Process design Source: Slack, N. et al. 2016. Operations Management. 8th Ed. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited. Outline • What is process design? • What objectives should process design have? • How do volume and variety affect process design? • How are processes designed in detail? • What are the effects of process variability? Introduction • While there is no universally recognized definition of ‘design’, we take it to mean ‘the process by which some functional requirement of people is satisfied through the shaping or configuration of the resources and/or activities that comprise a product, or a service, or the transformation process that produces them’. • All operations managers are designers. When they purchase or rearrange the position of a piece of equipment, or when they change the way of working within a process, it is a design decision because it affects the physical shape and nature of their processes What is process design • To ‘design’ is to conceive the looks, arrangement, and workings of something before it is created . In that sense it is a conceptual exercise. Yet it is one which must deliver a solution that will work in practice. • At the start of the process design activity it is important to understand the design objectives, especially at first, when the overall shape and nature of the process is being decided. • Eventually the details of the process must be analysed to ensure that it fulfils its objectives effectively. • There may be aspects concerned with the objectives, or the broad positioning of the process, that will need to be modified following its more detailed analysis. • Process design and service/product design are interrelated • Small changes in the design of products and services can have profound implications for the way the operation eventually has to produce them. • Similarly, the design of a process can constrain the freedom of product and service designers to operate as they would wish • The overlap between the two design activities is generally greater in operations which produce services. Because many services involve the customer in being part of the transformation process • Overlapping product and process design has implications for the organization of the design activity • For example, in the early days of flight, the engineers who designed the aircraft were also the test pilots who took them out on their first flight. For this reason, if no other, safety was a significant objective in the design activity. The design of products/services and processes are interrelated and should be treated together Objectives of process design • The whole point of process design is to make sure that the performance of the process is appropriate for whatever it is trying to achieve. • For example, if an operation competed primarily on its ability to respond quickly to customer requests, its processes would need to be designed to give fast throughput times. • Similarly, if an operation competed on low price, cost-related objectives would be likely to dominate its process design. • Process flow objectives should include throughput rate, throughput time, work-in-progress, and resource utilization; • All of these are interrelated. • The design of any process should be judged on its quality, speed, dependability, flexibility and cost performance. Throughput rate & Cycle time • Throughput rate (or flow rate) is the rate at which items emerge from the process, i.e. the number of items passing through the process per unit of time. • Cycle time, or takt time, is the reciprocal of throughput rate – it is the time between items emerging from the process. The impact of strategic performance objectives on process design objectives and performance Standardization of processes • One of the most important process design objectives, concerns the extent to which process designs should be standardized. • By standardization in this context we mean ‘doing things in the same way’, or more formally, ‘adopting a common sequence of activities, methods and use of equipment’. • It is a significant issue in large organizations because very often different ways of carrying out similar or identical tasks emerge over time in the various parts of the organization. • But, why not allow many different ways of doing the same thing? • The problem is that allowing numerous ways of doing things causes confusion, misunderstandings, and eventually, inefficiency. In healthcare processes, it can even cause preventable deaths. For example • In 2012, the Royal College of Physicians in the UK revealed that there were more than 100 types of charts that were used for monitoring patients’ vital signs in use in UK hospitals. • This leads to confusion, they said. Potentially, thousands of hospital deaths could be prevented if doctors and nurses used a standardized bed chart. Because hospitals can use different charts, doctors and nurses have to learn how to read new ones when they move. • They recommended that there should be just one chart and one process for all staff that check on patients’ conditions. • The practical dilemma for most organizations is how to draw the line between processes that are required to be standardized, and those that are allowed to be different. Environmentally sensitive process design • The sources of inputs to a product or service. (Will they damage rainforests? Will they use up scarce minerals? Will they exploit the poor or use child labour?) • Quantities and sources of energy consumed in the process. (Do plastic beverage bottles use more energy than glass ones? Should waste heat be recovered and used in fish farming?) • The amounts and type of waste material that are created in the manufacturing processes. (Can this waste be recycled efficiently, or must it be burnt or buried in landfill sites?) • The life of the product itself. (If a product has a long useful life will it consume fewer resources than a short-life product?) • The end-of-life of the product . (Will the redundant product be difficult to dispose of in an environmentally friendly way?) Life-cycle analysis • This technique analyses all the production inputs, the life-cycle use of the product and its final disposal, in terms of total energy used and all emitted wastes. • The inputs and wastes are evaluated at every stage of a service or product’s creation, beginning with the extraction or farming of the basic raw materials. Process types – the volume–variety effect on process design • The design of any process should be governed by the volume and variety it is required to produce. • Usually the two dimensions of volume and variety go together – but in a reversed way. • So low-volume processes often produce a high variety of products and services, and high-volume operations processes often produce a narrow variety of products and services. • Thus there is a continuum from low volume/high variety through to high volume/low variety, on which we can position processes. For example Compare the approach taken in a medical service during mass medical treatments, such as large-scale immunization programmes, with that taken in transplant surgery where the treatment is designed specifically to meet the needs of one person. Process types • The position of a process on the volume–variety continuum shapes its overall design and the general approach to managing its activities. • These ‘general approaches’ to designing and managing processes are called process types. Different process types imply different volume– variety characteristics for the process Project processes • Project processes deal with discrete, usually highly customized products; often with a relatively long timescale between the completion of each item, where each job has a well-defined start and finish. • Project processes have low volume and high variety. • The process may be complex, partly because the activities in such processes often involve significant discretion to act according to professional judgement. • Examples of project processes include software design, movie production, most construction companies, and large fabrication operations such as those manufacturing turbo generators. • Jobbing processes • Jobbing processes also deal with high variety and low volumes. • In jobbing processes each product has to share the operation’s resources with many others. • Resources will process a series of items but, although each one will require similar attention, they may differ in their exact needs. • Many jobs will probably be ‘one-offs’ that are never repeated. • Jobbing processes could be relatively complex; however, they usually produce physically smaller products and, although sometimes requiring considerable skill. • Examples of jobbing processes include made-to-measure tailors, many precision engineers such as specialist toolmakers, furniture restorers, and the printer who produces tickets for the local social event. Batch processes • Batch processes may look like jobbing processes, but do not have the same degree of variety. • Each time batch processes produce more than one item at a time. • Each part of the process has periods when it is repeating itself, at least while the ‘batch’ is being processed. • The batch type of process can be found over a wide range of volume and variety levels. • Examples of batch processes include machine tool manufacturing, the production of some special gourmet frozen foods, and the manufacture of most of the component parts which go into mass-produced assemblies such as automobiles. Mass Processes • Mass processes are those which produce items in high volume and relatively narrow variety • The activities of mass processes are usually repetitive and largely predictable. • Examples of mass processes include frozen food production, automatic packing lines, automobile plants, television factories, and DVD production. Continuous processes • Continuous processes have even higher volume and usually lower variety than mass processes. • They also usually operate for longer periods of time. • Their predominant characteristic is of smooth flow from one part of the process to another. • Examples of continuous processes include water processing, petrochemical refineries, electricity utilities, steel making and some paper making. Professional services • Professional services are high-contact processes where customers spend a considerable time in the service process. • They can provide high levels of customization • Professional services tend to be people-based rather than equipment-based. • Professional services include management consultants, lawyers’ practices, architects, doctors’ surgeries, auditors, health and safety inspectors and some computer field service operations. Service shops • Service shops have levels of volume and variety (and customer contact, customization and staff discretion) between the extremes of professional and mass services. • Service is provided via mixes of front- and back-office activities. • Service shops include banks, high street shops, holiday tour operators, car rental companies, schools, most restaurants, hotels and travel agents. Mass services • Mass services have many customer transactions, involving limited contact time and little customization. • Staff are likely to have a relatively defined division of labour and have to follow set procedures. • Mass services include supermarkets, a national rail network, an airport, telecommunications service, library, television station, the police service and the enquiry desk at a utility. The product–process matrix Detailed process design • After the overall design of a process has been determined, its individual activities must be configured. • The detailed design of a process involves identifying all the individual activities that are needed to meet the objectives of the process, and deciding on the sequence in which these activities are to be performed and who is going to do them. • Some activities must be carried out before others and some activities can only be done by certain people or equipment. • Process design is often done using some simple visual approach, such as process mapping. Process mapping • Process mapping simply involves describing processes in terms of how the activities within the process relate to each other. • There are many techniques which can be used for process mapping. • All the techniques identify the different types of activity that take place during the process and show the flow of materials or people or information through the process. • Process mapping is needed to expose the reality of process behaviour. Some common process mapping symbols Process map for ‘enquire to delivery’ process at stage lighting operation The ‘collect and check’ process mapped to show different levels of process visibility Little’s law • The mathematical relationship (throughput time = work-inprogress * cycle time) is called Little’s law. • It is simple but very useful, and it works for any stable process. • Little’s law states that the average number of things in the system is the product of the average rate at which things leave the system and average time each one spends in the system. • Little’s law states that Throughput time = Work-in-progress * Cycle time. For example • Suppose it is decided that in a new sandwich assembly and sales process, the average number of customers in the process should be limited to around ten and the maximum time a customer is in the process should be on average four minutes. If the time to assemble and sell a sandwich in the new process has been reduced to 1.2 minutes, how many staff should be serving? • Putting this into Little’s law: Throughput time = 4 minutes and Work-in-progress, WIP = 10 • So since: Throughput time = WIP * cycle time Cycle time = Throughput time WIP Let’s discuss • • • • What is process design? What objectives should process design have? How do volume and variety affect process design? How are processes designed in detail? Any questions?
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