Are your processes explicit or implicit?
Within all businesses, various operations need to happen to deliver the goods or services to the end-user. In very few enterprises are these formally documented.
If there is no documentation of the process, there is no process. What exists instead is as many different ways of doing something as there are people who undertake the steps. When trying to improve a process, you first have to work out what is going on, before you can start to improve things.
To improve productivity it is necessary to dig into the different business processes, and workflows and find out what is actually happening, and how to do it better. All too often, things are being done which add no value to the overall output, and are therefore totally unproductive.
When thinking about the evolution of a process, the clothing industry is a good example. The designer first comes up with an idea in their head. The design phase involves sketching, looking at fabrics and finishes and may include a couple of prototypes before the design is concrete. At this point the designer has the garment in their head – it is implicit, however, to communicate this to others, such as the manufacturer, a formal pattern needs to be drawn up – it needs to be made explicit. The pattern is used to create a sample, and after this, it can go into production – a step that often involves CNC machines to automate the cutting and improve the productivity of the fabric layouts. The final feedback loop is to understand the actual fabric usage, so it can feedback into the process and develop it in the future.
Very few organisations have their equivalent of this process when it comes to their business processes. Companies that make products will formalise the design, recipe or pattern; however, rarely are the workflows that surround the operation treated with the same consideration.
The impact of formalising a process can be significant. An audio-visual company that did this saw a 100% improvement in productivity over a 2-year timeframe.