Week 11 — Process Redesign & Heuristics

Process Redesign

Changing an As-Is process to create an improved To-Be process

As-Is Process

The current version of a process

To-Be Process

The improved future version of a process

Heuristic

A rule of thumb used to guide process improvement

Heuristic Process Redesign

Improving a process using a set of heuristics

Devil’s Quadrangle

The trade-off between time, cost, quality, and flexibility

Customer Heuristics

Heuristics aimed at improving customer interaction

Control Relocation

Moving checks or controls to the customer

Contact Reduction

Reducing the number of interactions with customers or third parties

Integration

Integrating customer or supplier processes with internal systems

Business Process Operation Heuristics

Heuristics focused on improving process activities

Activity Elimination

Removing non-value-adding steps

Triage

Splitting a general task into specialized tasks

Activity Composition

Combining activities to reduce handoffs

Business Process Behavior Heuristics

Heuristics focused on improving process flow

Resequencing

Reordering tasks to reduce time and cost

Parallelism

Performing tasks at the same time instead of sequentially

Knock-Out

Early termination of cases likely to fail

Information Heuristics

Heuristics that improve information quality and availability

Control Addition

Adding checks to improve quality and reduce rework

Buffering

Storing information locally for faster access

Technology Heuristics

Heuristics that use technology to improve efficiency

Activity Automation

Automating repetitive or rule-based tasks

Integral Technology

Centralized systems that integrate multiple departments