Lecture 9 Process Redesign (2)

Sources:Business Process Reengineering – BPRhttp://www.businessprocessreengineering.org/83/Wellcomehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellcome

• IBM Holosofx Workbench

• Used for modeling and analysis. The Holosofx Workbench is composed of the Business Modeler as the core with the UML Transformer (Modeler), Xform Designer, and XML Mapper as extensions.

• IBM Holosofx Monitor

• Used for monitoring processes in real time

• IBM Holosofx Workbench Server

• Used to share process information via the intra/Internet.

The Holosofx Workbench

Subject: Lecture 9 Process Redesign (2)

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Response:

In lecture 9, we learnt about process redesign. The focus of the lecture was the five essential aspects.

Holosofx was a privately company worked in the field of Business Process Management. It provided software product for business process re-engineering.

There are three components of the Holosofx BPM:

In the lecture, we learnt the Holosofx Workbench. It is a software which is for drawing the activity flow diagrams. Also, It exports Flow Definition Language (FDL) files to the IBM WebSphere MQ Workflow run-time environment through an offline import/export interaction process

Building Block #1 - Structural elements of business process flow

There are different elements for building the activities decision flow diagram.

e.g. The activity objects and decision objects

  Activity objects are the main factors of a business process

Decision objects are different choices in the process

Building Block #2 - Organizational resource links to business process flow

An activity requires different resources like facilities, tools and people. This block aims at allocating the resources to the activity.

Building Block #3 - Rules of graphical connection

In the process, there should be input and output. All the tasks are connected by the time line arrows. The objects are connected graphically.

Building Block #4 - Methods of conditional concatenation of process parts

There are different choices. Each choice has different paths.

Building Block #5 - Process performance measurement

Simulation analysis can be done. Time, cost and resources can be calculated for different cases.

The Use case process model

Case Study: Wellcome

Wellcome is the largest supermarket in Hong Kong. It operates many outlets in Hong Kong. There are many different types of products in Wellcome. The products are come from Mainland China and other countries. Recently, it also sells fresh vegetables, fish and meat.

Analysis of the transaction process of Wellcome

Compare the transaction process using the old cash register and that of using the new cash register.

Participants

Customers

Cashiers

Other Staff

The process of using the old cash register

It is very popular that buying some products and then getting another product freely. For example, buying two packs of lemon tea can get a can of coke freely. However, the cashier cannot just scan the barcode of the coke. The old cash register cannot detect the coke is free when the customer buys two packs of lemon tea. Therefore, managers of each branch of Wellcome supermarket have to print out a list of special products. The list included the details of the preferential products and the barcode of the products. Cashiers are required to enter the barcode if the customers buy these preferential products. This slows down the transaction process. Also, cashier may not realize the preferential products and she just scan the barcode of all the products as usual. Then, the amount will be wrong and the cashier will have to do it again. The probability of occurring errors during the transaction process is relatively high.

The process of using the new cash register

The new cash register can automatically deduct the amount of the gifts when it detect the customers has bought the specific products. The central office of Wellcome only needs to update the data to the database. In this case, cashiers can do the work more quickly and the transaction process becomes simpler than before. Besides, managers do not have to print out the list of preferential products for each cashier every day. The probability of occurring errors during the transaction process decreases.

Lecture 6 - Basics of BPR (2)

Souce:

About TQM

http://www.tqm.org.tw/tqm/about.html

Components of Leavitt'sDiamond

http://www.brighthub.com/office/project-management/articles/122495.aspx

HSBC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSBC

Response:

In Lecture 6, we mainly learnt about role of IT, Leavitt Diamond and TQM.

Role of IT:

IT plays an important role in business process. IT helps to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the process. For example, it enables very fast sharing of information.

The Leavitt Diamond:

There are four components in an organization, People, Task, Structure and Technology. There are interactions between these four components. If one of the components changes, other components will be affected.

TQM:

TQM is a management approach which concern about the customers. It focuses on customers and thus improves the quality of products and services in order to satisfy customers.

Case Study:

HSBC

HSBC is a universal bank which provides banking and financial services. It is the largest bank in Hong Kong.

In the past, people were required to go to the bank and queue for a long time in order to do transactions, save money or withdraw money. All these processes were only handled by the staff in the branches of HSBC.

Later, ATM started becoming popular and more people use ATM instead of queuing in the branches of the bank. ATM can be found in many places like MTR stations, shopping malls and beside the streets. Customers do not have to go to the branches of the bank to withdraw money or do some transaction.

Recently, because of the invention of the internet, e-banking system is created so that customers can do transactions or use many banking services on the internet. For example, transferring money to other account or paying bills can simply by clicking a few buttons.

Role of IT in HSBC:

In order to survive in the banking industry, IT plays as a necessity to HSBC. ATM and the e-banking system are the examples of IT in HSBC. These technologies are very important. All other banks are using these technologies and they are indeed convenient to customers. Customers can do transaction within a very short time. Using the e-banking system, customers can even do transaction without geographical limitation. The original process is greatly simplified. In the past, customers have to go to the bank and ask the staff of the counter to help in transferring money. Staff then needs to fill in the form in order to finish the process of transferring money. Such a process would require at least 5 minutes. But now just a few seconds, the process of transferring money or paying bills can be finished.

Components affected by the change in technologies in HSBC

Arising of new technologies reduce the workload of the employees. However, many processes become computerized and less employees are required. Therefore, HSBC fried many employees. The tasks performed by the employees changed. For example, in the past customers could go to the bank and withdraw money directly without paying any handling fee. However, now customers have to pay for the handling fee of withdrawing money in the bank. The tasks have been changed. Since more customers choose to use the e-banking system implies less customers go to the bank, an employees can perform more tasks.  

Problems arise from the new technologies

Although the e-banking system and ATM are very convenient to the customers, there are many security problems. There are fake websites which are similar to the original e-banking website in order to get the username and password of the customers. Besides, some guys installed very little cameras in the ATM and tried to get the passwords of other people. In addition, the bad guys may hack into the e-banking system to steal the information of the customers.

To address the security problems, HSBC should offer a series of measures to protect customers from the internet fraud like double authentication.

Conclusion

HSBC simplified some of the processes such as the processes of transferring money, withdrawing money and saving money. The new technologies ATM and e-banking system change the people, tasks and the structure of HSBC. These technologies help customers to do transactions quickly. The new processes are efficient and effective. However, the security problems are concerned by customers. To improve the service quality, HSBC should maintain a high security e-banking system.