Workflow Sample

'Renewal of Maintenance Service Contract' demands more sales force than you think.

You know what, my firm provides 'Maintenance Service for Communication Equipment', but they haven't adopted "Auto-renewal" for the contracts. So, each time, I have to request my customers to make their "Renewal Procedure" and the "Payment". I guess a salesman for insurance would feel the same way; it is tough...

Well, as the business manual, first I send an email asking 'Please renew the contract'. (Of course, the sales personnel must make phone call or visit the customer, afterward.)

60 days before Expiration : 'Acknowledgement of Renewal'
30 days before Expiration : 'Reminder for Service Expiration'
7 days before Expiration : 'Notice of Service Expiration'
7 days after Expiration : 'Appreciation for your long term usage of our service'

In those emails of four in total, the mail body and sent date,etc. are already set by the Workflow system. Therefore, all I have to do is only to transmit them without any modifying, normally. However, it is quite difficult not to forget to do, somehow.

So, I imagine if they could be sent automatically when they have been left till 'transmission day'. (I don't care it might cross.)

[Sales Activity for Contract Renewal]

Billing job? It's simple. Just to print out 'invoice PDF' and put it into window envelope. (Though, it's the words by accounting stuff.)

Data for the billing, such as 'Contents of Delivery' or 'Billing Address' has been set in the data items of "Order-Delivery process" already... The 'Invoice PDF' has been generated automatically on the Workflow... So, inputting errors by the Accounting personnel will never happen. Yeah, things have become convenient nowadays. I'm not good at typing, so I'm so happy that I don't have to. (Of course, I always check on Billing amount and the date, etc., if they are properly or not.)

However...

Actually, there are some Steps that some sort of skills are required among such billing jobs... The Reporting of when Non-payment occurs is that. That is, 'How to report to in-house smoothly, when the payment from the customer could not be confirmed on the deadline day'. It may sounds trashy, but it is difficult to be done properly.
For instance, suppose if I sent an email to a in-house Sales person in one afternoon, in insipid single line sentence such as 'I don't' confirm the payment from ***, Co..', it will make some kind of bad atmosphere. Whereas, if my report delayed, the supervisor will blame it on me... (Either way, there will be no praise for me.)

Hmm, is there a way to improve the Business Process, like automatically (1) Fixed form email will be sent to whom concerned, and (2) Demanding Task will be assigned to the salesperson?

[Billing-Payment Confirmation flow 1]

In the morning, a Task in the title of "Daily Report, Nov. 4th" is added in your 'My Tasks'.

Not bad...

If it were not for this function, you would have forgotten to submit 'Daily Report' on the half of the weekdays. (I'm sure about it.) Incidentally, 'Submit by the time you leave' is its rule. Submit it on the next day, even if you forgot. Even worse, in the morning after the next, at least.

However...

Although all the members are flowing a 'Daily' on this Workflow in their own way,,, I'm aware of something wrong in this function of [Automated Start].

That is, the mechanism is that the Task is automatically added to 'my Tasks' of all in every morning of Monday to Friday, whereas it will be piled up in vain when you took a few days off.
For example;

Bereavement leave, major holidays, Christmas holidays, etc..
Childcare leave, maternity leave, nursing leave, etc..
(There might be irregular shift workers...)

Well, on the Reports for few days, you would have worked hard, one by one. But for amount of 30 day, 60 days, or even for one year, it is definitely impossible.

[Daily Report flow 1]

There is a term of "Business Process Improvement".

A person who speak of it in abbreviation BPI, may be a severe 'Improvement-maniac'. Nevertheless, to keep on delusioning a vision of a 'Business Process' To-Be on the daily basis, is wonderful. After all, After all, Day-to-day operations of all would be a subject that should be improved along with the progress of science and technology. A "Business Process Management System" is merely a tool to help for conceiving the improvement idea. No improvement, no growth!

Well... I have covered the Business Processes that employees to submit their 'Improvement proposals', so far. Those are in the following two articles which explains effective frameworks for an Organization to accumulate improvement ideas.

The Sample before the last: Framework in which employees themselves can enter their improvement proposals voluntarily at anytime
The last: Framework for letting the workers to submit improvement proposals forcibly

However, ideas always come up suddenly. Particularly, a good idea that I hit upon, it comes up always on unfavorable occasion... In my bed, in shower, or even in the bathroom... Then, the next moment, it starts to evaporate into the air.

On such a scene, you'd better type it down on the email apps in your Smartphone.

In the following Business Process definition sample, I have added a trick that on receiving an email of 'scribble of an idea', it will be saved as a draft in [My Tasks] of the sender. That is, you will brush up your 'scribbled idea' into a formal 'Improvement proposal' to submit, when next time you are at your desk.

[Improvement Proposal flow (Designation / Email start)]

The purpose of Business Process Management (BPM) is 'Continuous Business Improvement'.

Indeed, if you create a "Business Process Definition" once, business data will be passed efficiently, and be accumulated with less noises, under the name of Business Standardization. That makes you feel like as if your business has been improved magnificently. However, on the other hand, suppose if you continue using it as it is. The way of proceeding your business will become stale soon, and it will no longer be able to keep up with changes in the market environment.

It is needless to say, but it is desirable that improvement proposal of "Business process Definition" will keep on springing naturally from inside the company, in order to achieve continuous improvement. That is, by their free will, employees should continuously submit improvement proposal, such as;

What if changing [the Business flow] to ******?
How about changing [the notes on Operating screen] as ******?

In the last article of "Business Process for Business Process Improvement!?", I have considered about an environment in which all the employees can propose at anytime.

Whereas, it is still difficult to continue pointing out the improvement challenges realistically. So today, we are going to discuss about a mechanism which you can let workers submit improvement proposals forcibly, by expanding the previous sample.

[Improvement Proposal flow (Designation)]

Want to improve Business Process. Everyone thinks so.

Want tochange the 'flow'.
Want tochange the 'data items'
Want to change the "team formation"

Having said so, there are not many supervisors who understand (a) What is 'to be improved'? Suppose some of them have acknowledged several challenges, there are quite less supervisors who understand (b) which improvement is on high priority now. Furthermore, suppose some of them knew the priority, supervisors who know (c) how to improve the, are very rare...

Even if there is a platform (BPM System) to improve the Business Processes, it is human that actually makes changes in the rules.

Unfortunately, it is a long way to go to the days when a computer would give proposals for improvement to humans, understanding the company policy, personality of the members, and the situation of society, etc... All we can do is to start to recognize the points which should be improved.

a. Recognition of what to improve.
b. Consideration over the priority.
c. Formulation of improvement policy (consensus)

The following Workflow is a Business process which the workers at their work site propose 'what to be improved' to help their supervisor to 'a. Recognize what to improve'. Even if all the employees make their proposal once a week, quite a lot of 'things to be improved' will be accumulated.

Incidentally, this is, "Easier said than done".

It might be taken to devise such as:

All the proposals will be rewarded with $ 5.
Monthly commendation of MVP (Most Valuable Proposal)

[Improvement Proposal flow]

Continuing to the last article, let's study about a business of 'In-house questionnaire'. The last time, we have considered about a general Workflow that is capable of giving 'arbitrary questionnaire' to 8 people at most. There were two points:

Prepared Swimlanes for 8 people and
Designed that the answer data from 8 to be stored.

It is good that it makes possible to do various surveys.

However, it is not realistic that giving a questionnaire to 50, 100 people in this method. Of course, you can expand the Workflow to:

A. Preparing 100 Swimlanes and
B. Defining answer data from 100 people to be stored

It seems nonsense in several meanings. Among them, what is problematic in particular is that it is 'very inconvenient format' for data aggregation. From the aspect of aggregation, it should be recorded in the unit of 'Answers', instead of 'Questionnaire'.

The following Business Process example is a definition of two separate Business process of 'Preparation of Questionnaire' and 'Answers to Questionnaire', so that to be the solution to the 'Problem of diverging data items'. Each of them will become a format of easy-to-be-aggregated, by connecting Business processes which are different in its 'repeating unit' such as n answers against one given questionnaire.

[Questionnaire Preparation flow]