When we talk about Safety
Management Systems,SMS, and Quality Assurance, QA, what are we really talking
about? The fundamental goal of any
Management System, be it Safety or Quality, is to gain CONTROL of the processes
to produce outputs that are “predictable.”
The first step in gaining control is
to document processes. The conventional way to document processes Is through Step-by-Step Procedures.
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| A good facilitator can lead a map session easily and with great results! |
Many companies' document their procedures in written form. It has been my experience that these
written procedures were written by persons who don’t actually do the process. These type of procedures are difficult for the workers to follow. The workers tend to not "own" these type of procedures since they were not an active part of their creation.
In order to make procedures that are actually
followed, you MUST involve the people that actually do the process. The best
method is to assemble thepersonnel that are doing the process and simply “MAP”
what they do.
We use to call this “Flowcharting” but now we call it “Process
Mapping.” Which is great cause we can charge more when we help companies do
this.
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| Rough Maps converted to Clean flows |
The benefits
of facilitating Process Mapping sessions are these:
Were able to document processes very
quickly and efficiently.
All the participants become part of
the procedures leading to “Buy-in” by the workers.
The process is broken into steps that
are easily made into “Audit Checklists.”
Even if the procedure, MAP, created
is flawed, it still provides a vehicle or basis for change.
While discussing the steps in a
process, discussions about how to do a process tend to lead to “better” ways of
doing things and bring up problem areas that would have never been discussed normally.
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| Maps are a Pictorial Representation of a Process |
Process maps are created in rough form on a whiteboard or flip chart where we can erase and change them as we create them.Once they mapped, they should be reviewed for regulatory compliance and conformity.
Then the maps should be transformed into standard flowcharts with such programs like Visio©
or LucidChart©
The process maps should be
reviewed periodically through a facilitation session for continuous improvement
opportunities to be examined and implemented in order to streamline the process outputs.
