Process Performance
Improving Process Performance with Business Process Redesign Patterns
Organizational success is highly dependent on effective business processes that help achieve specific goals. Process performance plays a crucial role in ensuring the efficiency and effectiveness of these processes. In this article, we will discuss the various dimensions of process performance, including time, cost, quality, flexibility, sustainability, and customer-centricity. We will also explore the challenges of balancing these dimensions and suggest visualization techniques for better understanding the trade-offs involved in the process improvement efforts.
Dimensions of Process Performance
Time
The time dimension is often measured by the cycle time, which represents the time between the start and end of a process instance. It includes processing times and waiting times between activities. Effective process improvement should aim to reduce cycle time for increased efficiency.
Cost
Minimizing cost is a common goal in process improvement. Operational process costs can be calculated by measuring the time required to execute a task and multiplying it by the cost per time unit of the respective resource. Increasing resource utilization can help further decrease process costs.
Quality
Process quality can be assessed by calculating the rate of successfully executed process instances. Improving quality ensures that the organization consistently delivers value to its customers and stakeholders.
Flexibility
Process flexibility refers to the capability to react to changes in process execution, such as missing resources or shifting priorities. A flexible process can quickly adapt to new requirements, enhancing overall performance.
Sustainability
Sustainability emphasizes the long-term impact of business processes on the environment, society, and the organization itself. Incorporating sustainability into process improvement initiatives ensures that processes are environmentally friendly and socially responsible.
Customer-centricity
Customer-centric processes focus on delivering maximum value to customers by understanding their needs and preferences. Prioritizing customer-centricity in process improvement leads to higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Balancing Process Performance Dimensions
Process performance improvement is a multi-criteria decision problem. Enhancing one dimension may negatively impact another, creating a delicate balancing act. The devil's quadrangle illustrates this behavior for time, cost, quality, and flexibility. When embarking on process improvement initiatives, it's essential to set upfront performance objectives and consider the counterbalancing effects of redesign options.In conclusion, achieving optimal process performance requires careful consideration of various dimensions, including time, cost, quality, flexibility, sustainability, and customer-centricity. By understanding the trade-offs between these dimensions and using visualization techniques, organizations can make informed decisions about process improvements using business process redesign patterns.
Category: BPM
Tags: performance methods
About the authors
Tobias is doctoral student and has created process-pattern.app as a side project. His research is on data-driven process improvement.
Find Tobias on @dtdi tobiasfehrer