Work organisation- and processes: Today and in the future

The automatization in the manufacturing business is in a constant progress. With the initiative ‘Industry 4.0’ financed by the federal government, well-known associations and industrial corporations it aims to achieve a consistency of value chains through horizontal and vertical integration of production systems.

Due to the increasing real-time-oriented control of work content, -processes and
-environment, especially administrative processes in sales, purchase, production, logistics and controlling are subject to immense change. This development will succeed even better if the required communications- and information systems are closely aligned with the process- and work organisation. Thus, an analysis of the current work organisation and its focus is indispensable during the implementation of new IT-systems.

The meaning of reference models in practice

How can the digital consistency succeed through the real- as well as digital value chain across company boundaries when considering customer requirements?

This question was addressed by the industry model 4.0. Essentially, a standardisation of processes and practices is required in order to allow a cross-company interconnectedness. The description in a reference (process) architecture represents a general model for the convergence of connected processes. These models are suitable for orientation purposes since own procedures and organisational structures can be questioned and reviewed. The use of reference models usually simplifies and speeds up the process-engineering and thus, reduces the effort that comes with the description of one’s own process models.

The different elements

Defining strategic goals

The main goals for the current operational structure and process organisation are derived from the company strategy. In case the strategic goals are not identified sufficiently, they are going to be developed and documented in cooperation with the executive board. Here, existing quality management manuals or business plans can serve as a source.

In this matter, a modelling tool can be used in order to assure a continuing process development at an early stage from an evolutionary thought and to guarantee a uniform documentation.

Collecting and analysing current processes

Based on the strategic objectives, the aims are being defined on the main process level (e.g. ‘what does that mean for the purchase processes?’). Keeping the aims in mind, the description of the different core processes follows (e.g. sales, logistics, and production). At this stage, it would be ideal if potential for improvement is being collected, analysed and documented in the process model. As a result, a combination of current processes and optimised target processes is being generated.

Target processes derived from a strategical point of view

Under consideration of strategic as well as operative goals, the following potential for improvement analysis leads to a real ‘target-process-model’. In detail, this means to prove already documented process models once again and to convert them into a finale target version. The evaluation of its impact on the socio-economic environment as well as the company culture is indispensable.

Optimising IT- and communication systems

Prior to the optimisation of information- and communication systems, the additional effort for the process-engineering can only be justified if productivity can be increased in general. In order to have another point of view, process stability and availability should influence the decision-making as well.

To reduce the effort in general, the following needs to be considered: derivation of functions from process models and its transfer into a specification book are desired elements in the transition from process to information- and communication system. The fact that this still happens manually can be traced back to a missing standardisation of processes. Hence, it is the aim of Trovarit to step up efforts in this context.