At the Alcon Manufacturing Ltd. plant in Sinking Spring, Pa., process improvement is led by the quality assurance division. At Command Medical Products in Ormand Beach, Fla., the same chore is overseen by the vice president of operations. At other companies, management might try to involve anyone and everyone, down to the shop floor.
Process improvement is one of those things everyone in the C-suite and the boardroom talks about; indeed, the point of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, data privacy rules, and a host of other regulations is to force companies to examine their business processes for flaws, and management gurus constantly say companies should use the opportunity to improve processes while they’re at it.
