richardegginton wrote
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.
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Visio is fine for modeling. None of the modeling tools are great at tracing. In addition, they limit who can actually edit the source docs. The nice thing about visio/excel/word is that they are common tools that can still get the job done.
For software selection processes, you are definitely on the right track. RML (Requirements modeling language) defines four categories of models, objectives, people systems and data
http://www.seilevel.com/wp-content/uploads/RML-Language-for-Modeling-Software-Requirements1.pdf
The models and how to use them are in this book
http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Software-Requirements-Practices-Microsoft/dp/0735667721/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345132568&sr=8-1&keywords=visual+models
For objectives models, a legacy conversion project usually uses a KPI model which is basically a series of process flows with the key performance indicators overlaid. The reason for this is that the new software will never work exactly how the users want it to, however it doesnt matter as long as they can accomplish their processing throughput at the right level of quality. The key is to define those parameters. The value of each process flow can be estimated and then the processes flows that are more important for the selection process can be prioritized accordingly.
For people models, an org chart which diagrams the functional groups, not necessarily the actual reporting hierarchy, ensures that you talk to the teams. In addition you can map owners to parts of the process to make sure you have full organizational coverage.
For system models, an ecosystem map and data flows will help you to ensure that you understand how the new system will structurally fit into the existing ecosystem. Data flow models provide a different cross section to the information provided by process flows.
For data models a business data diagram shows how the business thinks about the relationships between data today. If the new system cannot map properly to the way the businesses thinks about data, that can have huge architectural implications. For example, if the business thinks about customers as companys, with multiple contacts and multiple addresses, software that doesnt support this model fundamentally wont work with the business.