Business Processes and Quality Management

Processes and Business Processes

• Activity is a task or a unit of work within a process.
• Process refers to a series of activities that are linked and performed in a specific sequence.
• Business process is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks performed by people or equipment in a specific sequence to produce a service or product for a particular customer or customers.

Quality Management System

• A Quality Management System (QMS) helps coordinate and direct an organization’s activities to meet customer and regulatory requirements.
• It also helps improve its effectiveness and efficiency on a continuous basis.
• A QMS helps a company meet its regulatory requirements and customer requirements, and make continuous improvements to its operations.
• The purpose of a QMS system is to provide consistency for customers.
• QMS helps with compliance efforts as it generates data that can be used to analyze the organization and metrics.

Benefits of a QMS

• Reducing waste
• Lowering expenses and costs
• Improving processes
• Identifying areas of improvement
• Facilitating training and engaging staff
• Establishing standards, goals, and objectives for quality assurance

Process Improvement

• Involves identifying, analyzing and improving existing business processes to optimise performance.
• Aims to meet best practice standards or simply improve quality and the user experience for customers and end-users.
• Process Improvement can have several different names such as, Business Process Management (BPM), Business Process Improvement (BPI), Business Process Re-engineering, Continuous Improvement Process (CIP).
• Goal is to minimize errors, reduce waste, improve productivity and streamline efficiency.
• An ongoing practice that should always be followed up with the analysis of tangible areas of improvement.
• Results can be measured in the enhancement of product quality, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, increased productivity, development of the skills of employees, efficiency and increased profit.
• A key feature of many BPM Software products.

Process Improvement Techniques

• Kaizen promotes continuous improvement with a strong emphasis on lean and agile practices. It focuses on improving quality, productivity, and efficiency through small shifts in daily work or corporate culture to foster an environment that doesn’t punish errors or mistakes, but instead works to prevent them from happening again.
• 5S helps bring more consistency to process improvement and can standardise process improvement. It stands for five main steps: sort, straighten, shine, standardize, and sustain.
• PDCA stands for plan, do, check, and act. It helps organizations be more efficient when identifying processes that need improvement.
• Six Sigma is a popular process improvement methodology that pulls workers up through ranks classified using karate belts. It involves two ways to break down process improvement through specific steps.
• Cause and Effect analysis helps identify a problem, discover roadblocks and pinpoint why the process isn’t working.
• SIPOC analysis helps organisations define and establish a process improvement project as well as identify requirements and necessary elements before starting.
• Value stream mapping (VSM) helps organisations visually represent customer’s perceptions of a business process, which helps identify the value of a product, process or service to the organization.
• Total Quality Management (TQM) helps organisations get the entire company on board with continuous process improvement.
• Kanban is a tool for process workflow visualisation that gets business units, leadership, and employees on the same page for process improvement.
• Process mapping is another workflow visualisation that helps companies map out a plan for process improvement.

This quiz explores the fundamentals of business processes and the role of Quality Management Systems (QMS). It covers key activities, process sequences, and how QMS contributes to organizational effectiveness and customer satisfaction. Test your understanding of these essential concepts in business operations!