Page 395 - Design for Six Sigma for Service (Six SIGMA Operational Methods)

Design and Improvement of Service Processes—Process Management 355

• Collaborative scheduling with suppliers
• Long-term contracts, alliances, partnerships, supplier partnerships,
virtual organizations
• Paperwork process streamlining
• Application of purchasing cards
• Electronic commerce and electronic data interchange (EDI)
• Internet commerce and Internet-based purchasing and supply
• High-speed distribution systems
• Colocation with suppliers
• Stock pooling
• Vendor-managed inventory
• Just-in-time (JIT) or pull material flow control method
• Vendor consolidation and single sourcing
• Supply chain integration and management
• Purchasing and supply automation
• Purchasing and supply information systems
• Strategic sourcing
• Global sourcing
• Supplier development programs (e.g., technical assistance, process
improvement assistance, or financing assistance)
• Purchasing and supply process management
• Statistical process control of purchasing and supply activities
Some of these strategies simply represent best practice and require little or
no capital expenditure to implement. Others are quite comprehensive and
require extensive changes to processes and procedures. After the necessary
process management analysis has been used to identify the best strategy,
adequate effort must also be put into implementation and maintenance
planning for the system.

10.4 Process Mapping
Many business processes, especially service processes, are poorly defined
or totally lacking in description. Many procedures are simply described by
word of mouth or may reside in documents that are obsolete. In process
management, it is often that by simply trying to define and map the process,
we provide a means for both understanding and communicating operational
details to those who are involved in the process. We also provide a baseline,
or standard, for evaluating the improvement. In many cases, merely defining
and charting the process as it is can reveal many deficiencies such as
redundant and needless steps and other non-value-added activities. Process
mapping is a visual descriptive model for a process. “A process map is