A technical startup can be a huge undertaking. To shape the company’s culture and identity, one that is in your vision for the company, you need to assemble the right team. Your team has a lasting effect on the success of the company and how the company will compete in the industry.
Your team also plays a role in your company's breakthrough technology and processes. Delivering performance and scaling it over time contributes to company growth, but how do you reproduce these processes?
Following the core philosophies of lean, any startup can duplicate technical processes in a way that reduces time, money, and other forms of waste from the picture, giving you the opportunity to maximize success in a short period of time.
There are many benefits of consulting a process engineer for your business. A process engineer is skilled in strategically improving processes and maintaining that can be your problem-solver and play a dual role in both product and process development for your business or startup.
What is a Process Engineer?
Think about everything that goes into business operations. From the design, implementation, and management of business processes, business operations require a solid line of communication and consistent collaboration between departments.
Without business process engineers, business leaders are responsible not only for business operations but also creating a bridge between departments. This allows processes to run smoothly, and the end result can be achieved in the most efficient way possible. Business process engineers make that line between departments easier to create and maintain in support of the end product.
One of the main responsibilities of a process engineer is to bridge the gap in communication and collaboration between business users or departments. An example would be, if a department is trying to implement a new process and that process will affect interaction with another department. Businesses, especially in the startup space, can benefit from working with a business process engineer.
The Roles of a Process Engineer
A process engineer serves several purposes:
- Designing a process for the desired end result or product
- Analyzing the process along the way, using KPIs and target points to track performance
- Optimizing business processes with the overall goal of minimizing waste, eliminating unnecessary steps, and maximizing success or output
Process engineers focus on waste outlined in Lean principles:
- Defects
- Overproduction
- Time
- Non-utilized talent
- Transportation
- Inventory
- Motion
- Excess processing/unnecessary steps
A process engineer can be found in several different industries as well. Every industry produces goods or services for customers that involve processing and an end result. From chemical processing, food and beverage, and textiles to agriculture, paper, and software development, process engineers can help your team to optimize business processes.
Benefits of a Process Engineer
Identifying Cost-Saving Projects
When considering ways of eliminating waste, cost comes into play. Any type of waste results in financial loss in one way or another, so one of the top priorities of a process engineer is figuring out how to develop projects that can be staple cost-saving measures.
Cost-savings can come from materials used, time or processing steps, or finding cheaper alternatives to raw materials, technologies, and more.
Identifying and Designing New Opportunities
Developing and integrating business processes require a skilled process engineer who can identify existing business trends within your business/departments. With this initial assessment, a process engineer can develop new projects and business operations that will maximize efficiency, revenue, and productivity while also reducing waste.
This can be adjusted if you continue to work with the same process engineer, as they can collect, analyze, and reevaluate those projects/processes over time.
Identifying Existing Problems and Creating Solutions
No business is perfect, and there is typically always room for improvement. A process engineer can help to identify problems within business operations, from costly projects to missing pieces within department processes and more.
Process engineers evaluate and pinpoint where/how the problem(s) are being caused and begin to brainstorm possible solutions with the team. This is key, as the team is part of the solution.
Funneling through various brainstormed solutions, the process engineer and your team begin to narrow down possible choices by considering cost and risk factors as well as the time involved. An analysis of the feasibility of the chosen solution is done to see how the business or existing systems would need to change.
Process engineers will then oversee the implementation of the solution once approved, offering support, collaboration opportunities, and monitoring of business operations.
Throughout the entire process of implementing new business solutions, a process engineer is usually responsible for scheduling, and leading team meetings, documenting processes and goals met along the way, and managing time properly.
Improve Processes and Optimize Success with Cadence Process Consulting
Optimizing for success, Cadence Process Consulting will help your company to leverage the right tools at the right times.
With more than 15 years of experience in technical fibers, medical devices, and contract manufacturing, I have experience across all facets of the product life cycle.
By building shorter learning cycles via process optimization, together, we can deliver positive change and successful results through hands-on experimentation, theories, Plan-Do-Check-Act cycles, and consensus building.
Contact me to accelerate your process development efforts today.
