Exam 7: Process Modeling, Process Improvement, and ERP Implementation

Beyond the simple tools of flowcharting,a helpful tool called ____ allows one to describe a business process in greater or less detail depending on the task at hand.

What is the function of the Development (DEV)system in the SAP system landscape concept?

In value analysis,which of the following activities should be eliminated?

What is value analysis? How can the concept be expanded?

Define scope creep.

Software programs that automate the execution of business processes and address all aspects of the process are called ERP Wizards.

A graphical representation of the movement or flow of concrete or abstract items is a spreadsheet.

A process model can be as simple as a diagram with boxes and arrows or as complex as computer software that allows for process simulation.

Process boundaries define which activities are to be included in the process.

Organizational change management is a trivial part of the implementation process.

A graphical representation of a business process is known best as a ____.

In the Harrington book,Business Process Improvement,what questions should companies ask about their business processes to identify areas of improvement? Cite five of them.

Since the raw materials are available,the Manufacturing Department can now go ahead and create a complete work order.The preliminary work order is retrieved from the file cabinet.This is used as input to the computer program: Final work order scheduling.There are two outputs to this program: a printed final work order document and an update to the Current Production Plan file.The printed work order document is filed in the "To-do" file by order date.

ERP software such as SAP has many business applications but none of them support business processes.

Discuss the SAP system landscape for implementation.Why is it important to keep the systems separate?

Create a swimlane document flowchart for the following problem. OLD FASHIONED UNIVERSITY COURSE SCHEDULING PROCESS Old Fashioned University administrators strongly believe that some changes are good and that some changes are not so good.That philosophy must be kept in mind,when trying to understand OFU's course registration system,which is a partly-manual,partly computerized system. The individual student starts the process by filling out course cards.A card is merely a pre-printed 3"x5" card that has a space for the student's name,student ID number,and the desired course's ID number.The student completes a card for each course they want to take next semester. The student takes their stack of cards to the OFU Advisement Center,which is staffed by OFU academic advisors.These advisors are trained to know what courses can be taken by students in the various OFU majors.The student drops off their stack of cards for analysis. An advisor takes a stack of cards and performs what is called an Advisor Review.The student need not be present.The advisor looks up the student's history in the OFU Student Information System (OFUSIS).This history shows what courses the student has already taken.The history is a file on disk and the contents for that student is shown in a window on the advisor's computer monitor.The advisor also opens up the Advisor Resource,a file on disk that has the course registration rules.These rules are course pre-requisites,degree requirements for each major and so on.This is a file on disk,and the contents are shown in another window on the advisor's computer monitor.The contents of these two files are used by the advisor during the Advisor Review.The advisor goes through the stack of cards.If a course may not be taken by the student in the next semester,its card is put into the Rejected Card stack.If a course may be taken by the student in the next semester,its card is put into the Accepted Card stack.After doing this for a student's stack of cards,the advisor writes an entry to the Advisor Log.The log is a file on disk that is merely a running diary of what the advisor did in a day.The rejected cards are put into a wastebasket for eventual shredding.The accepted stack is retained for the student in an alphabetized file. The student comes to the Center to retrieve their accepted card stack.The student manually fills out a Scantron form,bubbling in a line of data for each accepted course.Number two pencils are used for this step.This step is called the Scantron Sheet Preparation step.The student keeps the stack of cards as a memento of this important step in their academic career.Completed forms are put into a basket at the notoriously cranky OFU Advisement Center receptionist's desk.The receptionist is supposed to smile at each student as they leave,but always the receptionist frowns. The Scantron forms are sent to the OFU Computing Center.Under software program control a mark sense reader scans the forms.This step is called the Mark Sense Read step.The courses requested by each student are written to a file on disk.The file is called the Master Course Requested file.Data are merely appended to the end of the file for each student (each record is merely: student number,course number).These steps go on daily in Advisement and in the Computing Center for the two week registration period.Each day in that period the Center runs the Interim Course Scheduling program.The purpose of this program is to incrementally build up the course registration schedule,day by day.The input to the Interim program the Master Course Requested file,which is opened for reading.The other input is the Preliminary Course Registration file,another file on disk.The day's entries to the Master Course Requested file are processed,and the Preliminary Course Registration Schedule is updated.This file will need much refinement at the end,to get to the final course registration schedule.But at least it is a serviceable starting point for that purpose. At the end of the registration period,the Computing Center runs the Super Duper Course Registration Program.The Supe (as it is affectionately known in the computing center)is a complicated linear programming package that slots students into courses,based on course capacity,number of sections,course pre-requisites and other factors.The input to the Supe is the Preliminary Course Registration Schedule file,which is opened for reading and stays open as long as the Supe runs.There are three outputs,once the program is finished running: 1.A set of student course schedules,showing the courses that each student was given by the Supe.These schedules are sent to the Advisement Center. 2.A set of class lists showing which students are in each section of each course.These class lists are sent to the academic departments on campus,for distribution to faculty members. 3.A multi-copy Summary Report.One copy is filed in the Computing Center.Another copy is sent to the Advisement Center.A third is sent to the Registrar's Office. Students are asked to come to the Advisement Center to pick up their course schedule.Rarely do students get exactly what they asked for and they generally frown when told that the Supe knows what is good for them.Seeing these frowns makes the receptionist smile. The Registrar gives the report a brief read and then puts it in a file cabinet for future reference. The Academic Department secretaries put the class lists into faculty member mailboxes.

Why,and in what circumstances,are workflow tools useful?

The term process mapping is often used interchangeably with flowcharting.

Dynamic process modeling takes a basic process flowchart and puts it into motion,using computer simulation techniques to facilitate the evaluation of proposed process changes.

Define organizational change management (OCM).