Any company that has implemented a quality System has a procedure for reviewing processes and procedures. But not all companies have a quality System and if all, even if they do not know it or do not name it that way, they work with processes and procedures. From the freelance to the large company we all follow some routines and guidelines to develop our work, which for the sake of quality, productivity and efficiency we should have them explicit and written, and review them periodically. The use of the reviews comes useful here.
The Latest Works
Lately we have been in a company that has been interested in training in the improvement of processes and procedures and reviewing some of those that are part of their day to day. The action we carry out differs from some consulting interventions in that the purpose is not only the review and the new joint drafting, but rather that the people of the organization learn to do it so that they are then in charge of keeping them up to date with periodic reviews. In this case, it was not about preparing for a certification either, but rather facing a real and very important challenge such as improving the collection procedure to reduce delinquencies, improve liquidity and reduce financial costs.
Some definitions:
Processes: Set of interrelated activities that, from one or more inputs of elements, give rise to one or more outputs also of elements (products, services) with added value and a result that fully satisfies the requirements of the client to whom It is aimed.
Procedures: Chronological succession of interrelated operations, which constitute a unit of function for the performance of a specific activity within a predetermined scope of application. It is explained as a documentary support of the processes that describe the set of activities / tasks that are carried out in it. The procedures involve activities and staff tasks, completion time.
We take action by defining the objective with our client, the execution period and the minimum result that we should obtain. In this case it was, in a first phase, to review what was being done and, working with the people who were involved in the process, end up describing the current procedure, analyze it, formulate a new improved version and describe and assign the actions necessary for compliance.
We worked and reached agreements on:
- Billing improvements.
- Improvements in the internal circulation of information.
- Non-payment claim routines.
- Criteria for prioritizing customers to act with.
- Modification in the use of some computer applications and incorporation of others.
- Redistribution of tasks.
- Daily, weekly, monthly and annual planning of tasks.
Define service and sample
If you deliver different services, define which of them you are going to inspect in a period of time and define a representative sample (a determined number of cases or files) that will be inspected.
Define the standard
Define for that service what attributes and variables you are going to measure that determine that its delivery is within the quality standard that you have determined.
Implementation of metrics for better monitoring, control and decision making
Finally, a system was implemented for the implementation, monitoring and control of the improvements made in the new procedure and the analysis and evaluation of the results.