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Even the most well-designed processes offer opportunity for improvement. While a function may be streamlined and incorporate a number of best practices, there often is room for incremental enhancements to the process. For example, there may be opportunities to decrease the exception rate, enhance accuracy, or increase productivity per employee. OPI’s Lean Six Sigma program targets these incremental improvements to both enhance process health and capture bottom-line savings.
Lean Six Sigma has become an integral part of every client engagement at OPI. A member of our Quality team, each of whom is a skilled and certified Lean Six Sigma professional, works closely with each Client Delivery team. Beginning as early as the transition phase, our Quality professionals review processes, analyze performance metrics, and identify sub-processes that could be improved through Lean Six Sigma review and process reengineering. We partner closely with Client professionals to understand the upstream and downstream dependencies, evaluate the potential risks and benefits, validate baseline metrics, and quantify the potential impact of any process changes.
With specific goals in place, and agreement as to the approach, OPI’s 250+ Master Black, Black, Green, and Yellow Belt Lean Six Sigma professionals work to re-engineer sub-processes, manage change, and bring about tangible, quantifiable benefits.
Some of the benefits that OPI’s Lean Six Sigma projects commonly deliver include:
Lean Six Sigma In Action
Explore the benefits of Lean Six Sigma in these case studies:
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| Company Profile: |
Consumer Services Industry
>US$2 billion Annual Revenues
Publicly Traded |
| Function: |
Record to Report > Trust Accounting > Bank Reconciliation |
| Business Impact: |
Business Process Redesign
Cost Reduction |
Challenges
Employees utilize a check-free reconciliations tool to match and reconcile thousands of complicated accounting reconciliations every month. OPI’s Quality team sought to increase the efficiency of the auto-matching process and reduce process time by eliminating ineffective steps.
Solution
OPI’s Quality team assessed the reconciliation process, the quality of the auto-matches, and all exceptions to the process. We worked to redesign the process by eliminating non value-add process steps, specify more detailed matching criteria for the check-free tool, and automate report generation and formatting.
Results
Reengineering improved the quality of automated matching and both eliminated and automated non-value added steps. These changes resulted in a decrease in average processing time per reconciliation of 35%. Even while the number of reconciliations managed by the team increased by 30% over time, we were able to decrease the number of employees deployed to reconciliations by 24%. The business impact amounted to US$300,000 of annual cost savings. |
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| Company Profile: |
Business Services Industry
US$400 million Annual Revenues
Privately Owned |
| Function: |
Record to Report > General Accounting > General Ledger |
| Business Impact: |
Business Process Redesign
Access to Information |
Challenges
Monthly closing activities were taking 15 days, on average, due to consistent delays in receiving information for journal entries, accruals, and other necessary information. OPI’s Quality team set out to decrease the days for monthly close.
Solution
OPI’s Quality team worked closely with the Company to analyze the financial close process and identify root causes of the delays. We studied the feasibility for automating additional entries, accruals, payroll, prepaid expenses, and depreciation, worked to set up standardized, formula-driven templates, and established communication procedures that together worked to streamline the process.
Results
Reengineering amounted to timely submissions, and increased automation such that the month end close went from 15 days to 5 days in one month’s time. With improved transparency, management is now able to make more timely decisions about the business. |
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