Neomind

Author: Gabriel Duessmann

  • Facilitate Logistic Processes using Automation

    Facilitate Logistic Processes using Automation

    Logistics processes are responsible for controlling and planning the entire logistics of products. It ranges from the purchase of material to the sale of the product. All of this must be well planned, executed and, above all, controlled so that the processes do not suffer bottlenecks along the way and are completed successfully.

    Why automate logistics processes?

    The logistics area of a company is responsible for taking care of everything from incoming materials to outgoing products. If this process is not efficient and agile, the company will be at great risk of having financial and organizational problems.

    Picture a company where there is little communication between sectors and no automation. Some employees in the production area are on vacation, the warehouses are no longer sufficient, and the logistics sector keeps ordering the same amount of material. The problems generated as a result of that can vary.

    Using automation to your advantage

    Automation has come to facilitate all kinds of process. It is able to communicate between different areas, act efficiently and extremely fast. Besides that, errors occur quite easily.

    Going back to the example of the company above. If this problem becomes recurrent, how could they solve it? Hire new employees responsible for managing the stock and production? Always order less material so that there is never a shortage of space in the warehouse? The best solution is, of course, to automate this whole process. But how to automate logistics processes?

    Setting up an automated process

    If you are still afraid to use automation technology, in this topic you will see how it can make life easier for your company. Before you start: there is no right or wrong process; there is a process that works and does not work for each type of company. To model an automated process, we will keep using the example of the company above and explain how to improve their logistics process. Let’s start modeling the process:

    • When the material arrives, the person in charge of storage receives it and immediately updates the system with the amount of material received. When they take the material to another sector, they must also update it. If the warehouse is too empty, the logistics department receives a message saying that it is necessary to buy more material;
    • When the employee goes on vacation, this is recorded in the system;
    • When a logistics employee asks for more material, they have data on whether the warehouse has sufficient storage space and how many employees are working. Here the amount of material required for purchase can also be calculated, based on the number of employees and the average productivity.

    Do you realize how many processes are automated? Imagine doing that without the help of automation, how much work it would be. One sector having to call the other one every time, calculate the amount of material needed, etc.

    This example was just for you to better understand how automation can speed up and improve the performance of company logistics processes. In this case you used a process to purchase material and needed to know if there would be enough space to store it and enough labor to use it. But automation is applicable in most logistics processes.

    Difficulties and problems when you don’t have automated logistics processes:

    • Repetition of tasks;
    • Failures. It can be due to the complexity of the process or not having all the necessary information;
    • A lot of time is wasted doing the procedures manually. Plus some processes can be very complex.

    Facilities and advantages of automating logistics processes:

    Now that you know a little more about automation, especially in the logistics sector, I will introduce you to the positives and why every company should use it.

    • Efficient communication:

    The logistics sector does not need to communicate with all the sectors of the company to obtain information. Each sector just needs to keep the information updated in the system;

    • Agility:

    Any new information is updated in milliseconds;

    • Precision:

    It is extremely difficult for failures to occur, unless the collaborator saves wrong information to the system. You will no longer have the problem of one information being passed on incorrectly, losing records, miscalculating and having the excuse that you didn’t know about something;

    • Convenience and practicality:

    Everything can be done over the internet, no traveling is required.

    Conclusion:

    Once you know what automation is capable of doing for the logistics sector of your company, the difference with and without it is clear. Automation is able to facilitate and streamline most processes and that is why it has been increasingly used in companies. Nowadays, the more developed and automated a company is, you can be sure that it will have better results for agility and efficiency. Through Fusion, using BPM, it is possible to create any logistics process, fully automated. Surely this process will be much easier to run and manage.

  • What is Business Process Analysis (BPA) and Business Process Analytics

    What is Business Process Analysis (BPA) and Business Process Analytics

    A business process is a series of steps performed by a group of stakeholders to achieve a concrete goal. Each step denotes a task that is assigned to a participant, who is responsible to keep running the flow until it is ended.

    Business Process Analytics

    Business processes are a lifeline of any organization, it enables real-time gain and end-to-end visibility into complex business processes. Once organizations have this visibility they can understand and handle bottlenecks, throughput and performance issues about these specific processes and as result you can take actions to optimize and solve it.

    Benefits of Process Analytics

    • Discover special cases, which are invisible on some reports and might be a large contributor to high costs and frustrated customers;
    • Visualize the workflow through the process stages and catch delays, bottlenecks, and outliers;
    • Measure how much time each part of process takes to be done;
    • Calculate time related costs. Once the time is measured, it may calculate the costs and tie the cost to the specific business process or customer;
    • Find patterns based on filters;
    • Have control about process issues or violations right after it happens.

    Business Process Analysis

    Business Process Analysis (BPA) is a methodology for the analysis of a business with a view to understanding the processes and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of its operations. It’s a specialized method within the broader context of business process management to analyze whether the current processes are achieving their goal. It describes the processes involved, parties participating, information exchanged and documents produced, it is applied by major companies in various consulting and implementation solutions.

    Benefits of using Business Process Analysis

    • Document implicit knowledge, capture and record manual and non-documented processes;
    • Clean documentation of the process, robust data on how the process is performing and greater understanding;
    • Identify obstacles that cause delays to processes, such as unnecessary forms, documents and repetitive data elements. Without a proper analysis, your team will waste a lot of time and effort solving the wrong problems or switching from one software to another;
    • Identify which user actions are hindering the process and where inefficiencies are;
    • Identify opportunities for improvements, such as reducing the number of trade documents and minimizing data requirements.

    When Business Process Analysis should be applied

    • Unidentified issues such as regular delays or increased customer complaints;
    • Process stakeholders are unclear about to carry out a process;
    • The team wants to replace the process to a new version.

    How to analyse a Business Process

    1. Identify the Process

    The first step is to choose the ‘as-is’ process to be analyzed and identify the stakeholders who handle it. Be sure to have a clear starting and stopping point for the process.

    2. Collect Process Information

    Then, gather as much information about the process as possible to understand the issues it faces, the objectives, the scope of improvement, and other goals of the analysis.

    3. Analyze As-Is Process

    Implement a business process analysis plan. Get to the bottom of the identified process, define the process in flowcharts and other diagrams, and measure its effectiveness. You can read the article about Five Steps For Process Mapping (AS IS) to aid you in your analysis.

    4. Develop To-Be Plan

    Finally, use the analysis to make recommendations how a ‘to-be’ process should look. Point out the requirements, suggest resources and changes, define a timeline, etc.

    Techniques used in Business Process Analysis

    Some of the popular Business Process Analysis techniques that are used in most of the business:

    • Gap Analysis: Find out what information you’re missing about the process;
    • Value-added Analysis: Find if each and every activity in your process adds value to the process and organization;
    • Root Cause Analysis: Find the core reasons for a problem and analyze what can be done to fix it;
    • Observation: Observe the process in action, see if it works as intended or not.

    Conclusion

    Business Process Analysis and Business Process Analytics are important to organizations and should be applied when it is possible. In this article you have seen its benefits and why it is effective. Organizations can have more control and productivity over their processes and better manage their process workflows.

    With Fusion Platform, you are able to create processes, manage it and make analysis, generating graphs to be easily and clearly analyzed. You can read What is Business Process Management (BPM) and what are its benefits to have more informations how Fusion might be useful for you company.

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