Process Efficiency
Metrics

Metrics, or the ability to readily measure how well a business's Processes are running, is one area where all businesses we have ever seen fall incredibly short. The only instances of continuous measurement on a day-to-day basis that can be found are in factories on assembly lines or extremely simple processes like making hamburgers where the output in a given time period is easy to determine.

It cannot be overstressed how important this aspect of business operations is to achieving peak performance in any Process regardless of its function. Race cars incorporate a slew of measurement technology so that they can monitor every characteristic of a car's performance so that decisions concerning minor adjustments can be made intelligently and every ounce of performance can be brought to bear.

Most would argue that business Processes don't run like engines so measuring them is far more problematic and cumbersome. We contend that there are a number of important metrics that could readily be obtained from any Process if the right infrastructure was in place. Metrics  that could be obtained without tedious recording and tabulating. Metrics that could be instantaneously viewed at any time. This is primarily because most business Processes today are assisted at some point by computer based tools. Even orders in fast-food restaurants are processed with assistance of a computer tool. This provides an opportunity to apply measurement techniques.

The subject of metrics gets even more interesting when you consider that almost every business expends a great deal of time and money conducting performance measurement of their employees. Usually, the metrics used in these processes are somewhat subjective in that they try and measure an employee against a set of characteristics of the ideal employee like team orientation or initiative. Businesses need to be able to measure an employee's specific contribution to the Processes that make the business successful. In order for this to be possible, two things have to exist. The specific parts of the business's processes that an employee contributes to have to be clearly defined and the Process's performance has to be measurable with enough information to assess their level of contribution. The inability of a business to objectively measure and reward employees accordingly significantly impacts the Human Factor of Business Operational Efficiency.