Anirud Sinha

Priority should be 1. Easier 2. Better 3. Faster 4. Cheaper Easier a process will allow the person (having the skill set as Low) to understand the whole process better and compute the result faster thus reducing the overall turnaround time eventually making the process cheaper. Also easier a process will also increase the productivity (user can do much more transactions in less time) and accuracy ( process is easy to understand and does not require complex processing). Also if the process is easier then there is no need for the company to hire associates with high skill set and thus saving overall cost. Giving priority to better over easier may result in the better process being too complex and not easy to understand and require highly skilled labourers to work on the process. Giving priority to faster over easier and better would result in end product being delivered more quickly however defects/errors will increase as the process may be complex require additional validation or non value adding stages. From management perspective, "Cheaper" or "Cost-Saving" is the main objective however if "Cheaper" is given the utmost priority then it could result in hiring costly man-power or investing time and money in training the employees whereas in case of easier process, minimal efforts are required to train the employees. Hence making a process easier would ultimately lead to process being better, faster and cheaper.

Yes, by multiplying the individual throughput yields at each step, one can obtain the overall, rolled throughput yield. For example, in primary source verification industry, the customer is only concerned with the end result whether the report of his applicant is Positive or Negative. The detailed report contains other important information as well like "who" was contacted to obtain the verification from certificate issuing authority. Now let's say that the person responsible to authenticate verification of an applicant is HR of the company however person got the document authenticated from company's senior manager which in this case is not the right person. In order to make sure that verification process step yield is correct, we introduce a quality check stage post verification stage who is responsible to check whether verification conducted is as per the required standard otherwise re-verification is required to be conducted by that same verification performer. Customer is not concerned with the number of quality rejects or rework done. Customer is concerned with the end product i.e. final verification status (Positive or Negative). Hence all the quality rejects and rework is "hidden factory" to the customer. To customer yield is final status (Positive or Negative) ("what goes out the door") but if we take into account all the rework done to correct the defects then overall yield is less than 100 percent ("hidden factory"). Hence number of quality rejects will decrease the verification process step yield and thus overall rolling throughput yield and help to calculate the "hidden factory".