In businesses the competition for customers and hence profits is one which never ends (Phiphopsuthipaiboon and Boonsiri, 2016). By being a step ahead of competitors an organisation can hope to beat its competitors, which means that they get to retain loyal customers, win over new ones and hence make better profits.
Business processes are the building blocks of business functions in an organisation. A business process is a set of logically related activities over space and time which accept input, process it and output results. Business process modeling is therefore, the discipline by which enterprises and organizations manage these processes. Processes are managed iteratively through analysis, (re)design and implementation.
According to Dallas and Wynn (2014) business process management (BPM) has gained prominence among SMEs in various economies as it continues to be adopted. BPMs speed up execution, provide flexibility and reduce operations costs. Business process redesign on the other hand, analyses an existing businesss process model, identifies flaws and proposes a new one. Business process management is therefore a combination of these two closely tied facets (Dumas et al, 2012)..
The Ballarat dental clinic offers a wide range of dental services and products to both near and far patients such as filling cavities, extracting decayed teeth, among others. Patients are classified into new and ongoing patients. These include removing tooth decay, filling cavities, repairing fractured teeth and dental examinations such as x-rays and checkups. The top management of Ballarat has lately decided that they want to improve their business process model in order to improve performance and enhance their services. Consequently, they have hired business process reengineering professionals to look into the current business process model and develop an updated model.
The main reasons for BPR initiative are:-
The Porter process categorization model is a value chain model which describes a set of processes and components which add value to an end service or product. The organization is viewed as a system with sub systems which consists of input, transformative processes, and output. The subsystems utilize resources such as raw materials and labour to achieve results. The model divides the activities into two generic categories that a business should follow in their pursuit of profits; primary activities and supporting activities. The figure below illustrates the Porter process categorization model.Core processes
These are the activities that are the backbone of the organisation’s activities and which guide the whole value chain procedure. They include:-
These are processes, which support the primary processes and include:-
The capability maturity model is used to show how much an organization’s processes and practices are capable of achieving the desired results of an engineering or development project (Bayreuth et al., 2012). A sequential set of stages are used to gauge the maturity level of the processes and practices, with the top most level allowing the organisation to improve and optimize processes.
Even though the model was originally meant for software projects, business enterprises have realized its usefulness in assessing their business processes in order to attain the desired end product/service (output) in the value chain.
The capability maturity model stresses on five aspects. These include:-
The practical applications of a capability maturity model are description, prescription and comparison. The current business processes are described just the way for descriptive purposes, so therefore no attempts for improvisations are made. For prescriptive purposes the model identifies desirable maturity levels and how to implement intended improvements. Lastly, the comparative purpose allows for internal or external assessment of the business processes.
CASES
New patients |
Ongoing general dental patients |
Ongoing orthodontic and cosmetic patients |
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Business functions |
Processes |
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Arrival of patient |
Complete sign in register (reception) |
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Complete confidential patient information form, medical history and patient photo |
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Enter information into online database (administration staff) |
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Acquire updates to confidential information and medical history |
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Enter details and care updates into patient’s electronic care record |
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Periodontal and dental exam |
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Jaw/jaw joints examination |
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Bite assessment |
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Smile analysis |
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Take x-rays on site |
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Take offsite specialist panoramic dental x-rays |
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Give full report |
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Give schedule of care, copy of x-rays and dental care package |
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Give initial treatment |
Confirm medical history |
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Give medication |
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Follow up treatment appointment |
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Give maintenance care |
Discuss medical history |
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Examine and clean teeth |
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Take onsite x-rays |
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Perform bi-monthly check up |
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Perform twice yearly check up |
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Release patient |
Process payment (accounts staff) |
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Check private health insurance |
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Book all ongoing patients for next appointment |
The arrival process model followed the 7PGM’s first guideline hin that it has utilized as few elements as possible. The second and third guidelines have also been observed by keeping the element paths to a minimum and by using a single start and end event. Lastly, the model has been kept as structured as possible by connecting split connectors to join connectors.
The first guideline has been observed by keeping elements in the process model to a minimum. The second and third guidelines have also been observed by keeping the elements’ path to a minimum and by using a single start and end event, respectively. The fourth guideline has been applied by keeping the model as structured as possible by ensureing that the split connector has connected to a join connector. Lastly, the sixth guideline has been observed by using the verb-object activity label.
It takes approximately 30 minutes for a new or ongoing patient to complete sign in register, to give details and information and pass it on to administration to enter into the relevant databases. Therefore cycle time is 30 minutes.
For the general dental patients it takes 90 minutes to take x-rays and get a full report. However, orthodontic and cosmetic dental patients have to be sent offsite for x-rays to be taken and for results to come back to the clinic after 7 days. This is the longest time in the model’s paths. Therefore, the cycle time is 7 days.
Unlike in the previous process model, all data entry is done by reception, thus eliminating the need for passing the details to administration.. The new process model will be as follows:
After the analysis of the current BPM the analysts and management saw the need for specialist x-rays will be done on site to reduce the cycle time for getting x-ray results and submitting a report to the orthodontic and cosmetic dental patients. The reengineered model is illustrated below:-
From the above findings it can be seen that business process modeling and reengineering are very helpful when it comes to optimizing an organisation’s performance businesswise. Furthermore, the organization can continually improve their services and products as much as they wish and to their own advantage. However, as is always the case, there must be a careful plan for review, analysis and improvisation. The following are the number of ways in which an organisation can stand to benefit from BPM:-
References
Chiarini, A. (2012). Business process reengineering. In From Total Quality Control to Lean Six Sigma (pp. 25-27). Springer, Milano.
Dallas, I., & Wynn, M. T. (2014). Business process management in small business: a case study.
In Information Systems for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (pp. 25-46). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Dijkman, R. M. Designing a Process Architecture-A Concrete Approach. Technical report, TUEindhoven.
Dumas, M., La Rosa, M., Mendling, J., Mäesalu, R., Reijers, H. A., & Semenenko, N. (2012,
June). Understanding business process models: the costs and benefits of structuredness. In International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Dumas, M., La Rosa, M., Mendling, J., & Reijers, H. A. (2013). Fundamentals of business process management. Heidelberg: Springer.
Eid-Sabbagh, R. H., Dijkman, R., & Weske, M. (2012, September). Business process
architecture: use and correctness. In International Conference on Business Process Management (pp. 65-81). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Feldmann, C. (2013). The Practical Guide to Business Process Reengineering Using IDEFO. Addison-Wesley.
Phiphopsuthipaiboon, S. (2016). Business process reengineering-case study on computer center service (Doctoral dissertation, Chulalongkorn University).
Röglinger, M., Pöppelbuß, J., & Becker, J. (2012). Maturity models in business process management. Business Process Management Journal, 18(2).
Rosemann, M., & vom Brocke, J. (2015). The six core elements of business process management. In Handbook on business process management 1 (pp. 105-122). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
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