Do You Have These Five Items on Your Process and ECM Technology Checklist? |
By George Dunn |
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Applying Six Sigma process improvement methodology and electronic content management (ECM) technology to documents currently stored in email, shared network drives and paper can result in a significant reduction of product/service cost and issues. What is Six Sigma? Six Sigma is based upon work by Shewhart and Deming (post WWII Japan), further developed by Motorola in 1980s and made popular by Jack Welsh at GE in 1995. Six Sigma focuses on improving quality of process by identification and removal of the cause of:
Six Sigma uses statistical methods and goals towards 99.99966% of the products/services manufactured to be statistically free of defects. What is ECM? ECM consists of software module(s), which provide storage, security, view and output of electronic content (documents, text, video, voice) and related indexes. Content stored in ECM include those captured from scanners, email, shared network drives and created using native applications, such as word processing and spreadsheet. As the documents stored in ECM are viewed, analyzed or as appropriately modified, additional indexes are added, such as version number and last view date. Annotations, sticky notes or signatures may be attached/authenticated. Some ECM products include electronic records management (ERM) modules. ERM provides retention and disposition (deletion) rules for documents stored in the ECM system, based upon attributes such as record series, close date, retention period and legal holds. Checklist Using the Six Sigma “Deming Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle” as a framework, we can determine how to improve processes related to documents stored in email, shared network drives and paper and determine the ROI for money spent on ECM/ERM technology. Step 1: Define the document management problem.
What is the project goal necessary to overcome the above problems? For example, assess the cost, quality, service, regulatory and e-discovery benefits of implementing Six Sigma process improvement and ECM/ERM. Step 2: What are the key measurement(s) of the current process? What defects exist for email, shared network drives and paper?
Calculate the cost (profit, quality, service, lost customers) to the organization resulting from the above defects? Step 3: Analyze data to understand and verify cause–effect relationships. Seek out root causes of defect. For example:
Step 4: Improve/optimize current process.
At the DOCUMENT Strategy Forum, I will provide specific case study details on how Six Sigma and ECM/ERM can reduce an organization's product/service cost by 10% and provide a significant ROI. Step 5: Control future state. Make sure future state deviations are corrected before they result in defects. On-going analysis to identify, understand and improve defects resulting from new: process, file formats, retention/disposition rules, software upgrades and other items. Mr. Dunn, president of CRE8 Independent Consultants, will be presenting on Tuesday, May 13, 2014 at the DOCUMENT Strategy Forum. Don't miss his Power Session P204/P205 “Taking Automation a Step Further: Process Innovation & Advanced Paperless Technology.” For more information, visit www.DOCUMENTstrategyForum.com. *As planning for Six Sigma and ECM technology must to be tailored to the specific need of each organization, the information provided here should be treated as an introduction only and, as such, without a direct consultation of requirements, CRE8 cannot assume responsibility for the use, implementation or results of information provided. This article contains CRE8’s understanding of Six Sigma and ECM/ERM. As there are many different definitions and books espousing Six Sigma methodology and as ECM/ERM technology abilities can change, the reader should conduct research to learn more about the specifics of the methodology and technology. |