BUS-P550 Business Process Design
- 7 weeks
- 1.5 credits
- Prerequisite(s): MBA Core
Every organization, whether it provides a tangible manufactured good or an intangible service (or some combination of the two) must manage a variety of processes. These processes transform inputs (such as raw materials, parts, human capital) to provide outputs (a tangible good or service) which are valued by customers. Organizations that effectively design these processes to minimize wasted time, motion and materials develop an advantage over their rivals. Most organizations have numerous processes, some of which are primary components of the chain of production, some of which are secondary functions, which play a supporting role. The true power of an effective process design is to eliminate functions that do not directly add value or directly support the organization's products/services. This course examines the key methods used to analyze, develop and improve transformation processes in both the manufacturing and service sectors. The objective is to develop an understanding of trade-offs and limitations involved in process design as well as to develop an understanding of many of the basic tools used to analyze and improve processes.
In addition to the development of an understanding of how to conceptually improve a business process, the student will learn a powerful modeling technique, Process Model. Process Model is one of the hot items in the marketplace for assisting in the analysis and improvement of business processes. Approximately one-half of the classroom time will be devoted to the learning and use of Process Model.
- How to re-engineer a process
- How to develop a process map
- How to make a process map come alive by simulating entities (flow units) through the various steps
- Terminology relating to looking at processes: cycle time, average flow rates, scheduled availability, theoretical capacity, etc.
- How to use Process Model, a computer language, to simulate and improve processes
- How to better understand process variability and it's impact of process goodness
- How queuing problems can be solved using simulation
- How simulation can be used to perform "algebra" on probability distributions
- How to "fit" raw data to probability distributions. These probability distributions can/will used in simulation models
- How to simulate a McDonalds restaurant; this a capstone project to help the student understand the real-world issues of modeling a process