Flowchart Design - Business Process Management

Business process management (BPM) is a systemic approach for capturing, designing, executing, documenting, measuring, monitoring and controlling both automated and non-automated processes to meet the objectives and business strategies of a company.

BPM embraces the conscious, comprehensive, and increasingly technology-enabled definition, improvement, innovation, and maintenance of end-to-end processes. Through this systemic and conscious management of processes,
companies achieve better results faster and more flexibly.

Through BPM, processes can be aligned with the business strategy, and so help to improve company performance as a whole thanks to the optimization of processes within business divisions or even beyond company borders. What end-to-end process really means is from start to finish. The goal is to understand and thus assess and improve an entire process not just its components.

New projects almost always involve one of the 3 options :
1. The client wants to improve a process using Information Technology (IT).
2. The client wants current processes documented.
3. The client wants to introduce entirely new processes.
A vast majority of the time, we encounter the first scenario: the client seeks to improve a process with IT. The motivation often is a desire to improve efficiency, for example, to use software to eliminate manual keying or rekeying of data. A client may want to implement IT-based monitoring and analysis of routine processes based on key performance indicators (KPIs).
The second scenario, documenting processes, usually comes about because the client needs documentation to guide the work of the people involved. Another rationale is that the documentation is mandated by regulation or required to obtain certification such as ISO 9000.
The third scenario happens least often. We find that when companies want to introduce entirely new processes, it is usually because they are being forced to adapt to changed market conditions, develop new channels of distribution, or introduce new products.
BPM, process management, or whatever you want to call it, is not an end in itself.
We always recommend introducing BPM in steps. Each step should yield a practical, measurable benefit that justifies the time and effort that it took to accomplish. Once the justification of the first step is established, take the next step. You may think that this approach produces solutions isolated from each other, but what we mean to emphasize here is the controlled nature of the approach. Each step contributes to the big picture.

Our approach: Top-down modeling

Knowing all the elements of business process modeling does not guarantee the creation of good meaningful diagrams. You also need a modeling method.

The top-down modeling method is the most recommended.

  • Where does the process begin?
  • Where does the process end?
  • When is the process complete?

The answers to these questions will allow us to understand the process as a whole, so that we can model the main steps of the process in a high-level diagram.

This high-level diagram should fit on a single page.

From there, you can develop each activity of the high-level diagram into underlying level diagrams, and then add only the amount of detail needed to your goal.

Doing the opposite (starting with more detailed activities) can provide you with many unnecessary steps and details that may not even be part of the process.

 

What is the digital maturity of my processes?

Data audit - What is the knowledge and expertise that feeds the business?

Business data is one of the most important pieces of information to manage in an organization.

This data is usually in the minds of employees and is shared as needed when training new resources.

This approach has had its day, because loyalty to the employer is no longer eternal.

Staff turnover means that with each departure, part of the knowledge of the company also leaves. There are several solutions to remedy this situation.

Product knowledge is one of the building blocks of an organization.

For example, how much does it cost to train a new estimator who will be able to price a project with enough precision not to jeopardize the profitability of the business?

In many such cases, the Product Configurator is a tool that could be used to manage most of the configuration or manufacturing rules for a product.

Save billable and non-billable hours with the Projects Time Sheet module. Save every minute of your hard work, manually or with timers, and our built-in integration with Zoho Invoice will automatically generate invoices from your timesheets.

How to define digital maturity?

How to do a technology audit?

Digital maturity self-assessment is difficult to quantify without an assessment model and without competence in a wide variety of areas of expertise.

This assessment will be used in the development of a digital strategy adapted to the reality of the company.

The audit is the foundation for developing a digital strategy.

It sets the starting point and then draws up the roadmap to follow.

Purpose of functional analysis

The objective of the functional analysis is to optimize the current tools, to draw up the acquisition plan for future technologies, and to ensure their cohesion and integration, all this taking into account the business model.

How to measure software integration ROi?

Technology integration

A company’s digital technologies have often been acquired on the basis of specific needs, without considering their ability to integrate with the technologies already in place.

This consideration is, however, the key to achieving the highest levels of efficiency.

This sharing of digital information between departments or directorates or partner organizations is essential.
Software and application integration breakdown information silos and make it available to those who need it at their fingertips based on a keyword search.

Audit process automation options

The integration of information and communication technologies (ICT) can be horizontal or vertical.

Horizontal integration refers to the integration of software solutions at different stages of manufacturing and planning.

The goal of this integration is to deliver data using the flow approach, in order to reduce the processing cycle from the receipt of the sales order to the delivery of the product or service.

Vertical integration is the integration of different equipment systems at different hierarchical levels (activators and sensors, controls, production management, piloting), in order to deliver a constant end-to-end solution.

Integration brings definitely added value to the processing of commercial, technical, and management of information.

How to measure costs of technologies proliferation?

The proliferation of digital technologies in the company will make integration more and more complex, although the trend is to move towards universal communication standards.

The need for integration should be seen as the foundation for achieving organizational effectiveness.

The quality and extent of integration of the various digital technologies used will qualify the company for its growth according to the advancements of Industry 4.0.

 

What will your results be?

These different technologies (connectivity, Internet of Things, big data, etc.) make it possible to share information from your operations to software that processes the information and presents it in the form of performance indicators.

These indicators provide value-added information to the user as well as to the managers.

This information has direct consequences on operational performance and can even generate feedback on the process, increasing the level of intelligence of the company.

Let’s take a closer look at the three main stages of top-down modeling.

1

The high-level diagram

The high-level diagram only contains the main activities of the process.
Ideally, it fits on a single page and the diagrams contain 10 activities or less. These activities are modeled as reduced sub-processes.
We start by considering only the happy path first, using all kinds of activities, gateways, and events to bring the process from its initial state to its end state.
We can now add the exception / alternative paths. The end states of these paths are displayed as separate end events in the high-level diagram.
2

Underlying level charts

For each activity in the high level diagram, we create a child level diagram to show its internal details. Each is created as a separate diagram, linked to the top level diagram. Child level diagrams must have a none strat event. Their activities can also be collapsed sub-processes, which would be expanded into another layer of child-level diagrams. All input or output flows to a sub-process in the top diagram level should be traceable down to the child level diagram. For example, if a sub-process is followed by a gateway, the sub-process must have as many end states as the branches of the gateway and one of them must match the label of the gateway.
3

Adding details

The key to this step if you only need to add valuable information to a diagram.
How do you know if something is of value?
It should be useful in the business context for the process and it should clarify or show how the process interacts with other entities.
Message flows, for example, are not required by the specifications. However, they do provide information about the interactions between participants, which makes them valuable, so drawing them is always recommended.
To be coherent.
This would improve communication, which is one of the main goals of business process modeling.

How to design a process diagram

  • Process diagrams focus on the flow and sequence of a single business process.
  • Collaboration diagrams focus on the interaction (exchange of messages and its sequence) between participants.
  • Conversation diagrams provide an overview of the interactions between participants.
  • Choreography diagrams focus on how participants exchange messages to coordinate their interactions.