Business Process Improvement is considered to be a process of companies’ decision optimization to achieve better results. As far as BPI primary tasks are defining the company’s principal aims, determining the company’s customers, and realizing the company’s goals, the original process map for the pizza-making process will be the following:
Thus, Graham (2006, p.1) states, ’The value of a process map is determined by how well it helps the reader understand the process.’
So, the flowcharting method I used reminds us of the method of IBM which appeared in the early sixties. The methodology allows us to understand the constituents of the process. However, one is to take into account that a line flow is considered to be rather simple. The item’s interdependence is expressed by horizontal and vertical lines. According to Graham (2004, p.1), ‘The point of process flowcharting is to provide a visual representation of the process including each item in the process.’ So, you see that the details are not ignored in the scheme.
The first vertical line includes/shows us a manufacturing/production process (customer’s call, order creating, pizza preparing, delivery schedule, the process of delivery, and final aim achieving). The second vertical line shows us process management.
Graham (2006, p.1) thinks that:
Three essentials must be handled well to assure good process mapping. 1) The operating people whose work is being mapped must supply information for the map and must understand and support the reasons for the mapping. 2) The map itself must be organized in a way that enables everyone involved to clearly understand the process. 3) The information that is assembled on the map must be valid.
In my opinion, the above-mentioned tasks were performed well (look at the first scheme).
According to BPI studies, the pizza-making process improvement is possible due to labor costs reduction:
Thus, our scheme num.2 shows us that combining the points order creating and delivery scheduling, BPI allows us to improve the pizza-making process. You can see the process itself, as ‘the Transportation Symbol represents movement from one work area to another’ (Graham 2010, p.1). The profits are considered to be the following:
- the decline of order processing;
- labor costs reducing (the company needs/requires fewer workers to perform the order);
- dilution of skilled jobs (there is no need to control the workers who process the order);
- profits increasing due to an opportunity to process more orders using the same labor costs.
So, one may point out that the principal aim of BPI is the company’s performance changing. It is said that changes or improvements appeared to influence productivity. Thus, Graham (1996, p.1) thinks that ‘changes are achieving only a small portion of their potential and some are actually resulting in less effective processes. ‘
The report is considered to be completed, as according to Chris Boyle (2006, p.1), ‘Detailed process maps have been drawn. Analysis has been completed by the best possible resources available – the people who do the work.’
References
Boyle, C., 2006. Project Authority, The Ben Graham Corporation. Web.
Graham, B., 1996. Process Improvement, The Ben Graham Corporation. Web.
Graham, B., 2004. Understanding Business Processes, The Ben Graham Corporation. Web.
Graham, B., 2006. The Key To Good Process Mapping, The Ben Graham Corporation. Web.
Graham, B., 2006. Cupturing Reality in a Process Map, The Ben Graham Corporation. Web.
Graham, B., 2010. Business Process Mapping Symbols, The Ben Graham Corporation. Web.