The Evolution of Quality & Business Process Management
Many people believe that quality is a relatively new concept, but in fact quality has been evolving for centuries. In the last hundred years, the sharing of knowledge about quality and improvement methods has become extensive, providing us with a rich array of tools for managing and improving quality.
We love to measure things, you might have gathered this from our recent blog posts on what to measure, and how to make those measures count. Hopefully the biggest learning you’ll have taken from these is that we need to make our data useful. Today, we're taking a look at what organisations can learn from some great smart city initiatives.
Recently we announced the publication of Xavier University & PWC Quality Metrics Paper, which you can download here. Presentations from the recent Pharmalink conference where findings were presented is also likely to be made available online in the coming weeks for a deeper look into the paper.
Goodbye sticky notes and white boards.
Business process mapping is harder than many people initially think it will be. According to to Brian Safron, a product manager at IBM, this is due at least in part to business knowledge being spread across a wide range of subject matter experts. Collaboration is key, but in their promotional video for IBM Blueworks Live, he also notes that sticky notes and white boards don't work anymore. We decided to take a look at why paper can't keep up with digital when it comes to BPM.
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Torque Management Partners with MatsSoft for Low Code Process DigitisationDublin, 19 January 2016 – Torque Management Ltd. is pleased to announce its partnership with Low Code BPM digitisation platform provider MatsSoft. MATS® (the software product) is a low-code BPM development platform that’s quick to learn and easy to use, allowing organisations to develop and deploy an app in a matter of days or weeks, that previously would have consisted of months or years of development effort. The MATS platform has been defined by Gartner as ‘High-productivity PaaS', and by Forrester as a ‘Low-Code Development Platform’.
Toyota are a shining example of quality management and have been for many decades. It comes from a 'customer first' focus. This is a simple idea and very easy to dismiss as cliché but it challenges our belief that our own brilliant, creative ideas may not necessarily be the best one. When we have a 'great idea', many of us cling onto it for dear life. A true customer focussed ethos requires we give up our egos in order to listen to the customer and respond to their needs in a systematic, business-focussed way. It's a little like becoming a humble servant rather than aiming to be a great leader with all the great ideas. The great leaders probably got their great ideas by listening to customers, and you can still channel your genius and creativity to work out how you solve problems for your customer.
Our 9 Favourite BPM Websites and Blogs for 2015
Got a tenth BPM Blog you'd like us to add to the list? Let us know @TorqueBPM
M&A activity has been increasing in recent years, reaching a mid-year high in 2014 that hadn't been seen since 2007. In any industry, mergers bring a lot of change - change that creates a new sense of excitement, enthusiasm and improvement, change that is clearly visible and planned for, and changes, challenges and issues that are unexpected, emerge gradually, or even appear somewhere much further down the line but are apparent to have occurred as a result of the M&A process. Or perhaps lack of process!
In a piece on Clay Richardson's Forrester blog in November of last year, he predicted that 2015 would see the BPM industry disrupted by things like low-code vendors, improved dynamic case management, smart process apps and a stronger focus on the customer. While there is a lot to be said for the current, 'traditional' BPMS you have in place and the approaches and strategies you can use to get the full value from it, there are also some exciting elements to new BPM offerings. We take a look at how you can get more from your current BPMS and what to consider if you think it's time for a change.
TIBCO Nimbus™ is a Business Process Management System. It presents easy-to-understand, visual representations of how people, processes and systems in an organisation interact. Nimbus™ has helped over 700 organisations including AstraZeneca, Barclays Capital, HSBC, JPMorgan, RBS, Novartis, Toyota, and ThyssenKrupp. It provides many features that support Quality, Compliance, and Operational Management and Continual improvement and can also be integrated with other technology and is available on–premises and in the cloud. In summary, it's an excellent tool.
Adding value to something automatically makes me think time, money and/or an improved product or service. If I have more time and more money and a better end result, job done! But that's just the answer, and if you've even completed high school mathematics, you'll know that focussing on the answer is rarely the way to find it. So let's take a few steps back, into the process.
Michael Needham is the Principal Consultant at MKN Advisory Services Ltd. He previously worked as a lecturer and module coordinator for the MBA modules ‘E-Business’ & 'Supply Chain Management'; and the MSc Business Improvement module ‘Strategic Operations and Quality Excellence’ at Ulster University along with working as a consulting manager at PWc, global procurement manager with Procter & Gamble and supply chain co-ordinator with the Irish Dairy Board. His wealth of hands on, real life experience combined with in-depth research, including papers on the role of knowledge for process improvement and outsourcing, and a Phd that investigated the factors that influence the internal transfer of process improvement knowledge within service organisations led us to wanting to ask him more. All too often people are experts in theory or experts in practice but Needham is one of those insightful individuals who seems to have mastered a balance of both, which has no doubt increased his understanding and abilities in both doing and communicating what he’s doing.
New BPM Approaches for the Challenges of Mergers and Acquisitions in Life Sciences
Five Major Drivers for BPM exist – Compliance; Outsourcing, ITIL and Security; Process Framework/Performance/Standards; Technology Modernisation and Mergers, Acquisitions and Consolidations. In recent years Life Sciences organisations have had to learn to survive and grow through numerous mergers and acquisitions – sometimes even within quick succession of each other.
Brian Cooney has a BA in management, is an ISO leader and recently completed an executive coaching diploma. Along with 33 years experience in quality assurance, he's an excellent example of someone with a vision for how well things can be done and the insight to recognise and successfully clear the hurdles that can get in the way.