Process reengineering and optimization for innovation performance: An application to detergent manufacturing

Today's manufacturing industries are working in dynamic market climates. They are facing rapid technological evolution, as well as demand, supply, and lead-time uncertainty fluctuations. The detergent industry is one of the most important and active factories that are meeting the challenge of increasing global production capacity. These future generation companies are expected to reengineer their processes in such a dynamic context by applying continuous improvement policies in order to minimize costs, raise quality and perform effectively. To reach such a purpose, a methodology, based on structured process reengineering procedures, is proposed for a leading international company specialized in household detergents, disinfectants, and laundry cleaning products. Relying on complementarities and synergies between the adopted models, we begin by defining and analyzing the actual processes of the company to detect wastes and bottlenecks. After streaming the current processes, solutions based on process automation are proposed and a future state map is designed to eliminate the wastes measured. The actual and future process maps are analyzed to assess the overall improvement realized by redesigning and automating processes. The findings also highlight the effective interactions between the two popular frameworks: Business Process Modeling and Lean Management, using notably the BPMN and VSM techniques.