Streamlined Process Improvement

CHAPTER5Phase III: Streamlining the Process

You are creative when you come up with a new idea, and you become real-value-added when you implement it.

—H. James Harrington

Introduction

Wikipedia encyclopedia defines the word streamliner as follows: “a vehicle incorporating streamlining in a shape providing less resistance to air.” In SPI we refer to streamlining as a way to optimize the process that is being studied. Process optimization is the discipline of adjusting a process to optimize some specific set of parameters without violating other constraints. The most common goals are minimizing costs and maximizing throughput and effectiveness. This is one of the major qualitative tools in organizational decision making. When optimizing a process, ...