the same. The process involved is a lot more than data collection and comparison from other organizations. Lean Six Sigma is an amalgamation of Lean and Six Sigma that provides a set of guidelines to eliminate the waste and improve performance by solving problems in an effective manner. The objectives of incorporating Benchmarking and Lean Six Sigma in an organization allows the improvement of efficiency, enhancement of performance and productivity along with the ability to provide best quality results to the customers and offer highest level of customer satisfaction. There are a number of industries that have adapted and applied Benchmarking and Lean Six Sigma methodologies in order to improve their processes and operations. One such industry is the Information Technology. IT industry is huge and comprises of a lot many organizations varying at small, medium and large scale. Due to the presence of so many organizations, it becomes mandatory to have certain parameters and attributes to gain competitive edge over the rest of the organizations in the league. Benchmarking and Lean Six Sigma are the methodologies that provide such an opportunity to these organizations.

References

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Sam, T. (2015). E-learning Benchmarking Survey: A Case Study of University Utara Malaysia. [online] Available at: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1059823.pdf [Accessed 23 Jan. 2017].

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