Process mapping is an important tool for the competitiveness of companies

An effective company management requires permanent control over all production stages. Although obvious, this statement does not mean that achieving an efficient and adequate management to the objectives of business is simple. The fact is that processes management can play an important role for success or failure of any enterprise.

It is important to map and document the flow of internal processes in order to identify waste of time and resources, unreliable information records, and other practices detrimental to expected returns.

The process mapping is an essential tool for a greater control and diagnosis of so-called "bottlenecks" able to contribute to:

• Identification of opportunities for improvement;
• The development of standardized solutions for cases with similarity;
• Increase the productivity and improve the work environment;
• Improve the products quality or services provision;
• Optimize costs and increase profitability.

Only from a global view of all processes and resources will it be possible to strategize and make improvements to achieve significant gains in productivity and competitiveness. How to boost business management?

1. Identify bottlenecks in production

Bottlenecks are the slower phases where the production process stalls. These steps should be detected and the cause of slow activity should be corrected. Knowledge of routine, talk to those involved in the task and thoroughly evaluating issues, such as raw materials, machinery, technology and employed human resources, are necessary to find the solution.

From there on, it will be possible to list some points that may be limiting the good progress of activities and the delivery capability.

2. Encourage the team to participate

Creating ways to bring the team together, encouraging productivity, and stimulating participation are practices that help to prevent bottlenecks from arising or at least to be more easily identified.

Investing in a communication channel with the team may be a good way to get immediate reports of problems in the production chain. This relationship must be built so that employees feel genuinely encouraged to contribute. This is only feasible if these agents see that the improvement will positively influence the day to day and the group itself. It is also important to remember that queries generate expectation of return and solution. Therefore, you have to be careful in managing this relationship so that the proposal does not lead to the opposite effect.

3. Mapping processes

When the company does not invest in process mapping, it finds itself in a lack of procedures and controls scenario, unidentified bottlenecks, difficulties in responsibilities assignment, poorly defined task forces, inaccurate information, wastage of human and material resources, communication failures, among other problems.

In general, mapping processes allows you to understand:

• How the business unit works;
• How and when activities are performed;
• Which agents are involved in each step.

From this survey, the company is able to come to a better understanding of the business moment, which is important to support the decision-making. . This allows you to identify harmful practices so that they can be addressed and the creation of new procedures and action models.

In a systematic and comprehensive way, it is utmost to know all internal routines and procedures and their influence to the results. In addition to this action, investing in technology, such as software supporting the documenting processes, information and data crossing, may represent an extremely favorable point to the management.

Choosing a methodology to deploy the process mapping should also be established. Flowchart, horizontal flowchart, UML - Unified Modeling Language and BPMN - Business Process Model and Notation are some possible modeling. The last one is the best known and internationally accepted, for its use proposal in a transparent and intuitive way.

4. Boost the management with experts’ support

Often, identifying flaws, inconsistencies, bottlenecks, and redundancies may be difficult for anyone who is so closely engaged in the work routine. Therefore, organizations have been seeking an advice that develops the solution. Another problem is that companies do not always have professionals capable to use the best tools and modeling for an assertive evaluation and that should generate effective results.

Therefore, counting on experts’ advice may be the best way. Domingues e Pinho Contadores adapts the scope to the client’s needs, always dedicated to a full knowledge in routines and procedures and their influence to its performance, from the preparation of flows and using BPMN notation.

The company has a Process Office dedicated to meeting both internal demands and external clients that face difficulties in identifying obstacles to conduct their business or, in cases of acquisition merger in which the acquirer company should be aware of (or mapping) all the operations from the acquired company.

The experts elaborate a diagnosis that will point out possible business fragilities, supplying the client with qualified information allowing the definition of actions capable to contribute to overcome barriers and to the necessary improvements.