The objectives connected to the internal business processes are linked with what is often referred to as a core process or core competency. In the business where I started out (material handling equipment at The Raymond Corporation), we knew that welding was a special skill we had nurtured and grown internally. As the business grew and we looked at the options of expansion or subcontract, welding always seemed to be a process we kept. The reason was simple. Raymond had some of the best welders within a very large radius (maybe the globe!). Many of our products were highly engineered for specific applications, and some were engineered to require hand setup and welding. Steel and associated welding still played an important role in the design of forklift equipment. All of these data aligned to say that we should probably continue to weld in-house, at least for the specialty equipment. I have not visited Raymond in a couple years, but I m guessing they still do a lot of their welding there. It is a core competency a process critical to their success and one at which they excel. A strategic objective in this type of environment could be to develop the highest-quality welding process.

Also in the business planning space, another example of a possible business imperative could be to reduce process variation in the specialties welding area to a FTQ (first-time quality) of 99 percent. This type of goal would include several areas engineering design, process engineering, and welding...