Process Planning and Design Fundamental Element of a System

Question: Describe about the Process Planning and Design for Fundamental Element of a System. Answer: Process is the most fundamental element of a system. It is the set of interrelated activities organized and managed to yield some desired output. All operations of a modern organization are increasingly becoming process oriented due to advantages of process approach. It results in the creation of highly efficient processes for the organizations. Subsequently, process planning and designing have become an integral part of operation management in most of the companies. The course on process planning and process design has covered all modern process management techniques which can be very useful in executing the actual work in my professional life. Since the last two decades there has been paradigm shift in the practice of operation management. Operations in the companies are becoming process oriented in contrast with system approach used earlier. This course offers an excellent opportunity to learn the latest process management techniques. This course has greater emphasis on the practical implementation of models and theories currently in practice. I have come to know about process approach in detail. A system comprises of many interrelated processes where each process has some definite inputs and outputs. Fine tuning individual processes ultimately leads to improving the overall performance of a particular system. I also learned that a set of controlled input when fed into controlled system yields controlled output desired by the organization. All giant organizations have a large number of processes which are required to be managed and controlled for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the organization. In my opinio n, process planning has financial implication for the organization as it helps to reduce cost, increase efficiency and accuracy. The process design is the next vital step in the process management after process planning. This is aimed at designing constituent processes of a system for achieving process efficiency. It includes activities like deciding about the type and quality of output, the operating condition and the required input of a process. I have learned in detail about the principle and steps involved in process planning. The primary objective of process planning is to define the goals of a process, setting the desired output, deciding the input needed and continuously monitoring the performance of the process. All steps needed to be performed in a process must be documented to detect any deviation in execution of the process. There are four major steps in the planning of a process Definition, Documentation, Review and Continuous improvement. Definition is concerned with setting out the goals of a process such as type and attributes of the output. The documentation deals with keeping a comprehensive and detailed record of all activities and tasks so that the deliverables are always the same irrespective of person executing the task. This reduces the deviation of a process to a great extent. In the review stage, outcomes are checked for conformance to the specification and requirements. If it is found that output are not as defined, then corrective steps are taken for improving the performance of the process. This is an ongoing process, which help in continual improvement of the process. It ultimately results in making process more efficient and effective in terms of output. The learning from the course has given me a clear perspective about the process design and its advantages for working of a system. The process design is equally applicable for designing a product or a service. I learned that process design is required for deciding the working arrangement and interrelationship of a large number of processes in a system. It helps to minimize the deviation in the outcome of a process which has profound financial implications for an organization. There are a lot of tools available for assisting the process planning and designing such as Flowchart and Control chart. They are meant for planning and monitoring of a process. These tools will help me a lot in designing and planning a process while working in capacity of a manager. Process planning and design has become vital for managing the complex processes of manufacturing as well as service organization. To manage the complexity of the processes, the organizations are moving from the system-centric approach to a process-centric approach. This course has woven the concept of process planning and design with a current practices being employed. In particular, the course has provided me a detailed know-how of the state-of-the-art techniques employed for managing, controlling and monitoring the processes. The learning from this course has significant practical application which I am looking forward to implement in my professional work.