Building process landscapes with an optimal approach

Dhe processes of an organization can be graphically represented in process landscapes at different levels of detail and placed in a large context. The process landscape is thus a representation of the "construction" of the company as a whole. It visualizes how the processes build on each other and influence each other.

There are different approaches to building process landscapes. The task here is to find the right solution for the respective organization. The organization-centered and process-oriented approaches are often at odds with each other.

Organization-centered or rather process-oriented?
The organization-centered approach is characterized by thinking in terms of functions. When describing processes, the structure of the organization determines the process: sequences of activities are directly assigned to the corresponding organizational units, e.g. the individual departments of a company. The advantage of this is that employees often think in terms of these structures and their department. However, this also results in the direct disadvantage of this approach: The activity sequences, work paths and work methods are often only known to a few employees within the corresponding department. This means that optimizations only take place within the limited area of the "department". The communication channels are long and inefficient and improvements are difficult to achieve. It is also difficult to clearly define the interfaces between the organizational units. For this reason, this approach is now often considered inefficient and outdated. In modern quality management, the process-oriented approach has now become established - i.e. a model of activities and processes that is interdepartmental (Fig. 1).

Processes in focus - customer-oriented approach
This approach thus brings the processes into focus. This means that the representation of sequences of activities takes into account the fact that various organizational units can be involved in them and make their resources available for this purpose. This has shifted the approach: thinking in processes means that the central process chain begins with the customer and his requirements for products or services and ultimately ends there again - namely with his satisfaction with the products or services.

Process survey - common problems and their causes
If you proceed systematically during the process survey and know the following classic problems as well as their causes, you can avoid them in advance:

1. Large number of very detailed processes: Often, the process representation turns out to be an endless undertaking with a multitude of very detailed processes and extensive multi-page workflow representations. The reason for this often lies in a methodological error: The process survey was carried out "bottom-up". This means that the description was analyzed from the lowest level, i.e. starting with the individual activities of the sub-processes. Efficiency and transparency suffer as a result, and overlaps between the surveyed processes occur across a wide range, for example.
2. Multiple mapping of processes or process parts: This can occur if a process survey is conducted without a clearly defined, centrally agreed process structure (process landscape; process tree). Multiple mapping occurs, for example, when two employees survey the same process, but do so at different levels of abstraction.
3. Interaction of processes not taken into account: This can happen quickly if responsibilities for interacting processes have been assigned to different employees, but these employees do not make an interface agreement before modeling their processes. Therefore, the start and end events as well as the state and storage location of (partial) products, information and required resources are not taken into account.
4. Processes that are alien to practice and have no relation to operational reality: This is often the case when the executing employees are not involved in the process survey and the creation of the process descriptions. Employees who carry out a specific process on a daily basis are the experts and internal know-how carriers and must be consulted for the creation of the process description.
5. Process owners not identifiable or overlapping competencies: In large organizations whose organizational structure and process organization are not aligned with each other (this is the task of top management), the problem can arise that those responsible cannot be clearly defined. This leads, for example, to an overlap of competencies between department heads and process owners, which can result in conflicts and acceptance problems. The stumbling blocks described make it difficult to establish a structured and transparent process landscape for efficient quality management. These problems can be avoided with a methodical process survey. If the process survey is carried out according to the established top-down approach, for example, synergy effects can be used and efficiency and customer orientation can be optimized more easily.

Proven: The top-down approach
The top-down approach is derived from the corporate vision and the strategic goals of the company, i.e. first the strategic goals of the company and how these are to be achieved are recorded. Subsequently, it is defined which business processes are necessary for this and how these must be designed. There are different approaches here. An established and widespread approach is to divide the processes to be described into three process types:

• Core Processes: These are the focus of this model. This includes the value-adding processes, i.e. all services provided to external customers, including order acceptance, production preparation, production, product logistics etc.
• Supporting processes: These include the internal provision of resources required to execute the core processes. These include, for example, areas such as fleet management, payroll accounting or information technology.
• Management Processes: All processes that contribute to achieving continuous improvement. This includes the definition, implementation and monitoring of strategic and operational objectives, e.g. areas such as action, process or audit management and management review.

Alternatively, another approach has been practiced recently: Instead of differentiating between core, management and support processes, the core processes of the company can also be modeled from the perspective of the various stakeholders, e.g. core processes of shareholders, core processes of customers, suppliers, etc. This approach has the advantage that the processes are mapped from the respective perspective of the various interested parties, including customers and thus also target groups.

For many companies and organizations, the top-down approach has proven successful in surveying the process landscape as follows (Fig. 2):

The higher-level processes are collected: Core, management and support processes are identified and recorded at the level of the process landscape. Finally, the process owners are named and assigned to the processes. This area is the responsibility of the top management of an organization.

The next step is the Survey of sub-processes: The interfaces between the higher-level core processes are agreed and the subprocesses are determined and described. The sequence of the sub-processes is defined in the process overview and the sub-process owners are also named and assigned here. This task is assigned to the process owners of the superordinate processes. Ideally, all employees involved contribute to the documentation so that it reflects a realistic image of the actual processes.

From here we go further into the details: In order to Model subprocessesIn the process, the input and output interfaces are identified and recorded, the purpose and goals of the process are defined, and the subprocesses are modeled at the detailed level. This includes, among other things, determining and recording the required documents, tools and resources. This area should be worked on by the sub-process owners, with input from those involved in the execution. The strength of the top-down approach lies in the fact that optimization potential is immediately apparent when the actual processes are surveyed. It therefore offers the opportunity to review processes with a critical eye, to evaluate them and to sort out many things. This approach also makes sense because the core processes are easy for employees to understand and supporting processes are also easier to grasp.

Management processes in quality management
The processes referred to as "management processes" in this model are of central importance for quality management. These include all processes that are carried out to manage the company. Their purpose is to drive the development and continuous improvement of the company within the framework of the company's mission statement in order to achieve the strategic goals set. Management processes include the de

Ideally, all employees involved contribute to the documentation.

finition of concrete corporate goals. Thus, the management process as a whole represents the continuous improvement process of an organization, which is required, for example, within the framework of certification according to DIN EN ISO 9001. When setting up process landscapes, modern QM software also takes into account procedures for corrective and preventive measures as a component of all management processes. An example of the structure of a management process landscape taking all these aspects into account is shown in Fig. 4.

Integrated management systems - more efficiency
Finally, many different management systems must be taken into account when setting up process landscapes. In addition to quality management, these can include areas such as environmental management, energy management, and many more. According to the modern approach, a management system is ideally used here that maps various management systems in one and the same process landscape. If new certifications are added to an organization, these are defined as new target categories in this process landscape. Overall, this leads to higher efficiency, among other things through clear responsibilities and interfaces, common documentation and common internal audits.