Concerted efforts by manufacturers to control certain structured business processes in recent times have led to a desire by those same manufacturers to improve efficiency in other ways. They’ve identified unstructured processes in their respective enterprises, but addressing them without the proper tools is a near-impossible task.
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Jacob Ukelson, CEO, ActionBase |
A growing number of manufacturing enterprises have begun to adopt enterprise resource planning systems and other measures to help organize, maintain, and ultimately control their structured business processes.
While these companies have most likely seen significant benefits from their new-found control over structured business processes such as purchasing, manufacturing, marketing, and sales, they may yet to understand the value of managing their unstructured processes.
“As companies look to manage more and more processes, they are finding that many don’t fit the structured mold,” said Jacob Ukelson, CTO of ActionBase, a provider of human process management solutions.
Project collaborations, negotiations, and managerial decisions are just some examples of unstructured processes that, when conducted inefficiently, end up costing manufacturers time and money. These processes are unstructured because they contain a human element to them, but that doesn’t make them any less critical to organizational success than processes of the structured variety.
According to Ukelson, businesses have discovered tools and solutions to help manage their structured processes. But it would be wrong to assume that these same tools and solutions will also help them manage their unstructured processes.
“(They are) not (things) that happens over and over the same way, and (they are) not something you can structure ahead of time.” he said.
Concerted efforts by manufacturers to control certain structured business processes in recent times have led to a desire by those same manufacturers to improve efficiency in other ways. They’ve identified unstructured processes in their respective enterprises, but addressing them without the proper tools is a near-impossible task. Optimization is the goal, but there is uncertainty of how to reach it, or even how to measure that optimization.
According to Ukelson, unstructured processes don’t have predefined set of rules that can describe the people and expertise needed to complete them, and they may involve other individuals or enterprises.
“What can happen in a large organization is that things can fall between the cracks,” he stated.
But if properly addressed, there can be complete visibility of those processes across a manufacturing enterprise.
“People starting to be able to look at these unstructured processes and see what’s going on in their business,” said Ukelson.
In today’s globalized business environment, one which requires ever-increasing amounts of communication and collaboration, identifying and addressing unstructured processes has become critical tasks for manufacturers to undertake. The human element of collaboration needs to be optimized, much like any other business process.
“In some sense, (a globalized business environment) is where (optimizing unstructured processes) can works best,” said Ukelson
Much like with structured business processes, unstructured processes can be a way in which a manufacturing enterprise differentiates itself from a competitor. To conduct one’s processes inefficiently or ineffectively could result in missed business opportunities. But with better understanding and visibility, manufacturers can manage unstructured processes in such a way that it allows for more flexibility -- and innovation.
“People start to understand more and more of what’s required of them to run this process,” said Ukelson.
“(As more knowledge) comes to the forefront, the people (involved in the process) can make their own decisions,” he continued. “There will be freedom to do that.”
Jacob Ukelson is CTO of ActionBase, a company that provides human process management solutions that enable businesses to manage their business critical processes. For more information, visit www.actionbase.com.
