In this week, we cover Business Processes, including Process Improvement through streamlining and re-engineering and process modeling of both the As-Is and the To-Be processes. Students were asked: Drawing from your own experience, select a process (a set of specified steps to accomplish a task) used at your place of work or in an interaction with a business that you would like to see improved and briefly describe the process. Be sure you have identified a specific process rather than a general business problem or area. Explain why you picked that process. Explain the steps you might take to analyze how to improve the process. Who should be involved with you? What are some of the questions you should ask about the current process? How will you know if the process was actually improved? Student answered: Drawing from my own experience, I would select how schedules are made according to the store's budget for that week. This is as a process used at my place of work, Walgreens, that I would like to see improved. Currently the steps to make the schedule to budget involves a bit of a guessing game. KPI reports that shows the store's targets are not detailed day by day and come out on a monthly basis, schedules are done on a weekly basis. Also, with the schedules being done three weeks in advance, sometimes the budget for the next month isn't available, so managers are forced to lowball the schedule to avoid going over budget. I picked the process because it involves how effectively and efficiently customers are served, how operational tasks are completed, and how much support is available to alleviate stress in that day. By managing the budget properly, Walgreens will have the tools to accomplish their goals, mission, and show their culture. Also a schedule where employees are getting the hours they want will hopefully keep retention high. By having adequate staff, Walgreens will be able to maintain competitive advantage in the retail industry. The steps I would take to analyze improvements for this process are detailing the current process of making the schedule to budget. "The simplest way to document a process is to simply create a list. The list shows each step in the process; each step can be checked off upon completion" (UMGC, Nd). This list will also reveal where areas of weakness and opportunities lies. Business process management can help with this analysis as it will "discover, model, analyze, measure, improve and optimize business strategy and processes" (IBM, Nd). This end-to-end process will use data analytics, monitoring of improvements, and decision making for Walgreens achieve business outcomes. Data such as customer service scores, completion of tasks, if KPI targets are meet, employee feedback are data that will be used in this process. Store manager, assistant store manager, shift leads, and pharmacy manager would be involved with this process. These positions are in direct contact of customers and employees. They oversee day-to-day operations and are able to see first hand how smooth the store is ran, with how effective the schedules are made. They can provide feed back on what days, what times of days are in need of more support, and where support can be taken away. Some questions about the process I would ask are: How far in advance should the budget be made available? How many hours on a weekly basis would be needed? How many extra hours would be needed during holidays? How can sales be pushed in stores to help with these added hours? Can keeping the first week of each month at the same budget number be allowed to provide for more time at analyzing the store's costs? Will releasing KPI reports faster to show where weekly problems lie? Knowing if the process has actually improved can seen be in a change of employee's moods, ease of achieving store targets, better completion of tasks, and serving all customers in a timely manner. "Using business process reengineering, organizations can vastly improve their effectiveness and the quality of their products and services" (UMGC, Nd). Using this process to change how effective schedules are made will help to meet the store's needs and company objectives. "Organizations improved their business processes by many orders of magnitude without adding any new employees, simply by changing how they did things" ( UMGC, Nd). By better improving how available store's budgets are, the company will be giving support to KPI targets. Questions Assess whether the post accurately and sufficiently addresses the questions asked in the discussion topic. Incorporating additional research will strengthen your responds. Assess whether the information is correct or not, and/or complete, and provide correct information to enhance the discussion.
In this week, we cover Business Processes, including Process Improvement through streamlining and re-engineering and process modeling of both the As-Is and the To-Be processes.
Students were asked:
Drawing from your own experience, select a process (a set of specified steps to accomplish a task) used at your place of work or in an interaction with a business that you would like to see improved and briefly describe the process. Be sure you have identified a specific process rather than a general business problem or area.
- Explain why you picked that process.
- Explain the steps you might take to analyze how to improve the process.
- Who should be involved with you?
- What are some of the questions you should ask about the current process?
- How will you know if the process was actually improved?
Student answered:
Drawing from my own experience, I would select how schedules are made according to the store's budget for that week. This is as a process used at my place of work, Walgreens, that I would like to see improved. Currently the steps to make the
I picked the process because it involves how effectively and efficiently customers are served, how operational tasks are completed, and how much support is available to alleviate stress in that day. By managing the budget properly, Walgreens will have the tools to accomplish their goals, mission, and show their culture. Also a schedule where employees are getting the hours they want will hopefully keep retention high. By having adequate staff, Walgreens will be able to maintain competitive advantage in the retail industry.
The steps I would take to analyze improvements for this process are detailing the current process of making the schedule to budget. "The simplest way to document a process is to simply create a list. The list shows each step in the process; each step can be checked off upon completion" (UMGC, Nd). This list will also reveal where areas of weakness and opportunities lies. Business process management can help with this analysis as it will "discover, model, analyze, measure, improve and optimize business strategy and processes" (IBM, Nd). This end-to-end process will use data analytics, monitoring of improvements, and decision making for Walgreens achieve business outcomes. Data such as customer service scores, completion of tasks, if KPI targets are meet, employee feedback are data that will be used in this process.
Store manager, assistant store manager, shift leads, and pharmacy manager would be involved with this process. These positions are in direct contact of customers and employees. They oversee day-to-day operations and are able to see first hand how smooth the store is ran, with how effective the schedules are made. They can provide feed back on what days, what times of days are in need of more support, and where support can be taken away. Some questions about the process I would ask are:
- How far in advance should the budget be made available?
- How many hours on a weekly basis would be needed?
- How many extra hours would be needed during holidays?
- How can sales be pushed in stores to help with these added hours?
- Can keeping the first week of each month at the same budget number be allowed to provide for more time at analyzing the store's costs?
- Will releasing KPI reports faster to show where weekly problems lie?
Knowing if the process has actually improved can seen be in a change of employee's moods, ease of achieving store targets, better completion of tasks, and serving all customers in a timely manner. "Using business process reengineering, organizations can vastly improve their effectiveness and the quality of their products and services" (UMGC, Nd). Using this process to change how effective schedules are made will help to meet the store's needs and company objectives. "Organizations improved their business processes by many orders of magnitude without adding any new employees, simply by changing how they did things" ( UMGC, Nd). By better improving how available store's budgets are, the company will be giving support to KPI targets.
Questions
- Assess whether the post accurately and sufficiently addresses the questions asked in the discussion topic.
- Incorporating additional research will strengthen your responds. Assess whether the information is correct or not, and/or complete, and provide correct information to enhance the discussion.
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