It's for sure, the investment effect by improvement is large on a "Business Process that is not closed to an enterprise". For example, if the corporate structure became to be able to respond faster and less mistakes, business performance will be enhanced naturally.
However...
- Leaving the processing record of all.
- Automatically Split the flow according to the attributes of the Issue.
- Invoice PDF to be generated automatically, rather than manually.
- The current progress of all Issues to be able to be monitored at any time.
You should not try to define a "Perfect Business Process" from the beginning. The key of business process management activities (BPM activities) is "to start smaller". For example, it would be good to start with partial Steps, instead of entire Steps. For another example, it would also be good to start with ignoring exceptional Issues, instead of all the issues.
The following process diagram is of an "Orders-Delivery-Billing flow" for a Web site design company. Although it seems to be long and large at the first look, but after you looking it for a minute, you will find it "a simple Business Process than you thought". After all, one invoice will be issued on one order registration. In other words, it is not assumed such a case that billing (delivery) is divided into two stages.
Now...suppose the Issues of "double staged delivery" became so frequent that you cannot ignore. What kind of Process improvement can be considered?
[Order-Delivery-Billing flow]
[Order-Delivery-Billing flow;'4a. Bill Data Editing' screen]
[Data Items list]
Various Business Processes are conceivable as capable of handling "One Order-two Deliveries". For example,
Arranging a [Split point] and create Step of "4a. Bill Data Editing" for second invoice issuance,
will be one of the general solutions. By doing so, the "Business rule" for the "determination to separate the billing" to be done by whom and in what case, will be clarified. But in many cases, process diagram will lose legibility. Also, it will not be able to cope with the case of issuing the third and fourth invoice.
Here is a rather unusual idea among Business Processes that "capable to correspond one order, two deliveries".
[Order-Delivery-Billing flow (Start Points Added)]
Although the changed portion is too small to find, [Start points] have added at the Step of "4a. Bill Data Editing" and "3. Order Confirmation".
By the improvement of only this much, you can flow "an Issue that you have copied the business data such as Order Information", newly from the Step in the middle. It makes re-issuance of invoice easier.
If "the determination of separating the invoice" is not a major theme, if the occurrence of "One Order, two deliveries" is not so often, you should focus on a Process diagram to be easy to understand. Business process improvement activities are not the matter that always ends up in a day. You should avoid the risk that lead to stagnation of Process improvement activities, no matter what it takes.
By the way, such idea is often obtained in the conversation with a "Business Process Consultant of outside". It's as a matter of course that Process improvement does not proceed without people who are familiar to the " business of the company, but probably you should try to consider activities that get a hint from those who have knowledge at the level of "how to proceed with improvement cycle", occasionally.
P.S. We have many stories of BPM implementation that are in the theme of the Business process of "Order-Billing". If you were interested, I would like you to see the following articles as well.
[Free Download]
- Business Template: Order-Delivery-Billing flow
- Choices XML sample (Top 20 company in Japan)
- Update Order Management Process of Annual Service Agreement (2014-06-23)
- Trick for Eliminating Fluctuation from Client's Name (2014-06-02)
- How to Handle Fax Orders Only on Cloud (2013-02-04)