Process Evaluation
In every organization you will find a lot of Facility and Real Estate processes. These processes are the foundation of everyday life within that specific organization and help people to do their jobs with minimal disturbance. So to speak when Facilities and Real Estate are optimized they cause minimal disruptions to the primary process. Although this statement seems a quite blunt it is reality. Facilities Management and Real Estate Departments are supporting units to the primary process. This differs from vertical to vertical, from organization to organization.
Integrated Workplace Management Systems can support organizations with these processes however IWMS won’t solve every problem in your organization overnight. So before you go out there and commit yourself to a particular vendor / solution my advice would be to take a moment and re-evaluate your Facilities and Real Estate processes. I’ve experienced that you can benefit the most from an IWMS when you have clearly identified mission critical processes and optimized them before automation. What?
Yes, I have come accross hundreds of organizations who thought implementing a software solution would also structurize their organization itself. Wrong!
Don’t think that you only have to buy a solution and all your problems will disappear. First evaluate your processes. Are you really working efficiently or are you just holding on to inefficient processes because ‘it’s always been like that”. Implementing an IWMS gives you an unique opportunity to re-evaluate your own processes and help you to benefit from this process audit.
Tips for process evaluation
- Align processes to your business goals
As stated above all FM and RE processes are supporting the primary process of organizations. Maximize the contribution of FM and RE to the primary business by aligning those processes towards the business goals (e.g. 20% cost reduction, 25% CO2 reduction, etc.). Processes which do not contribute to the business goals should be reconsidered or disposed as soon as possible. Processes which contribute to your business processes can be considered for automation. - Write out the processes
By writing out the processes which contribute to the primary process including people involved, business rules (approvals, time restrictions, etc.), decision points and other specifications you will be more likely able to identify non-efficient processes. - Use graphical representation
If you use graphical representation tools ssuch as Microsoft Visio or Igrafx Flowcharter to depict the processes graphically you’ve can visually detect flaws or innecessary steps in your processes. - Eliminate stages
Most processes which contribute to the business goals still contain inneccesary stages. Evaluate all stages of your processes and decide whether a stage is absolutely imperative for the correct procedure of the processes or not. Stages which are not necessary should be eliminated from the process.
The result of the above exercise is you will have an overview of all your mission critical process which contribute to your organizations’ business goals. This overview is basically the foundation of your IWMS implementation. It also gives the management team a clear guideline how processes, actors, decisions, etc. should be reorganized effectively.
Only after your organization is ready for an IWMS you will be able to effectively automate your processes. Therefore, a structured process evaluation will contribute hugely to your implementation.
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I could not agree with you more! As you said implementing a new system provides an excellent opportunity to review and improve your business processes. Not just the ones that are affected by the new system. I find it is important to do a current state analysis so you have a base from which to start. Then create the future state and leverage the new system where possible. You should also identify areas of opportunity to make changes and evaluate which one make sense to change.