Alliance to expand effectiveness of Six Sigma through business process management technology
Scottsdale, AZ — June 2, 2004 — Business process management (BPM) solutions provider CommerceQuest Inc. and Six Sigma-focused business performance improvement company Savvi International today announced from the Leadership Conference of the International Society of Six Sigma Professionals a solution alliance to expand the effectiveness of Six Sigma across the enterprise through the use of business process management (BPM) information technology.
The companies commented that desktop BPM tools assist Six Sigma practitioners in the design and simulation of business processes for Six Sigma projects. They added that enterprise BPM improves the effectiveness of business initiatives by applying information technology to define, measure and analyze entire process improvement programs.
The companies said that the alliance combines the Enterprise BPM solution of CommerceQuest's TRAXION Enterprise Business Process Management Suite (TRAXION EnterpriseBPMS) with Savvi's Sigma performance improvement methodology. The result, they said, is that people and systems, as process participants, can now perform to new levels of control and predictability in a sustainable manner.
"Approaching organizational process improvements holistically is the heart of BPM and aligns well with the Six Sigma methodology," said Mike Forster, chairman and CEO of CommerceQuest. "CommerceQuest's Enterprise BPM solution adds a new dimension of performance to Six Sigma by giving practitioners the ability to scale beyond departmental projects to initiatives that impact the entire enterprise."
In a joint presentation at the Six Sigma Leadership Conference, CommerceQuest and Savvi International demonstrated how financial services and retail industries could combine Enterprise BPM and Six Sigma to enable their initiatives. They showcased projects such as assimilating new employees, streamlining the promotions management process and improving a corporation's ability to visualize and optimize store-level operations as examples of Six Sigma working with Enterprise BPM to optimize enterprise-level business processes.
Eric Austvold of AMR Research noted in a January 14, 2004, research note ("BPM Is a When, Not an If — Start Now"), "In 2001, we predicted that Business Process Management (BPM) technology would be a cornerstone of application architectures of the future, highlighting the technology as one of seven key architectural components of future software architectures. And now that is being realized. Because of increasing interest in composite application frameworks, service-oriented architectures, and process improvement initiatives like Six Sigma and Lean manufacturing, BPM is a must in 2004".
