Business Process Mapping - Productivity Improvement

Business Process Mapping BPM

Business Process Mapping (or BPM) details the steps a business takes to complete a process;

a process could include;

• setting up a new client on a CRM system,
• manufacturing a product,
• hiring an employee,
• shipping a product.

A Business Process Map shows the “what”, “when” (the sequence),“where”, and “how” for these steps in the process, and help to understand and to begin to analyse the “why.”

Levantar Business Process Mapping

Levantar provide Business Process Mapping solutions to help with improvement programmes from consulting to training.

We do this for a range of organisations and departments from Law Firms, to Manufacturing, Engineering to Accounting teams, through to Energy companies.

We also share our knowledge with students at Leeds University Business School and those on the Goldman Sachs 10KSB programme.

Want to find out more? Fill in the form below to contact Mark Greenhouse about how we can help.

He'll get back to you in the next 24 hours.

Problem With Business Process Mapping

There is one small problem with processes in businesses;

Processes change, people change them - often to try and make them better but often with unintended consequences. 

As a business owner or department head you may have put processes in place, these will have been changed, altered, or even misunderstood by those who have followed you. 

Each person has a different view and these differences mean that work now

1. Is completed in a different, longer, sequence to the one you designed,
2. Takes differing times, depending on who does it (due to their knowledge of the process) 
3. Is produced to different quality standards depending who completes the process. 

What does that mean for your customers? if they can't be certain of the quality of the service they'll receive.

What does it mean for planning work? if you can't be certain how long it will take to complete.

It's usual to find that staff can't agree where a process actually begins and ends. It's also usual to find that staff don't agree on the names for the major steps in the process.

Think about Staff Recruitment; does it start with the advert? or the agreement to recruit the member of staff?

Providing Productivity Improvement Workshops to Leeds University and Goldman Sachs

Why are Business Process Maps Important?

The building of Business Process Maps means that you draw out from staff their  different interpretations of the process. 

As a first step this will make communication about the process easier.

Once you've got an agreed way - the correct steps in the correct order then you can at least ensure everyone knows what needs to be done, when; that's progress

The next step is to look at how you can improve the steps;

• remove the duplicated steps,
• fix the steps that are broken, poor quality
• identify which steps are bottlenecks
• the steps that no longer add value.

In our experience the best way to improve is to turn your Business Process Map into a Value Stream Map.

If you'd like to explore the problems that many organisations have with Processes - feel free to request our Guide to Frustrations - STOP Throwing Time and Effort Away!

These are the things we have discovered,  during our years helping others, that stop processes from working, as we'd like. The things that frustrate you, your colleagues, your customers.

BENEFITS OF LEAN

LEVANTAR     (verb) - to lift, to raise up

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