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Process management and technological innovation: a longitudinal study of the photography and paint industries

Administrative Science Quarterly, Dec, 2002 by Mary J. Benner, Michael Tushman

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Process management techniques comprise three main activities. First, concerted effort is undertaken to map or document routines that underlie the delivery of an organization's product or service across the organization (Hammer and Champy, 1993; Garvin, 1995; Harrington and Mathers, 1997). Routines are then subject to process improvement, aimed particularly at incremental change that rationalizes processes and streamlines interfaces and handoffs between interdependent organizational subunits (Dean and Bowen, 1994; Anderson, Rungtusanatham, and Schroeder, 1994; Garvin, 1995; Harry and Schroeder, 2000). Process management efforts rely on ongoing measures of process efficiency and effectiveness, such as improved yields, reduced waste and time to market for new products, and customer satisfaction, to drive continuous improvement efforts (Garvin, 1988; Hackman and Wageman, 1995; Powell, 1995; Cole, 1998). In an organization utilizing process management approaches, the customers of interest are not only the external customers of the organization's outputs, but also the internal customers at points of handoff between organizational processes (Hammer and Stanton, 1999).

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Process management activities are often applied to new product development processes (Cole and Scott, 2000; Repenning and Sterman, 2002). Process efficiency and effectiveness for improvement efforts in new product development processes are often measured by time to market for new products and customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction also involves internal customers, that is, owners of downstream processes. In this case, product development effectiveness would be gauged by how well it meets the needs of the internal customers downstream from product development, in manufacturing and distribution processes. The product development process, in turn, is the internal customer of the research activities and other processes upstream. A focus on continuous improvement in new product development is intended to alter the handoffs or inputs from upstream research activities. In turn, a focus on continuous improvements in efficiency in manufacturing or distribution processes will likely affect the outputs or handoffs resulting from the product development process upstream. Process management improvement efforts thus aim at streamlining the entire system of processes across an organization, through incremental improvements in processes and handoffs between them, guided by the immediate feedback of short-term measures.

Once processes have been mapped and improved, the last element of process management involves adherence to routines through the adoption of standardized best practices throughout an organization (Hackman and Wageman, 1995; Harrington and Mathers, 1997; Mukherjee, Lapre, and Van Wassenhove, 1998). This phase ensures that organizational processes are repeated, allowing for continued efficiency improvements.

Business Services Industry

Process management and technological innovation: a longitudinal study of the photography and paint industries

Administrative Science Quarterly, Dec, 2002 by Mary J. Benner, Michael Tushman

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