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It become normal that today’s high information flow causes companies some issues. For this and other reasons, it’s useful to perform process virtualization and standardization.
So, if you have a problem with information bottlenecks in your company’s processes, this article will be useful to help you correct or reduce the setbacks caused by this phenomenon.
What is process standardization?
It’s the standardization of the activities and rules of a certain process in order to organize, formalize, and develop a model to be followed. The reason for standardizing tasks is to perform each activity with repeatability, thus resulting in work efficiency and quality.
This technique has been used in the past by Henry Ford and was very successful, making Ford Motor Company the pioneer in mass production of large volumes of cars at low cost. So why not learn a little more about this subject? Below we’ll detail some of its benefits, how it works, and how to actually implement process standardization in your reality.
Benefits of process standardization
The main benefits obtained with process standardization are:
- Because of the standardization, a model of how a task or procedure should be performed within the process, all areas and departments of the company are benefited, increasing the work speed and quality, as well as facilitating the training of new employees.
- Broad visualization of who participates in the process, which also contains the information of what must be performed in each step and the history of what was performed.
- Optimization of the time spent with manual processes, increasing the performance of the sectors involved, reducing errors and costs generated by them, paper use, and paper document loss.
In other words, there is easy understanding, visualization, and management of activities and processes performed, besides the agility in identifying errors during and after execution. Standardization also reduces all the rework for when it is necessary to add some change in the process, optimizes the time spent on the execution of activities, and offers better control of the history of what is generated, when, and how it was executed. In addition to these benefits, it increases process performance and the result is efficient and lean.
How does process standardization work?
To better understand process standardization, check this step-by-step guide:
- Define an objective: everything starts based on objectives. Think carefully about which sectors will be involved and what you want to standardize because if you don’t know why you are standardizing a certain area, you need to review your actions before executing them. This is the only way to reduce future effort and costs.
- Define the reason: once you know what you want to standardize, it’s necessary to understand why leaders use so many variations of the same process and how standardizing it will make it more productive and efficient.
- Map the process: with key information collected, an entire process mapping should be made where all objects, steps, decisions, inputs, and outputs that the process must take are registered. You can use a BPM tool, which will facilitate the process mapping and, later, its management. The leaner it is, the better the results will be.
- Invest in training: finally, invest in training employees, in order to have a reference in change management and to have someone who can organize the processes, minimizing risks and impacts that may arise.
Is it difficult to implement process standardization in my company?
No, all you need is to know what and why you need to standardize a certain process because the most “difficult” part of implementing it is actually to understand how your company’s processes work, and why they’re used. Even if it’s something done daily in a simplistic way, it can become very complicated when it comes to being understood or represented to other people.
If this point becomes something complex, there are solutions that can help, such as process consulting. This solution can be hired by an outsourcing company that already has knowledge and experience in defining and documenting processes. In other words, you will save time and be sure that your standardization is following the ideal path to reach your goal.
Conclusion
Processes standardization facilitates and automates the undertaking of tasks, bringing many benefits to your company. As well as being easy to handle and understand, BPM (process management) is directly linked to other management systems, such as EDM, where document management is carried out.
If this post has prompted your interest and you want to know more about this subject, early last year we posted a very detailed article about process standardization. If you are interested in this topic, please read on: Want to optimize the execution of your company’s activities? Learn about Process Standardization.
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