Measurement and management are not separable (Lebas, 1995). By focusing measurement on processes rather than functions, alignment and common focus across separate organizational units can be achieved (Hammer, 2007). Implementing measures and taking corrective actions are operating precepts of process management (Melan, 1989), since a business process can only be mastered if it can be …
A business process needs to have a process owner who has end to end responsibility for the process (Osterloh and Frost, 2006; Suter, 2009). The existence of process owners is the most visible difference between a process enterprise and a traditional organization. Moreover, process ownership needs to be a permanent role (Hammer and Stanton, 1999). …
Continue reading ‘The Characteristics of Process Orientation. Part 3: The Process Owner Role’ »
In a process-oriented organization, management needs to support the process program. Without the support of senior executives, the process idea cannot unfold to its full potential. There is a high risk for process management to fail if senior executives do not undertake necessary leadership roles and do not promote process-oriented thinking (Hinterhuber, 1995). Process oriented …
Continue reading ‘The Characteristics of Process Orientation. Part 2: Management Commitment’ »
Business processes present a difficult challenge in identification and analysis since they are often unknown quantities, have no names, and are not visualized in organizational charts (Kiraka and Manning, 2005). A prerequisite for managing an organization based on its processes is to know which business processes are performed within the organization and how they are …
The Business Process Management Conference 2009 (http://www.bpm2009.org) took place at Ulm University in Germany from 7-10 September 2009. Next year’s conference will be held at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, from 14-16 September 2010. See all details at http://www.bpm2010.org.
This article is a brief summary of the paper “Process Orientation of Manufacturing Companies” by Kohlbacher M., published in Proceedings of the GBDI Tenth International Conference, Las Vegas, October 2008. In this paper a model for measuring a firm’s degree of process orientation is introduced. The model measures process orientation by means of ten dimensions …
According to (Hammer, 2007; Harmon, 2007; Hinterhuber, 1995; Melan, 1989; Reijers, 2006), an organization which has adopted the process-view exhibits the following characteristics: First, a prerequisite for managing an organization based on its processes is to know which business processes are performed within the organization and how they are related to each other. Hence, a …
Continue reading ‘Main Characteristics of a Process-Oriented Organization’ »
This article is a brief summary of the paper “An ERP-Based Process Performance Measurement Approach in an Outpatient Clinic” by Kohlbacher M., Gautsch A., Zenz H. and Leodolter W., published in Academy of Health Care Management Journal, Vol.4, No.2, 2008. Process orientation does not only work for process industry, but can be applied to service …
Continue reading ‘Process Performance Measurement in Outpatient Clinics’ »
A typical example of processing an order in a traditional functional-oriented firm can be seen in the figure below. As one can easily see, the natural sequence of the business process “order processing” is not reflected in the given structure. In a functional-oriented organization, the management board develops a strategy and each functional unit should …
Continue reading ‘The Traditional Functional Structure of Firms’ »
This website favors the following definitions of business process management (or simply “process management”) and its delimitation to business process reengineering: Business process management (BPM) cannot be considered as a single BPR project but it deals with how to manage processes on an ongoing basis (Armistead and Machin, 1997). BPR often addresses the reengineering of …