A few years ago, a leading investment bank wanted to improve the way it handled new account applications. At the time, the company was handling a key step in the process—copying, mailing, faxing and scanning documentsand extracting the most important data—in-house. But there were problems.

Different local offices handled these tasks in different ways, which led to inconsistencies, errors and redundant steps. In addition, the in-house staff had a high turnover rate, which necessitated constant training. All of theseproblems had an impact on the bottom line.

Finally, the company decided to bring in outside document and business process experts to assess the situation. These consultants utilized a Lean Six Sigma methodology to identify non-value added steps in the process and make a series of recommendations for improving operational consistency, cycle time and cost.

They also recommended a gradual migration path to the overall goal of business process transformation that would make it easier for the client’s organization to adapt to change.

Once the recommendations were implemented and the new account application process was standardized on an enterprise-wide basis, the cycle time was reduced by 40% – from five days to three. That was close to the industry benchmark at the time.

But the critical process still had a high error-rate, because document management was not a core competency of the client organization.