Trends in Process Excellence: Meeting Proceedings

OVERVIEW
Transition is inevitable within organizations, and leaders must diffuse new ideas and practices to keep their companies resilient. Executives utilize key insights around topics such as Lean Six Sigma and Internal Audit, successful alternatives to management structures and standardized processes when constructing transitions in organizations.

At the November 2004 Global Benchmarking Council virtual meeting members shared how they were currently using transformations within the industry such as an integrated workplace, strategic blending, reconfiguring internal audits all resulting in a change focusing on quality rather than quantity of process content.

Six Sigma champions, vice presidents, managers and directors of quality, strategic planning, sales, and marketing and other benchmarking professionals will benefit from the case studies of five leading companies.


COMPANIES AND CASE STUDIES
The case studies listed below include speaker biographies, company background and key examples of quality deployments, methodologies and integration. The meeting report includes anecdotes, lessons learned, select slides, quotes, group discussions, insights, key take-aways, organizational progress assessment and a list of attendee-recommended resources.

• DuPont shared its Six Sigma deployment and methodologies for applying Lean concepts to its end-to-end supply chain process in “Process Excellence in Dupont Supply Chain Transformation.”
• A blinded industry leading company taught member attendees how to apply Kaizen and Lean projects to reduce sales manager reporting time in “Applying Six Sigma to Increase Sales Productivity.”
• Nationwide Financial outlined ways to integrate service and sales and streamline process improvement in “Sales and Service Integration.”
• Intrado revealed insights from its internal audit structure and best practices for maintaining Sarbanes-Oxley compliance in “Intrado Process Engineering and Internal Audit Program.”
• IBM highlighted its “On Demand” initiative and discussed ways to integrate change into a corporate environment in “Enterprise Process Framework.”
• Best Practices, LLC revealed its research survey that identifies key business process management functions across multiple industries in “Business Process Management.”