Process Mapping and Management

As the economy moves toward a services orientation, companies are
struggling with how to improve their offerings. Process management is
a key component of the services that companies provide. This book has
three main parts: mapping, improvement, and error-proofing and metrics.
In the first part—mapping—the reader will learn how to map a process
so that the map is immediately understandable for identifying the
roles, work steps, and automation support used in process delivery. The
second part—improvement—provides a series of techniques for defining,
prioritizing, and analyzing problems from several perspectives. The first
perspective is called “leaning,” and its purpose is to remove waste from an
existing process. The second perspective is “cleaning,” during which the
remaining steps following leaning are analyzed for possible improvement.
The third perspective is “greening,” which explores opportunities and
trade-offs for outsourcing, coproduction, and environmental improvements
related to the process. The final third of the book—error-proofing
and metrics—presents several techniques for ensuring risk mitigation for
the new process and for measuring changes that define their impacts, and
illustrates a method for proposing changes to executives in a “case for
change.” Overall, the book provides a blueprint of how to develop a discipline
for process management that applies to any type of work.