Choosing Selo: What To Look For In Process Optimization

Today’s topic: How to select the right process optimization method?

You want to make a choice that genuinely means less hassle for your team on the shop floor. 

So don’t start with the prettiest demo—start with the moments where your day gets stuck: waiting for release, searching for the right list, or having to explain afterward why the numbers don’t add up. 

An end-to-end solution like Selo can help exactly there: one way of working, one set of numbers, and less manual work. 

But that only works if you’re clear upfront on which steps and definitions everyone uses in the same way. Otherwise, you’re mostly automating confusion.

What Is Business Process Optimization?

Before we discuss how to select the right process optimization method, it is important to understand what business process optimization is. 

FYI, business process optimization is a systematic strategy of analyzing and refining business operations to obtain maximum productivity. This primarily includes three things:

1. Efficiency. 
2. Effectiveness. 
3. Quality. 

Moreover, the purpose of optimizing business processes is to continuously reduce waste, boost productivity, and improve a company’s bottom line. 

Additionally, process optimization ensures that a business operates efficiently while meeting quality standards in services or production. 

More importantly, this ensures that a business can meet client expectations. 

Also, by optimizing business processes and reducing liabilities, an organization can allocate resources more effectively while focusing on strategic initiatives to drive profitability and growth. 

How To Select The Right Process Optimization Method?

So without wasting time, find out how to select the right process optimization method with our four-step guide. 

1. Start With Your Bottleneck, Not The Features:

Pick one specific product flow and one place where it consistently falls behind: speed, quality, or planning. 

Moreover, keep it small (one line or product group), so you can quickly see whether it truly helps, and you’re not changing “something” everywhere all at once. 

As a result, when processes and registrations are combined in one place, it becomes easier to see where waiting time, extra actions, or corrections are incurred.

Make the run from raw material to pallet “readable” for production, QA, and (if available) maintenance. 

Then watch for signals like:

A)Where the process stops because information, material, or release doesn’t move through on time.

B)Where extra actions keep coming back (for example, repacking, relabeling, reweighing).

C)Where double registration happens (paper and Excel, or Excel and a system), and how you get back to a single source.

D)Where arguments about numbers happen because of different definitions (for example, yield, scrap, downtime), and how one shared set of definitions prevents that.

Also, make sure colleagues outside the scope immediately understand what the pilot does and doesn’t affect. That prevents noise and makes it easier to scale later.

2. Check Whether “End-To-End” Really Flows Through Handovers:

Most of the gains are in handovers: planning to the floor, floor to QA, QA to release, and back again during rework. 

“End-to-end” only matters if you don’t still end up taking detours via Excel lists, chat messages with photos of labels, or “I’ll just email it.” 

Moreover, if one way of working replaces those loose routes, duplicate entry drops, and it becomes clearer who picks up what.

So, don’t just look at “can it integrate?”, look at what you actually see working in practice:

A)How does data from your ERP/MES/SCADA/PLC flow through to operators and QA?

B)How are definitions managed centrally (downtime, batch/lot, rejects), so numbers stay consistent?

C)How does the system handle missing or non-matching data (no lot number, different quantity, missing timestamp) without the process grinding to a halt?

D) How does batch/lot traceability hold up when splitting, reversing postings, and rework happen, so you do less puzzle-solving afterward?

E)How manual input in a busy shift is supported with logical moments and clear flows (required fields where it matters, or “fill in later” that remains traceable)

Also, you’re choosing in a practical way: connecting multiple best-of-breed systems or using one platform. 

Best-of-breed can be nice per department, but a single platform often brings more stability: fewer definitions, management, and handover breakpoints.

3. Evaluate Implementation Like You’re Planning A Line Changeover:

Process optimization has to fit between changeover times, cleaning rounds, audits, and a line that has to keep running. 

So treat implementation like a changeover: fixed test moments, clear decision-makers, and a fast route to handle issues. 

That way it becomes part of the work, not something “on top of it.”

Also, ensure the project is set up in a practical way, for example, with:

A)Testing at times that don’t put unnecessary pressure on production (around planned stops or quieter periods).

B)Training that works on the floor: short, at the workstation, with work instructions you can use immediately.

C)A clear decision path when deviations happen (registration is wrong, a step is missing, an interface behaves differently), so the team doesn’t get stuck.

As a result, rolling out in phases is often easier to manage: familiar with the shift, room to adjust, and in between, you already see what does and doesn’t work.

4. Make Your Business Case Tangible: Less Noise, More Control

Make it concrete by looking not only at licenses, but also at integration, administration, support across shifts, and internal change work. 

Moreover, include roles and permissions right away: who is allowed to change settings, and are changes logged? That prevents hassle about KPIs that suddenly “look different.”

Also, the goal stays simple: fewer manual corrections, less duplicate work, fewer arguments about numbers, and a daily start focused on improving instead of explaining.

Know How To Select The Right Process Optimization Method: What’s Next?

Finally, create a one-pager with scope (line/product group), top 3 pain points, current systems, and KPI definitions.

That makes a selection conversation immediately concrete: what can the system take over, where does it bring calm to process and data, and does it fit your factory and the way you work.

Just knowing how to select the right process optimization method will not do – implementation becomes crucial here.