The processes examined within each phase are selected to fit your business.
Phase 01 Direction, goals and desired state
Discuss and document
- Current business state
- Desired future state
- Current and future initiatives
- Long-term goals
Targets
- Revenue growth
- Profitability
- Marketing and sales automation (if desired)
Phase 02 Examine end-to-end business processes
Core value streams
Order → Cash — Order through fulfillment, invoicing and payment.
Procure → Pay — Sourcing and purchase orders through receipt and supplier payment.
Record → Report — Transaction capture through financial close and reporting.
Plan → Production — Demand and production planning through finished goods.
Training → Execution — onboarding and training through independent, competent execution
Additional streams, where applicable
Issue → Resolution (if applicable) — Problem intake through corrective action and closure.
Overall inventory management (if applicable) — Levels, turns, replenishment and carrying cost.
Other streams (on request)
For each stream
- Review steps, stakeholders and handoffs
- Where work waits, repeats or is reworked
- Systems used and manual re-keying
- Cost, cycle time and error rate
Phase 03 Facility tour
On-site observation of
- How work moves station to station and team to team
- Handoffs between departments, and where material, paperwork or approvals wait
- Gaps between the documented process and actual practice
- Bottlenecks, rework loops and idle inventory
- Institutional barriers to consistent execution
Phase 04 Review alignment of business processes
Alignment review
- Whether each process supports the revenue, profit and growth goals
- Where processes conflict, duplicate or work against each other
- Whether systems, data and handoffs connect across streams
- Which changes carry the most impact for the least effort
- Where technology creates a gap or bottleneck (where applicable)
- Where personnel choices create a gap or bottleneck (where applicable)
Deliverables
- Current-state picture of each process.
- List of major issues and concerns identified.
- Prioritized, sequenced recommendations tied to your goals.
The four phases are constant; the processes within them are chosen with you.