tions Managmen

Introduction
What makes a good process? When a process operates, how do you determine whether it is successful or not? Processes seem simple, yet seem to cause so many problems and the very word 'process' can strike fear into the hearts of many people.
If you are leading any type of process improvement program, you have probably felt at times like your efforts were yielding less-than-expected results. It is no wonder: the list of possible hurdles to overcome – restrictive organizational structure, politics, stagnant organizational culture, power trips – goes on and on.
Continuous Improvement is the on-going effort to improve products, services and processes by making small, incremental improvements within a business. It is based on the belief that these incremental changes will add up to major improvements over time and it is as much about tactics (i.e. specific improvements) as it is about changing the culture of the organization to focus on opportunities for improvement rather than problems.
At the other extreme, there is the Business Process Reengineering which advocates starting from a clean slate with a quantum leaps. Whatever techniques/methods is used it relative the pulse of an organisation.

Your objectives
In this chapter you will learn about the following: * Understand the 3 Es of operational excellence * Understand the importance of the 3 Es * Understand the techniques/methods to achieve the 3 Es * Understand how to acehive the 3 Es in the business context

1 What is the 3 Es
Businesses have a tendency to focus on one or other of the three E’s as shown in Figure 4.1 : Figure 4.1

DEFINITIONS a. Economy – doing things as cheaply as possible, avoiding spending more than is necessary b. Efficiency – doing