^The APQC Blog

Shawn Eckert, Process and Technology Practice Leader of the St. Charles Consulting Group, discusses the value of integrating process design with knowledge content and difficulty in doing it well.

AARP was able to save millions dollars by creating service centers and centers of excellence. Constantine Kazakos explains the business process management methods and tools AARP utilized in the creation of their service centers and centers of excellence, from beginning to the end. He also discusses why process improvement must be explainable, implementable, and practical or won’t succeed on any levelAARP was able to save millions dollars by creating service centers and centers of excellence.

Organizations are always looking for ways to eliminate waste while maintaining product or service quality. There has been a lot of discussion, both in print and online, about how companies can improve supply chain efficiency and effectiveness. But how have organizations actually accomplished this?

Having the right logistics strategy is essential for organizations that are committed to process improvement, cost savings, increased customer satisfaction, and increased profits. The top tip for an organization looking to create an effective logistics strategy is to determine which key performance indicators (KPIs) are most important to its strategy. The organization can then define and implement systems for measuring the KPIs in its logistics operations. Measuring logistics operations helps organizations to identify, quantify, and focus on areas of improvement.

How often do we start something only to discover we have to go back to square one because we overlooked an important stakeholder?

In APQC’s continuing series “Keys to Making Change Management Last” Robert Paterson, President of The Renewal Consulting Group, explains why culture change is easiest when people are desperate. He also explains the rules of culture change, how difficult it was to convince a bank to use email, and why culture change can be compared to a disease. 

You can follow Robert on Twitter at @robpatrob and read his blog 'Looking Beneath the Surface'.

The end-of-year holiday season is a time for friends, family, parties, and gifts, but it is also a time for project close-outs, strategic planning, and budgeting for the next fiscal year. Juggling all of these home and work demands at the same time can be stressful. To help take the pressure off this holiday season, here are five tips to help you relax. These tips are culled from secondary research I've conducted in the past as a social and health research psychologist.

Recent surveys of supply chain executives have shown that attracting and retaining talent in the supply chain is a big concern, especially in light of the impending retirement of baby boomers who have long made up the bulk of supply chain professionals. Last week at the Supply Chain and Logistics Summit in Dallas, the subject of the supply chain talent gap was a popular one. Almost as frequently raised was the subject of attracting Millennials to the supply chain field.

"Painful," "too much effort," "not popular," "a necessary evil"—when employees use these kinds of words to describe a particular process you know that process is broken and needs to be improved. These were the words that APQC employees used to describe APQC's pre-2012 employee performance management process.

How did APQC go from a broken performance management process to one that drives better performance? Elissa Tucker and I share five success factors that helped APQC transform its performance management process, which includes a focus on:

The Process Excellence Network just came out with an article focusing on six process excellence pitfalls to avoid, written by Andrew Spanyi.