Baldrige Process Model

“Companies that combine the right operating model with superior execution are winners in good times and bad. They not only ride out recessions more successfully, they also emerge from them more quickly. As companies resume the quest for profitable growth and high performance in the upturn, they can no longer afford to ignore the role of process is delivering value to their customers.”

The quote comes from a report by Accenture on the results of a Web-based survey completed by 178 companies in the US, UK, and Germany. The authors could have been advocates for Baldrige: Companies that have integrated Baldrige have shown that combining the right operating model with superior execution delivers world-class results.

A key reason for that is that Baldrige does not allow you to ignore the role of process. The Baldrige model is a process model. Integrating it compels leaders, managers, and all employees to identify their key processes, understand those processes’ requirements, and design, manage, and improve their processes to deliver results, which include value to their customers.

The authors of the report, David Toth and Hundley Elliotte, suggest four steps to improve process performance:

• Link strategy with execution. Identify which processes differentiate your company from your competitors and work on understanding and improving those processes first.

• Eliminate unnecessary complexity. The authors target three fronts: (1) duplication across business units (i.e., HR functions in every channel); (2) a bloated product portfolio; and, (3) processes hampered by multiple handoffs and overwhelming volumes of reporting.

• Transform the right way. “Some 80% of an organization’s processes are core…

One Team’s Systematic Approach to Improvement

A recent case study published by ASQ tells the story of how FirstSource Solutions used tools and processes that are common among Baldrige Award winners to tackle a single problem—reducing the turnaround time (TAT) to approve applications for a retail mortgage client—with impressive results.

The client was in the United Kingdom. Here’s a synopsis of how Firstsource tackled the problem:

1. It used data to define the problem: Over a nine-week period, the client offered mortgage loans in 14 days or less 69% of the time, well short of the 75% target.
2. A financial benefit estimation exercise determined that improving performance on TAT to 80% would increase revenue by six million pounds annually, create a more efficient process, and provide faster service to applicants.
3. Firstsource formed a team to improve TAT. The team received training on the Six Sigma DMAIC methodology and quality tools.
4. The team started with a supplier-inputs-process-outputs-customer (SIPOC) exercise to create a high-level process map and identify stakeholders.
5. The team produced a three-stage analysis road map to assess the current situation and identify possible root causes and improvement activities. It used the road map to agree on five causes of the longer TAT.
6. The team brainstormed possible solutions and then assigned a relative rating for each solution to eliminate half of the original possibilities.
7. The team validated the impact of the solutions through a one-week pilot study with a metrics dashboard that was shared with all stakeholders involved in developing solutions. Based on their feedback, the team decided to proceed with full implementation.
8. The team used PDCA…

What Process-Centered Looks Like

The journey to becoming a process-centered organization begins with all employees in the organization recognizing and focusing on their processes. All employees understand that their work is contributing to the performance of the key pro­cess.

This excerpt from Montgomery County Public Schools’ 2010 Baldrige Award-winning application could describe every Baldrige Award winner. All are process centered. A great example of what it means to be process-centered can be found in MCPS’s Road Map to Process Management and Improvement and Knowledge Management, which you can view by clicking on the title of this article or on the blue “Continued” below.

At MCPS, every office, department, and division has identified its key processes, mapped them, used a systematic and systemic model (IGOE: inputs, guides, outputs, and enablers) to identify interrelationships and interdependencies of key processes and staff, and determined how to measure process effectiveness. You can read more about IGOE and process management at MCPS in its application summary here.

All key processes have in-process measures that monitor quality such as rework and errors. And no, MCPS is not a manufacturer: It’s a school system, even though its approaches to process management sound like those of a well-run business. If rework and errors continue, a process team determines which improvement method of PDSA (plan/do/study/act) is appropriate: Lean, Six Sigma, or project management.

In its response to Item 7.5, Process-Effectiveness Outcomes, MCPS provides a one-and-a-half page table that lists its key processes, process requirements, and process improvement results. It’s not an ideal response because it doesn’t show…

Quality Companion Supports Quality Improvement

(This guest post was written by Cate Twohill, product marketing manager at Minitab. To learn more about Quality Companion, click on the box on the right.)

A few years ago, I co-authored a white paper outlining The Three Keys to Six Sigma Success.  The paper concluded that, by focusing on the key principles of project selection, securing executive support, and executing the DMAIC method, quality practitioners could increase their overall project success rate. This is proven to be true time and again.

I know what you’re thinking: “OK, but these principles are neither ground-breaking nor new”—and you’d be correct. But what was fairly new at the time was Minitab’s process improvement software, Quality Companion. The all-in-one application supports continuous improvement activities across different levels of a quality program as well as many stages of improvement projects. By summarizing our voice of the customer research into a white paper, we were able to easily draw parallels between the keys for success and Companion’s features, tools, and forms.

Since then, Quality Companion has been updated with Lean Six Sigma support features, including Value Stream Mapping, and its user community continues to grow as does Minitab’s plans for ongoing software enhancements.

So, now you’re probably thinking: “Why is she writing about Lean and Six Sigma on a website that’s focused on Baldrige?”

Because, at their core, Lean, Six Sigma, and the Baldrige model are all systematic approaches to performance excellence. Regardless of the methodology in which you’re currently engaged, Companion can help you build on that systematic approach and improve how you…