Standards and Methodologies

Stands for Business Process Management. BPM is a business improvement strategy based on documenting, analyzing, and redesigning processes for greater performance. Read our tutorial: Using SmartDraw for Business Process Management.

A Six Sigma quality improvement strategy described by five phases: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control. See also DMADV.

A Six Sigma strategy divided into five phases: Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, and Verify. See also DMAIC.

Stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. ERP refers to software packages that attempt to consolidate all the information flowing through the company from finance to human resources. ERP allows companies to standardize their data, streamline their analysis process, and manage long term business planning with greater ease.

Stands for ICAM Definition Method or Integration Definition Method. IDEF is a modeling methodology developed by the U.S. Air Force to help programmers design complicated software systems. IDEF can be divided into five separate modeling methods: IDEF0 (Function Modeling), IDEF1X (Data Modeling), IDEF2 (Simulation Model Design), IDEF3 (Process Description Capture), and IDEF4 (Object-Oriented Design).

Series of standards and documented technical specifications used as guidelines to ensure that products, processes, and services are manufactured consistently. The ISO organization was established by European countries as a way to certify the quality control systems of companies across international boundaries.

Stands for Just in Time. Just-in-time is the cornerstone philosophy of Lean Manufacturing and MRP. Using the just-in-time philosophy, raw materials arrive no earlier than they are required to reduce costs and inefficiencies associated with large inventory.

A Japanese quality improvement philosophy named after the phrase "continuous improvement." Kaizen aims to create a quality oriented culture that permeates all levels of the business from manufacturing to management and aims to improve the organization in small increments from the ground up.

Kaizen is the father of many quality improvement procedures including: suggestion systems, automation, small group activities, Kanban, just-in-time, zero defects, total productive maintenance,total quality control, and more.

A quality methodology focused on eliminating all waste from the manufacturing process. Lean Manufacturing aims to cut down on processing times and inventory by reducing human involvement and by streamlining the supply chain. See also Supply Chain Management.

Stands for Material Requirements Planning. MRP aims to increase manufacturing efficiency by managing the production schedule, reducing inventory, increasing cash flow, and delivering products in a timely manner. ERP is a technical subset of MRP.

Stands for Quality Function Deployment. The goal of QFD is to prioritize and translate customer needs into technical requirements for engineers, and deliver a quality product or service that aims to satisfy the customer.

A statistically driven quality management methodology that aims to reduce defects and variation in a business process. In fact, the goal of any Six Sigma initiative is to reduce to the number of defects to 3.4 per one million opportunities thereby increasing customer satisfaction and business profits. Six Sigma was first developed and implemented by Motorola in the 1980s. In 1996 GE announced it saved $1 Billion by using the Six Sigma methodology. Now a lot of industry leaders have adopted the Six Sigma methodology as their quality improvement method of choice.

There are two main strategies that divide the Six Sigma initiative into five distinct phases: DMAIC and DMADV.

Six Sigma professionals are categorized into a belt system from green to black based on their level of expertise and responsibility within the quality improvement initiative.

Managing the movement of goods from raw materials to the finished product delivered to customers. Supply Chain Management aims to reduce operating costs, lead times, and inventory and increase the speed of delivery, product availability, and customer satisfaction.

Stands for Total Quality Management. It is a philosophy that embodies all processes and systems that aim to improve efficiency and quality throughout the entire organization.

A practice that aims to reduce defects as a way to directly increase profits. The concept of zero defects lead to the development of Six Sigma in the 1980s.