| Summary: | For businesses to remin competitive in their marketplace they must continually look for different ways to satisfy the expectations of their customers and stakeholders as well as satisfy the needs of their employees and business partners. If they fail to do this then other businesses operating in the same marketplace will offer better value products and services to their customers resulting in a loss of revenue and the business may face the threat of closure. Overcoming this threat, looking to achieve competitive advantage, there are two distinct change options available. Businesses can look externally, continually developing innovative new products perhaps adapting new technology winning the race to satisfy existing and potentially new customer expectations for better value products at minimal cost, or, they can look internally at their own processes with a view to continually improving these to be more efficient and effective maximising resource utilisation without devaluing the business in the eyes of their customers. This thesis explores the second option, looking at how businesses can better align their resources and manage internal and external influencing factors to deliver sustainable competitive advantage through the use of a value improvement model for their repetitive processes. Multiple case studies are presented showing the development of the model through application and intervention in a practitioner environment. The linkage to the body of knowledge for systems thinking, strategy, lean and six-sigma is also made. The main outcome of the thesis is the development of a useful, visual and systematic conceptual framework enabling managers to understand, assess and improve repetitive processes within their businesses through the taxonomy of value improvement models presented.
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