Good Morning All

I have just been given the task of process mapping the business I work for, we are a 35 employee manufacturing company, I have decided to follow the steps of ERP selection as this route gives the outcome we are looking for (although ERP may not be selected at the end of the process.

At present I am looking to put together the 'as is' maps to attempt to highlight failings etc.

I have visio premium as a software to use (but could look into others if more suitable).

whilst looking into process mapping techniques etc, I found the following site which shows the level of detail I am looking to achieve.

http://www.smartdraw.com/enterprise/vpm/collections/hr/master_process/

What I am am wondering is:

In visio, can you do the same as the above?

One of the key outcomes for me is to identify the process failings between processes i.e. if x does not work it gets passed to x to fix and then passed to x etc etc and then comes back to complete the initial process.

I have looked at the BPNM processing but this also seems linear orientated rather than show the system fully.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Richard,

Problem with Visio is that it is only a drawing tool. One step up from paper and pen. Try a modelling tool. I use Enterprise Architect from sparxsystems.com. There are others and everyone has their favourites.

In your place I'd use BPMN. I'm confident it will map your processes. Starting from a high level key process / context diagram you can work down and define your company's processes to the level you wish. In my experience many processes cross business unit / department boundaries and its important not to work in silos. So, your org chart may not easily map to the processes but it probably will in a lot of cases. Another problem with using your org chart to define your actors is that you can easily lose site of the actual role being undertaken. 

Not sure that answered your questions and I've probably made assumptions that aren't true? Post more questions, I'm sure others will jump in with opinions / answers.

Kimbo

Hi:

BPMN is sequence-based.    Per data flow diagram theory, business systems, especially at higher levels of abstraction (i.e, bigger picture level) tend to be non-sequential.  Simple example:  A Context Diagram - which is a Data Flow Diagram with the entire system shown as a single process - is non-sequential.  DFD theory - and my experience - says that one can not diagram a non-sequential system with a sequenced-based technique.

If you are having problems sequentially diagraming process flows, I suggest using DFD's for the higher levels of abstraction and then switch over to sequence based techniques for detail levels.

Don't have time to go to other web pages. Suggestion:  Formulate questions that you have from that other web site and ask them here.

Tony