Workflow Sample: Episode 518: What is Automation of Business Process? (Part 1)

What is a "Business Process" in the first place?

A Business Process is a sequence of "several Steps".

For example, in the Orders reporting Process that occurs daily on many companies, it is formed with Steps such as;

[1] Sales department employee: register the contents of the order
[2] Sales leader: Confirm the order details
[3] Sales department manager: approve the order details

Automation, two aspects

And today, "automation of Business Process" which became popular as a topic under the keyword "productivity improvement" is discussed in either or both of the meaning of;

[A] Automation of handing over of Issue information between Processes
[B] Automation of processing in certain Step

What is "A: Automation of handing over"?

The antonym of "automatic" is "manual" or "labored", and after all, it can be said that "something that is not a human being" will be responsible for handing over. Today, "Automation with computers and the Internet" is the basic.

It can be said that these functions are necessary condition. In such an environment of automation, It will be transmitted automatically, i.e.;

If the output of the Step of [1] is input, it will go to the Step of [2]
If the output of the Step of [2] is input, it will go to the Step of [3]

As a matter of course, it is necessary to set Business flow in advance. And also, in reality, it is prerequisite that individual Issue information is managed in "digital data" (paperless).

"Handover" by Workflow

And today there are many products that correspond to splitting and looping of flow.

For example, the following Business Process definition (setting of Business flow) expresses

[1] Sales department staff: register the contents of the order
[1x] Sales department staff: Re-register the contents of the order (Reworking on rejected issue)
[2] Sales leader: Confirm the order details
[3] Sales department manager: approve the order details
[4] Sales department manager: Report on the content of Issue over 1 million yen to supervisory directors

(According to International Standard Notation BPMN: Business Process Model and Notation)

[Order Reporting flow]

What is "B: Automation of processing"?

Next, let's look at the "Step" of [4. Officer report] in this example.

As you can see from the flow chart, the manager of the sales department inputs "approval" at [3. Approval], and then for the case of an Issue exceeding 1 million JPY, processing of "report the contents of the case to all officers" is required. In other words, according to this business process definition, it is necessary to report at meeting or individual face-to-face or report by email.

However, if you replace this Step with a "mechanical notification email", the load on the Sales department manager will greatly decrease.

"Automatic processing" by Workflow

Replacing "human Step" such as "Reporting" like this with "auto-Step" is equivalent to "B: Automation of processing" which is the second aspect of automation.

It is sometimes referred to "labor saving" from the viewpoint of the entire Business Process, and to"unmanned" at the viewpoint of Steps. (Also in BPMN, it is referred to "Service Step".)

The following Business Process definition (setting of Business flow) expresses

[1] Sales department staff: register the contents of the order
[1x] Sales department staff: Re-register the contents of the order (Reworking on rejected issue)
[2] Sales leader: Confirm the order details
[3] Sales department manager: approve the order details
[4] Sales department manager: Report on the content of Issue over 1 million yen to supervisory directors by email

(According to International Standard Notation BPMN: Business Process Model and Notation)

[Order Reporting flow-email]

Difference between "Auto-step" and "Event"

By the way, in actual workflow systems, "small incident" like "email notification" is sometimes referred to as "Event".

However, there is no need to discuss much about the difference between "auto-step" (Service Step) and "Event"

[4] (Sales Manager): Report on the content of Issue over 1 million yen to supervisory directors by email
[4] (Event): The content of Issue over 1 million yen is notified to supervisory directors by email

These are the same phenomenon.

In the case of the cloud-based Workflow [Questetra BPM Suite], "Email notification" is prepared as a standard icon of "Event", but it is not prepared as a standard icon of "Service Step". (In the example in the above figure, we use the additional function of "Service Step".)

[1] Sales department staff: register the contents of the order
[1x] Sales department staff: Re-register the contents of the order (Reworking on rejected issue)
[2] Sales leader: Confirm the order details
[3] Sales department manager: approve the order details
[4] (Event): The content of Issue over 1 million yen is notified to supervisory directors by email

[Order Reporting flow-email notification]