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Process Modeling of a Service Center |
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Introduction
Process Model A process model is a graphical and textual description of a sequence of events. These events are tied together through some set of well defined rules and relationships. Disruption of one event, rule or relationship may lead to a different set or sequence of events.
In this paper, we will device a set of symbols, signs and figures to model a given process of a service station (refer to appendix I). To do so, we will first establish the players, key events, explore their relationships among each other and finally express them as a model using the defined notation. We’ll also discuss compare our model and discuss the channels for improvement.
Process A process has two variables, time and the sequence of events. These events are the actions taken by the individuals, for example, the passage of information from one individual to another. The sequence of events puts each event in relation with the rest, for example a complete model should indicate the relative time Jim was introduced into the process.
A complete model should show the relative time an event occurred at, for example did Jim send Ron the files before the meeting or after? And at the time of the meeting what part of the process was Trevor involved in?
A complete model must also give information about the transactions or communication that takes place between individuals, for example, when Jim contacted Trevor, what was it about? Similarly, a model should clearly suggest the different elements, for example, people involved could be indicated by circles, the companies or organization by rounded rectangles and actions performed by cornered rectangles.
Devising our own model A description of our model of the service station is given in Appendix II. It consists of five components: organizations (i.e. Municipality), people (i.e. Max), description of actions (i.e. project start notification), targets of the action, for example, who notified who of the project start up, and time line to indicate the relative occurrence of an action. These components are described further in detail.
Our model of the service station is shown in Appendix I. It is composed of five components that we will now discuss.
Round Edged Rectangles These rectangles are used for organizations or entities: Commercial Department, Engineering Management, Municipality, and Commercial Interface. Using a different symbol for them makes it easy to pick them out in a cluttered up model.
Circles The individuals are represented by circles. In our process there are 6 individuals: Max, Jupiter, Dorian, Moll, Bruce, and Frances. We can tell when each of these individuals got involved in the process by simply looking at their horizontal positioning. For example, we can tell that Max was the first person who got involved and Frances was the last person introduced.
Sharp Edged Rectangles Sharp edged rectangles enclose text that describes an action. Our process has a number of interactions between individuals. These interactions range from a simple notification to exchange of things.
For example, Figure 3 (a) shows an act of communication between two individuals. Max notifies Jupiter of the project startup. On the other hand in part (b) of the figure, it is Max who receives the tapes and info from Max as indicated by the direction of the arrow.
Horizontal Arrows Arrows indicate the occurrence of an action (the detail of the action is described by the sharp edged rectangle). The arrow shown in Figure 3 indicates that Jupiter was the recipient of the information transmitted by Max.
Vertical Arrows Vertical arrows serve two purposes. Firstly they help organize the events, meaning that they nicely link an entity or an individual to the rest of the process without having their names written over and over. And secondly they serve as time lines showing the relative time (since the start of the process) an individual performed an act. For example, in Figure 4, the chart shows three actions. Since the arrows indicating these actions originate from the vertical arrow from Bruce, these acts are performed by him in the order that they appear (i.e. batch procedures were tested first, normalized second and automatic filtering was done the last.
The model procedures start (here time = 0 for the model) when the Commercial Department gets the approval from the Municipality and the Engineering Department. The ending occurs when Jupiter notifies Max and the Commercial Interface of the product completion. All other steps are indicated in between these two acts.
Improvements in the Model There are at least two places where this model can be further tuned. First one is that the objects being handled (such as tapes, archives) have no mention. There is no significant indication of THE BIT or the product being worked on. A separate symbol should be used for such objects and incorporated in with the model. Second, this model lacks a direction of flow, there is a downward time flow, but there is no definite right ward flow in the order of events.
Road Map for Process Improvement
Reason for improvement is felt when the existing rules can no longer confine the arising situations. This could result because of many reasons, such as a risk of competition from someone with a better process, too many loopholes in the process start to eat up valuable resources loosing its effectiveness.
If process improvement is not actively pursued, the process may fail to take advantage of new methods, techniques, and tools. In the case of the process under discussion, there are areas in a definite need for improvement.
First of all the process needs to have a defined set of rules and regulations. Guidelines must be laid out for carrying out the routine procedures. There are a large number of useless transactions that take place, for example, between Jupiter and Bruce alone, there are three contacts for the mere purpose of notification of completion of some task. A large amount of time is spent waiting for a task to complete, an example of this is when Jupiter has to wait for Bruce before he can convert the archives for exporting to the Municipality.
Process Comparison It is possible to compare two processes. All processes consist of a set of common components. As discussed previously (in the section Devising our own model), these components could be objects, actions, individuals, entities such as organizations and companies, relationships, and rules to define these relationships. Similarly there are characteristics common to all processes. Then from experience and studies, we know about processes that have demonstrated their effectiveness. We can compare these commonalties from a given process and a successful processes and draw conclusions on their effectiveness.
Conclusion We formed a set of rules and devised a set notations to model a given process of a service station. This model as indicated in Appendix I has room for improvement. It does not clearly indicate objects being handled, and lacks a right ward flow of events. We discussed the ways to improve and compare a process. --- APPENDIX - I "After the commercial department has obtained an OK both from the Municipality and from the management in Engineering, Max contacts the municipality and obtains the tapes and the list of additional requirements, that is, the request for personalized data treatment. Max then notifies Jupiter about the project start, and sends the tapes to Dorian. Dorian converts the data set in a format readable and processable by Engineering's internal servers with the help of Moll. In the meantime, Max has notified Jupiter that the Municipality required a personalization: in particular, the Municipality requires that on-line normalization be carried out by externally, by the Municipality itself. Jupiter is the only one that has the skills for it, so he starts working. When the archives are ready, Dorian sends them to Bruce, and then notifies Jupiter of the task completion. Bruce runs the batch procedures for normalization and upload, and notifies Jupiter when the task is complete. When Jupiter completes the personalization, he notifies Bruce and waits for him to finish. Then it converts the archives for exporting them to the Municipality, and delivers them to Max with the Municipality, which is in charge of actually delivering the data. The Municipality performs the on-line normalization, and then returns the data to Max. Max then notifies Jupiter that the data are ready, and simultaneously delivers the data to Bruce who (thanks to Jupiter's personalization) can load the data and start the automatic filtering procedure. When Bruce finishes, he notifies Jupiter, and passes the data to Frances. Frances performs the on-line filtering and when she finishes she notifies Jupiter and handles the archives to Bruce. Bruce unloads the data from the conversion program and loads them into the main software: THEBIT. He informs Jupiter about it and then starts the data calculation procedure in THEBIT. When the calculation is over. Bruce presents the results to who in turn notifies both Max and the commercial interface that the product is ready and an invoice must be sent to the Municipality." |
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