On Tuesday, May 10, 2011, seven-year-old Kaydn Halverson of Kensett, Iowa, lost her life in a hit and run accident that occurred while she was attempting to board her school bus. On average, 35 children die in school bus related accidents each year. Estimates of school bus related injuries range from 9,500 to 17,000 annually.

Every school day in the U.S., more than 24 million kindergarten through Grade 12 students, ranging in age from 4 to 18, board some version of a yellow school bus. More than 19 million U.S. families watch their children walk out the door to the school bus stop each day, entrusting their safety to the school bus operator and equipment.

What error rate is acceptable for safe transportation of children to and from school? Accepting an error rate of one-tenth of one percent would mean 24,000 children might be harmed or killed on the way to or from school each day. Accepting an error rate of only one-thousandth of one percent would still mean that 240 children might fail to arrive home safely each day. The current rate of about 68 injuries per day represents an error rate of roughly one-quarter of one-thousandth of one percent (0.00025%.)

Every organizational outcome—like the percentage of children transported safely to and from school—is the result of one or more business processes. A business process is simply the series of steps followed to produce a result. Whether or not they are intentionally designed to create consistent, high quality outcomes, business processes happen and represent the methods organizations use to create value. Few common business processes achieve error rates as low as those achieved in the student transportation industry. Read More...