BA 431 week 4 Assignment Process Improvement

Process Improvement

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Process Improvement

Process improvement is a task in an organization which involve the identification, analyzation and improvement of the existing processes within an organization in an effort to improve service delivery within the organization or even to meet new standards set to them by the management. There are five critical components of process improvement. These include to begin with, is the creation of a project that is both process and outcome focused. A process-focused project is one that is timesaving, uses minimal resources but still comes up with quality improvement within the organization. The improvement must also be outcome focused in that it intends to bring out a positive environment with better customer relations, health status, better employee attitude towards its client and in general better behavior within the organization.

The second pertinent component involves the people who test the changes that are to be incorporated into the system. These individuals have to be open to change and have a positive attitude towards that, otherwise nothing can be achieved. They therefore have to be very persuasive and encouraging individuals who will take it upon themselves to ensure that the transition process does not undergo any hitches. They have to take into consideration other employees who are resistant to change and address is at the earliest chance possible. They also have to be willing to follow through the project from the beginning to the very end. They should be people with good relationship skill because often times the change has to begin from every single individual.

The third important component is the establishment of specific laid down measures to track and follow through the process to ensure that everything is going on as per the initial plan. These measures check through each of the plans as they are enacted and ensure that nothing is out of place. These measures also ensure that if there is any step that was missed then its corrected before the effect trickles down to interfere with the entire project. It also establishes checkpoints to assess the impact of the process improvement even at the client level.

The fourth and one of the most important components is about the interventions. The interventions incorporated have to be grounded. They have to have been tested and confirmed to hold ground. They have to have been researched on and produced results for different organization. In this manner, they can confidently be laid down to bring about good results for the company in question. Otherwise, the organization might come up with interventions that might fail to work.

The final component is time management. For every project to be successful there has to be a timeframe in which it is expected to have been completed. Therefore, time has to be scheduled and allocated for to ensure that the project is tracked progressively from the start to the very end. Studies have shown that most project improvements take approximately between six to sixteen months depending on the organization itself and the total number of improvements set to occur within the organization. This gives ample time to allow the several tests to be conducted and appropriate interventions to be made to ensure that the desired outcome is achieved.

My analyzed business premise is a nearby fast food joint that I frequent several times in a week. They have excellent services however; there are certain processes that have to be put in place to make the restaurant better. The customer service in particular is very good; however, there are certain aspects which still have to be improved. First and foremost, there are some of their employees who are very impolite. These employees have a bad attitude towards the client in the recent past have contributed to most people drawing away from the restaurant.

They have good delivery services as well; however, they tend to overcharge their clients for this. This can still be worked on to make the restaurant even better. In the past few years, people prefer indoor deliveries since it makes works extremely easy. Next, there are those permanent customers who cannot go a week without either placing an order or eating at the fast food joint. These individuals should be given bonus points and certain discounts to make them stay along even better. This will also encourage other first timers to frequent the facility even more.

The restaurant has a very fast and efficient process which enables food to be served almost as soon as it is ordered. This is a great advantage especially to individuals in haste such as travelers among others. However, when the clients increase, then there is usually a delay in obtaining the order. This means that there are times when the clients overwhelm the number of customers served. The management team should therefore find a way of managing this since during such rush hours, several clients are lost to nearby restaurants.

Finally, the restaurant has a system which most customers find to be annoying. For one’s order to be processed, then they have to pay first before that is done. In most eating joints, people are accustomed to satisfy their need then get the entire bill at the end of the services rendered. This system sometimes makes even the elderly to stand in queues for a long duration, which I don’t find to be right. The restaurant should therefore come up with a process which enables certain special groups of individuals to be served first in such scenarios or rather come up with another strategy, probably the traditional one where the bill comes last.