A new process map was built for the Tile industry showing improvements in the existing process with some new processes which will be introduced in the To-Be process. The tile industry is made up of core eight (8) business units that made up the macro processes in the enterprise as depicted by the large arrows in the process map and are listed below:
Table 4.14 Processes organized by Business Area of the Tile Industry
S/N Business Unit Process1 Process2
1 Production Management
Program production cycles Management of the manufacturing process
2 Human Resources Personnel Administration Manages staff recruitment, manage staff.
manage staff education etc 3 Warehouse
management and Control
Manage raw materials, moulds and plates, packaging and finished products
4 Finance Management of company
finances
Manages suppliers, clients, banks, taxes, travel expenses etc
Checks clients risk (Credit limit) for purchase order, manage insurance, control and follow up the non-payments.
5 Sales and Marketing Management of clients Order Management Production promotion, promotion product order etc.
6 Distribution Management of the delivery of finished products
7 Risk Management Management of customer‘s risk
Order management
8 IT Provision of information
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In the table 4.15, elements of the business view were presented organized by business area. The core processes were described all for achieving the objectives and goals of the enterprise.
The structure of the company has 4 levels, corresponding to the CEO and sales manager at the top position, Head of production, Head Buyer, Head finance and Human resources manager. The other levels has supervisor for machining and pailer areas. The strategy is to produce with high quality that market demand.
Figure 4.29 shows the Tile Industry Process Map showing the relationship between the different business processes.
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Figure 4.29 shows a process map diagram of the reference model of the tile industry developed in other to show the application of AIMES architecture. The Order Management of the Tile Industry was expanded to show how a process can be improved because it cuts across almost all the units in the business process. The big arrows show the tile industry macro-processes. Each macro process is divided into micro-processes, activities, tasks and so on until getting down to the lowest level, that is, an event produced by a human action or a machine. Every task of the model has inputs, controls and resources (Table 4.16.).
In addition to the operational part (activities realized), the model shows the information, the resources and the decisional alternatives for each activity within the process.
Decisional alternatives represent the different ways of doing an activity and their election depends on the established goals for the process, according to the strategy and the politics of the company (see example in table 4.16).
Table 4.16 Example of a task
Introduce the order into the information system (IS)
The aim of this activity is to introduce the order in the IS Clients that place orders have already been introduced by the commercial area, who in turn, have previously accorded payment conditions, sales conditions and prices with the client. Moreover, it has asked the risk area for client risk information.
The order can arrive from two sources, by phone call or fax, whether coming from the client or from the commercial agent. Independently of the source from where the order arrives, their reception is centralized in the sales department.
Inputs Client order (telephone, fax, other media)
Items information (code, size, quality etc)
Client information (fiscal data, delivery address etc) Additional information of the client and/or the order provided by the commercial agent.
Outputs Order
Controls Catalogue
Prices
Enterprise politics IS capacity
Resources Sales area staff
IS, telephone, computer etc.
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Someone has to take decisions. The process/function matrix should be completed in order to know who is the owner of every process (see Figure 4.30).
Figure 4.30 Process/function Matrix
In addition, the Industry process Map can be improved by coloring the activities carried out by personnel in the same department with the same color. In this way, the figure will represent the horizontal view of the enterprise by means of the departments.
Table 4.17 Example of decision alternatives
Decision analysis
Situation 1 The client exceed the risk
Decision 1 Decision 2 Advantages Disadvantages
Introduce the order into the IS and wait until the commercial for director‘s authorization
Reserve demanded items It will not load orders to high risk clients without a previous control by the commercial director A preservation is made and can be confirmed after the authorize
When a reservation is made, the available products will be kept for no risk client only
Do not reserve demanded items. They are kept only as
Product that may not be served will not be reserved.
When the commercial director authorizes the order,
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information No risk client orders can be places.
It will not load orders to high risk clients without a previous control by the commercial director
it is possible that the available product item is not available
Do not allow the introduction of order into the IS
The commercial agent must find an alternative way to register the order which will generate duplicity.
This reference model will facilitate the business process design project in a tile industry.
It will reduce from four months to one the time required to carry out the whole study: the analysis of the AS-IS and the improvement proposals (TO-BE).