Process Improvement Blog

The work that goes into manufacturing even the simplest of products is a mystery to most people. The fact that a can opener is on the store shelf when they need it is good enough. But industry insiders know more.

Ever anticipate paying full price at the register only to be informed the item is on sale? Ever reached into a cereal box and pull out two prizes instead of one? Making future-proof business decisions isn’t easy. The end-goal is finding at least the one prize you expect. The obvious prize for investing in document management technology is a reduction in paper and associated costs. A plus you...

Just a quick browse of the latest top ten lists, LinkedIn user stories and employee relations headlines and today’s employee expectations become very clear. Aside from the usual bit about money, power and fame, employees lean heavily towards jobs that can satisfy their own sense of self and reflect their core values.

Tracking a purchase order, managing inventory or maintaining a list of lender rates isn’t terribly hard to do when it is approached in an organized fashion and kept up with consistency. But what happens when that purchase order, SKU number or lender rate is only part of a larger, more complicated business-critical document? It would be a labor-intensive, ineffective effort to manage, process...

We have long relied on paper documents to understand the world before our time.  Cultures, world events, even our own family lineages can be understood and examined as if they were happening right in front of us because of the ability to record ideas, events and entire world histories onto everything from early fibers to today’s modern paper choices. 

Twenty years ago, customer retention strategies in the insurance business included doing fairly simple things like sending holiday cards or tucking a customer survey into an invoice. Fast forward five years and you were ahead of the game if you used email to make these same connections (bonus if you could personalize these engagements in any way). Today, improving customer loyalty and market...

As of February 2015, there were 784,626 healthcare providers in United States^*. That’s a lot of tongue depressors and cotton swabs—not to mention all the paperwork! From pharmaceutical inventory and lead lists, to patient records and vital signs, there’s an enormous amount of data walking through and within those doors. Healthcare providers much like other industry operators, struggle to...

The pace and complexity of today’s manufacturing processes makes Henry Ford’s automobile factory floor looks like child’s play. While today’s production metrics are measured in milliseconds, his assembly workers lined up and waited on a crude system of ropes and winches to pull the next Model-T across the line. Ford’s operation certainly wouldn’t win any awards for efficiency compared to...

The Wall Street Journal called Discovery’s Science Channel series How it’s Made “TV’s quietest hit.” And it’s no wonder. For those who have never walked a manufacturing floor, a behind-the-scenes look at the production of everything from exotic cars and computer parts to baseball bats and chewing gum is both incredulous and intriguing.  If you’ve taken part in the manufacturing process, you...

Watch any pre-1980s era movie or show and inevitably you’ll hear a detective, an advertising executive, or a doctor saying with much authority: “bring me the file on Smith” (or whatever name given to the criminal, company or patient).

Automation is a wonderful thing.  Waking up to a fresh brewed pot of coffee, for example, comes to mind. Automation makes things easier and faster by removing the human element from a repetitive, mundane task or process - while the coffee pot is brewing coffee for you, what else could you being doing with that time? 

We’ve all found ourselves staring at a new employee packet at least once in our careers. Depending on the size and organization of the company, it may have consisted of several stapled sheets of paper (a welcome letter and a list of internal resources with a W-9 thrown in) or an impressive binder with everything from branding guidelines and the latest quarterly magazine to a full-color...

Everyone involved in the purchase of a home knows that seeing a mortgage loan through to the finish line feels more like a marathon than a sprint. The sheer number of individuals and institutions that participate in the process makes it very complicated and time-consuming. But with today’s technology, it doesn’t have to be that way. Here are 6 steps lenders can take to simplify and speed up...

It’s been called the next industrial revolution—Industry 4.0. What is it exactly? Industry 4.0 refers to the leap in manufacturing made possible by the digitization of data, encapsulating the entirety of an organization’s people and processes—from the conference room to the manufacturing floor. This enormous, digitally- accessed data source is the groundwork by which new technologies are...

Of all the benefits that digital technology can offer, an uncluttered lifestyle is topping the list. Instead of amassing record collections or stacks of CDs, we download hundred-song playlists to a pocket-sized digital device. Roomfuls of patient records, student data - entire libraries in fact, can now be accessed quickly and securely, in just a few clicks. Not only is digital information...

It’s hard to imagine how businesses ever got anything done before digital technology. Papers were signed when the mail was delivered. Customers got answers when a business called them back. And many a pen ran dry while employees and office workers tediously filled out form after form by hand.

If you work in the financial industry, whether it's mortgage banking and lending, commercial banking, or hedge funds and other high interest opportunities, you have without fail experienced the pains of overwhelming amounts of paper and poorly maintained processes - employees burdened by busy-work, inefficient processes, and lost documents.

"Going paperless" is a term thrown around the business world every day - let's shed some light on just why it's become so common.

"Oh, I can't get to this right now. I'll "Flag" it for later, no problem."

There are plenty of businesses who use forms both internally and externally.

It may be surprising, but regardless of industry the problems associated to poor (or missing) document management are generally the same.

It's pretty well known that finding the "perfect employee" is a constant effort on the part of organizations everywhere, so it's important to break the idea of "perfection" down into several smaller pieces.

Gallup estimates that the cost of disengaged workers lies somewhere between $450-$550 billion each year in lost productivity. Are employees in your organization contributing to this?

For today's blog, I wanted to take a step away from the typical "benefits and tips for businesses" topics, and look at how pervasive some of the problems we face really are regarding document management and software solutions.

As a manager or executive, it can be hard to adhere to even your own standards and practices that are in place to get the most out of talented employees.