Business Process Mechanization (BPM)

All businesses, large and small, have business processes. These are the things they do “behind the scenes” to deliver a product or service. It is the actions and steps they take:

1. Prior to receiving a customer’s order; such as sales & marketing, planning, engineering, and pre-provisioning
2. After receiving a customer’s order but before they deliver it; such as provisioning the order with maximum efficiency
3. After they have fulfilled the customer’s order; such as billing, maintenance, processing claims, customer support, and post sales tracking.
4. Managing and tracking the physical and human resources needed to deliver their products and services

Most business processes start small and evolve into bigger things. For example, a new product is introduced and the sales volume is initially low, but over time becomes a big seller. The process used when selling 10 units per month is likely to lose its efficiency when the sales expand to 1,000 or 10,000 units per month. Recognizing this, the smart company will review the delivery process and re-engineer it to run more efficiently. At this point BPM is introduced.

Business process mechanization attempts to reduce costs by restructuring the process and introducing technology based ‘systems’ to automate information flow and ‘lower level’ decision making. It also means using people for their greatest value - making judgments - rather than pushing paper around. The information they need to do their jobs can be collected, stored, and moved electronically with great efficiency.

At Dexter, our typical approach to BPM is to:

1. Analyze the process
2. Examine the current set of tools and systems being used
3. Identify the sources and structure of information
4. Identify how the work is coordinated; including handoffs, notifications, and phone calls
5. Separate the ‘decision points’ from the ‘judgment points’. Computers can make decisions, but only people can make judgments. The difference is really the quality and completeness of the information on which the decision is made
6. Engage the users in a series of ‘why-?’ and ‘what if-?’ questions
7. Propose a plan in which a prototype system automates some or all of the work