Business Process Improvement and Process Modelling

Improving business processes has been an important issue in the past, and got even more and more important with the increased competitions. This study is performed as a case study with the purpose of improving the business processes of a small sized company acting in a niche market. The focus is set to the (administrative) business processes of providing a quotation and preparing the order for the production. As a theoretical background, this study presents a theoretical overview of different business process improvement approaches, followed by a collection of the most important key steps. It also includes guidelines about process modelling and a short introduction to ERP systems. The research further answers the two research questions of (1) “What is the current way of working?”, and (2) “How can the processes be improved?”. Both research questions are performed using the case study. The primary input for answering the first research question were interviews with the company’s employees who are performing these activities on a daily basis. The result is a process map (As-Is-Map), showing all performed activities in their right sequence. The second research question was answered by analysing the created As-Is-Map against the key steps for business process improvement, which were developed in the theoretical part. As a result, the weaknesses in the current work procedure and improvement ideas were identified. These in turn are leading to the final result, which is the new process map (To-Be-Map), showing the improved process flow.