ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the importance of business process design for the overall business performance and the organization’s business strategy. A process is a somewhat more ambiguous concept with different meanings, depending on the context in which it is used. The process view makes no assumptions about the types of processes constituting the organization. In terms of process design, cross-functional business processes that are core to the organization and include a significant amount of nonmanufacturing-related activities often offer the greatest potential for improvement. A flow unit can be defined as a “transient entity* that proceeds through various activities and finally exits the process as finished output.” A common goal in business process design is to try to reduce the time jobs spend waiting in buffers and thereby achieve a higher flow rate for the overall process. Activities can be thought of as micro processes consisting of a collection of tasks.
