Process Management

2010·18.3 MB·English

by  Maria Pomffyova

Process Management

Process Management
Edited by
Mária Pomffyová
Intech
IV

Published by Intech

Intech
Olajnica 19/2, 32000 Vukovar, Croatia

Abstracting and non-profit use of the material is permitted with credit to the source. Statements and
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© 2010 Intech
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First published April 2010
Printed in India

Technical Editor: Teodora Smiljanic
Cover designed by Dino Smrekar

Process Management, Edited by Mária Pomffyová
p. cm.
ISBN 978-953-307-085-8
Preface

Process management is presented as knowledge, skills, tools, techniques and systems to
define, visualize, measure, control, report and improve processes with the goal to meet
people requirements profitably. We can it apply first and foremost by doing business as well
as by management processes in many separate areas of our life. To be successful in this
process it is needed continually provide the effectiveness of the results of all processes and
their constant optimization. It is necessary to monitor the business performance of all
pertinent business processes all the time, detect and report weaknesses and problem
situations, ideally even suggest optimization option and evaluate the success of
improvement measures. Substantive recommendations for actions, including their chances
of success, are needed so that the better decisions can be made more quickly. This book
reports about the process management research and development findings and results in
many various areas.
The content of the book has been structured into four technical research sections with
total of 18 chapters written by well recognized researchers worldwide. These sections are:
1. process and performance management and their measurement methods,
2. management of manufacturing processes with the aim to be quickly adaptable after real
situation demands and their control,
3. quality management information and communication systems, their integration and
risk management,
4. management processes of healthcare and water, construction and demolition waste
problems and integration of environmental processes into management decisions.
The first section is aimed at the historical development of a management process as an
integral part of process and organizational management. It helps describe foremost
responsibility for all managers, helps drive organizational missions, policies, and objectives.
In addition, a management process strengthens organizational capability to overcome
current competition and to better prepare for future endeavours in the globalization era as
well as in the time of the crisis. The discussion later concentrates on introducing tools,
techniques, and practices relating a management process, which is sometimes referred to as
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performance management. In general, performance management consists of three
components as a performance measurement, analysis, and improvement where data from
an enterprises information system has a fundamental significance. In the past, personal
experiences may overshadow the importance of performance information when making
decisions or taking actions. In addition, performance measurement has gradually evolved
from merely generating accounting-related to more comprehensive information that
contains both financial and non-financial information. Finally, the pressure on good
governance and accountability has resulted in the increasing use of performance
measurement – continuously generating information based on decisions made and actions
taken to improve operational and organizational performance. The descriptions and
practical applications of process performance measurement presented by an example of
process controlling application in manufacturing area are shown in the second chapter.
To do process management more effectively it is more important not only putting
quality into products at the production stage but also improving communication between
management and manufacturing processes. It is the aim of the second section of this book.
Because the high quality, low cost and short delivery time are demand from customer,
delivery to the multi-item small-sized production, the reduction of delivery time is
emphasized. For those needs, developing the methods and designs of control chart suitable
for today's work situations become a new problem for manager, which is also research
theme of the third chapter. Some comments are drawn, which would become useful
references for setting the optimal delivery time. Next fourth chapter could be used to
reorganize engineers to improve the overall organizational behaviour in terms of "time of
response". This chapter presents a systematic approach to re-organize a complex design
process to a more manageable one based on its analogy to dynamic systems, which allows
chief engineers improve their management skills and provide systematic alternatives to
manage a design process.
Modern production should be complex, integrated and constantly adapted to the
market requirements by means of the reconfiguration of equipment structure and process
changes. The development of such production should be based on evolutionary strategy by
successively engaging (eliminating) stand-alone technological systems. The fifth and sixth
chapter formulate the purpose of description of the control theory development, with the
structural properties of technical systems taken into account, thus creating effective methods
to synthesize a supervisor as an instrument to solve the task of consistency and co-
ordination control of stand-alone components in a technical system. Thus supervisory (i. e.
human) control will always remain necessary until algorithmization of all aspects of
technological processes is completed. Such tools help:
• to identify the current state of the process in the controlled object,
• to understand which information must be gathered additionally for this particular state,
• and to generate the correct control incorporating the additional information during
assembling procedure.
By using of such control system we can better to manage all processes and have an
adaptive potential which helps to cut down maintenance costs. The flow technologies as
well as process simulation software are new tools which are widely used for process
improvement and to define new control strategies (seventh chapter). It helps to establish
direct correlations between the line design and its performance.
VII
Given the comprehensive integration of knowledge management in an organization,
the use of information for managerial decisions and actions has become more important. Its
impact on management processes is described in the third section of this book. An
important part of this form of management is a human factor and ability of a company to
utilize possibilities of information technologies the most effectively as well. A problem is a
big dependence on employees´ knowledge which must be willing to share it with the others
and on their skills and abilities to apply available information technologies and tools
supported by them. Eighth chapter describes advantages and disadvantages of a centralized
organizational memory system and an informal social network aimed to improve the
sharing of tacit knowledge, e.g. expertise and know-how. Management of a system of such
networks is very complicated especially when it is a must to consider the balance between
costs ratio to solutions effectiveness since this is a very sensitive topic today. The method of
process management introduction to the area of company information and communication
processes management brings a chance to acquire mathematic apparatus to analyse
complicated processes as well as nets – complicated due to the great dependence on human
factor share (ninth chapter). The advantages of the models are proposed is that they
eliminate as much as possible the influence of human factor. They also allow analysis of its
interactivity with other systems and when the map of processes is created negative impacts
resulting from superior positions of some employees are not considered. The system also
allows management of a system of rapid changes - especially thank to transparency and
specification of processes.
When suppliers, manufacturers and retailers in the global economy may be working
together or in teams effectively, especially when members are in different locations and at
different times, they need to communicate and collaborate and access a diverse set of
information sources in multiple formats. Thus, supporting work group emphasizes the
important aspects of communications, computer technologies and work methodologies.
Other reasons for support are cost savings, expedited decision speed, the need to support
virtual teams, the need for external experts, and improving the decision making process. To
do such processes more effective it is needed to use some computer-based communication
and collaboration technologies. In tenth chapter, discussion and topic of virtual work group
collaboration are explored within a real and practical case of a selection and implementation
of an integrated web-based IT infrastructure for a manufacturing process. In this
collaboration processes have a unified communication technologies based on an open
system its substantive importance.
In the eleventh chapter is introduced and discussed Business Process Management with
a focus on the integration of heterogeneous systems across multiple organizations. There are
identified the problems and the main challenges not only with regards to technologies but
also in the social and cultural context. It is also discussed the issues that have arisen in such
ways of co-operating. Preliminary evaluation has shown that an intelligent workflow
monitoring system using and past experience can help workflow managers to monitor
complex business processes in an active way. What the technology needs to do is allow the
users to personalize their workflow and define how they want their tasks to be managed - is
a key direction for the development of this area.
For a business is the corporate reputation the most important value while is the part of
good corporate governance. Crisis that is process is the unexpected situations which affects
on corporate reputation. Twelfth chapter is aimed to offer both a logical and proactive
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process for managing corporate reputation via risk management based perspective. Authors
suggest that reputation assets should be managed with risk management based proactive
approach since corporate reputation is issue of the risk management to enhance and
maintain corporate value.
Next area where it is needed to apply management processes is the area of healthcare as
well as integration of environmental processes into management decisions. The new
research solutions are included in the last section of this book.
Water scarcity is a worldwide issue. It is defined as the point at which the aggregate
impact of all users impinges on the supply or quality of water under prevailing institutional
arrangements to the extent that the demand by all sectors, including the environment,
cannot be satisfied fully.
The thirteenth chapter’s aim is to provide an overview of how the planning approaches
to water management have been implemented in praxis (in Mexico) and to what extent they
have resolved critical issues like scarcity. This overview is basically supported on document
review that has been published about water management approaches, as well as in official
reports that its government has released. Although this chapter addresses the issue of
scarcity in terms of planning, it would be worth exploring it since the social scarcity
capacities. Their development will also help to face critical problems related to the
ecosystem demands in terms of environmental flow and not least important, the variability
climate change will pose on water availability. It is needed to note: actions have been taken
by local governments to introduce these programs among their water users.
In the next fourteenth chapter is developed a hydrological model for planning the water
supply from different sources and predicting the chloride concentrations in the aquifer
water. The model's advantages lie in its multidisciplinary nature and in its practical
applicability, as well as in its ability to evaluate and direct scenarios of supply and treatment
of different water sources. At this stage, the model includes only the salinity level
component of water quality, but the model can be expanded to examine the treatment of
other components, such as nitrogen concentrations, and can be developed as a computerized
model that will improve the policy-makers ability to make informed decisions in the process
of utilizing of wastewater reuse to reduce the environmental impacts of agriculture.
The fifteenth book chapter gives an introduction on process-integration into land-use
management decisions, starting with the choice of adequate process-indicators and a
condensed overview on process-oriented management support approaches. However, if the
evaluation process is managed well under close participation of regional experts and with
detailed documentation of the knowledge sources, the evaluation results obtained by
specialized software can experience a high regional acceptance.
Next chapter is aimed at the construction industry that is a major contributor to
excessive natural resource consumption, depletion and degradation, waste generation and
accumulation, and environmental impact and degradation. Nowadays, few measures have
been carried out to improve the relationship among construction site activities, the
environment and the citizens. Maybe due to the mobility of the construction activity, it is
difficult to manage the construction companies’ activities due to most construction sites the
waste is selected but its destination is not controlled. This chapter presents a strategic
actions set necessary to improve and promote the waste construction management in real
condition (in Portugal). An effort should be made in order to reduce waste production on
site and to increase its recycling value. The reuse, based on deconstruction process, should
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be considered as a good solution that helps reducing the waste environmental effects, such
as air, water and ground pollution. It seems to be as an advantageous way to improve waste
management, thus following other European countries’ practices.
The last two chapters are aimed to achieving of better quality of healthcare. The first
one is attended to resource management program and its using for accreditation process at
the medical laboratories applied to many aspects of quality management including
personnel, basic facilities, equipment, security and safety. There is described a
comprehensive program that includes management commitment, effective training, and
regular audits of critical functions to identify potential problems, implementation of
corrective action and establishment of priorities for improvement benefits the medical
laboratory in many ways. The related policies and procedures were developed to provide
guidance for workers when implementing the process.
Second one – the last chapter illustrates a sustained conceptual service quality
improvement process for management of software development within a healthcare
enterprise. The more organized the system modules in a healthcare enterprise are, the
higher is the resulting quality of care. The healthcare quality management centre and system
analysts can utilize the statistical survey results to promote and constitute the service
quality. Here proposed process provides a high-assurance service-oriented requirement
mechanism that can engage the information technology department to obtain sufficient and
essential demands from all users. The process can compass, improve the software service
quality of software development and maintenance, including sophisticated patient care and
security, in a healthcare enterprise environment.
Editor
Mária Pomffyová
Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica
The Faculty of Economics
Institute of Managerial Systems
Affiliate Branch of the Faculty in Poprad
Slovakia