Skip to main content

Process Reengineering and Optimization Tools – Part 1


Processes are ever evolving. They keep changing to suit business and their goals. As an analyst weneed to keep finding ways to improve it, make it more relevant and optimal. Business process management only talks about lifecycle of a process, it doesn’t gives us tools to optimize. There are very few tools that help an analyst to think in a structural fashion. One such tool is “Lean”.
Lean essentially talks about reducing waste and in turn make a process more efficient and optimal. Lean is specifically very relevant for process optimization as it talks about flow of process. Although it was first applied in manufacturing, but we as an analyst can take a lot of clues from it, to optimize process in any sector. Toyota, which was pioneer in Lean manufacturing, talks about three kinds of wastes.
  1. Muri – Related to design of process, it talks about what we can proactively avoid while designing the process.
  2. Mura – Related to implementation of process and elimination of fluctuations
  3. Muda – Specifically talks about seven kinds of wastes

Application of Lean in Process Automation and Optimization

In terms of software lifecycle, Muri and Mura come into play during requirement gathering, System design and Testing Phases. Whereas Muda is something that we can observer while alpha or beta launch or when software is in production.

But from a process optimizer or BPR point of view Muda principles are most important. As an analyst if we are doing process optimization or reengineering, process is mostly know. We need to find what’s going wrong. Muda seven wastes can give us indications where to look for. Lets try to translate these seven wastes into BPR or Process Optimization context.
  1. Transportation – It says if we are moving products for processing it, it is a waste. This can be directly translated to one of BPR principle, “Organize around outcomes, not tasks”. So if tasks (Activities) not organized around the outcomes, we have to look into why it is happening so.
  2. Inventory – Any kind of inventory is waste according to Muda principle. In software world inventory can be storing temporary data be in excel or CSV. So if we have activity, which says to store data only for reference purpose, we are creating a kind of waste.
  3. Motion – Originally it refers to movement of manpower or machine where as for process we can refer it usage of too many screen for completing a single task.
  4. Overproduction – If we producing results that are not being used currently we are producing waste.
  5. Over Processing – Generally in reporting or documenting steps we produce results for future and hence we need to do more calculation and representation like creating charts. This can also be termed as waste.
  6. Waiting – This can also be translated to one of BPR principle “Have those who use the output of the process perform the process” and hence there should not be any waiting.
  7. Defects – I guess defect definition remains same, be it manufacturing or software or process
In next part we will see the seven principle of BPR( Business Process Reengineering)
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Open Source Architecture for Building BPM Solution - Part 1

[This article talks about how a custom BPM solution can be build using available open source BPM tools like Activiti or jBPM] Business Case: A MFI is looking to automate its processes. It has basic functions called loan origination and loan servicing Loan origination includes following steps a) Borrower risk analysis b) Borrower on-boarding where as loan servicing includes a) Disbursements b) Collection c) Closer d) Loan extension etc. Other than these two functions MFI also have operations team which takes care ground level activities like physical transportation of cash and documents, deployment of agents, identification of loan potential areas. So how can we build solution which is scalable and minimal cost for this MFI? Below is one of many solutions Step 1: High Level Architecture Design Step 2: Process Discovery and Implementing the Executable processes Lets restrict ourselves to only loan servicing – disbursements of funds. And see how we can fit that in ...
Post a Comment
Read more

How Kirana stores can handle Organize Retail in India

Organize retail formats include departmental stores, hypermarkets, supermarkets and specialty stores. Any store having more than 500 sq. feet is counted in organized retail. There are more than 14 million retail shops in India, organized retail accounts for only 4-5% [i] , but it is growing at 40% per annum. Organized retail in India will grow faster as regulations loosen up. Government will sooner or later give in to demand of better FDI regulations, in favor of big corporate houses. Time is not far away when Kirana stores will walk the path of obsolescence. So how can these small stores save themselves? SWOT Analysis Kirana Stores Organized Retail Stores Strength Well connected to community, Customized service, Near to customer Bargaining Power, Allows customer to choose, Volume Sales, Financial strength, Bigger display area, Trendy Weakness Outdated, relatively costlier, Less display area, Higher cost per SKU ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Predictive Model (Using Trend Analysis, Univariate Analysis and Binomial Logistic Regression)

Predictive models have been in use since advent of various statistical tools. Both marketing and financial institution uses it extensively. This article tries to look under the hood how a predictive model is created. I will try explaining it using simplest available statistical tool like Trend analysis , Univariate Analysis and slightly complex tool called Binomial Logistic Regression . Lets assume company want to know how much attrition will happen in current quarter, so that it can start hiring process. First step of model is find out what are the factors that can lead to attrition of an employee. To find these factors we simple take past data and holistic list of factors. Age, Income, Martial Status, Education Background, Work Rating, Number of leaves, Number of days came later than usual timing, Number of year in company, Business Unit, Business vertical, Past Work experience Indicative list of factors for Company Attrition Model On each list...
Post a Comment
Read more