nlenbe-nlThe best software for quality and risk management.

What is process management and how does software support it?

The term Process Management is mainly used in the corporate world when talking about setting up, managing and improving business processes. The creation of a good coherence between organisation and environment, process components and the various disciplines is essential. Processes do not stand alone, but support the entire organisation. This makes it all the more important to approach process management efficiently and effectively. This not only saves time but also ensures that you can respond to changes in a timely manner.

What is the purpose of process management?

Process management is not the same for every organisation. The term is mainly used in the business world when talking about designing, managing and improving business processes.

Important in this context is the creation of coherence between organisation and environment, process components and the various process disciplines (e.g. analysis, design, architecture, reporting, execution and improvement).

Processes do not stand alone, but support the entire organisation. This makes it all the more important to approach process management efficiently and effectively. It not only saves time but also ensures that you can respond to changes in a timely manner.

Process management enables you to deliver added value to your customers; in terms of quality, speed and compliance. By implementing process management, your organisation will work smarter, more efficiently and safer.

One of the goals of process management is the continuous improvement of business
processes to avoid waste and improve quality. In other words: process optimisation.

What is process optimisation?

Process optimisation is the continuous improvement of business processes to make them even more efficient and effective.

A common method of optimising processes is through Lean: maximum performance for the best customer experience without wasting resources. Lean Six Sigma puts the customer first, helps improve quality, shorten turnaround times and ultimately save costs.

For your organisation, process management means:

  • Shorter lead times;
  • More insight and overview of processes and process steps;
  • Less waste and therefore cost reduction;
  • Responding more quickly to risks and opportunities.

Together, these components ensure that the quality of your product or service improves, which ultimately benefits your customer. The best part: they won’t even cost you any extra time or effort.

Process management software helps you perform process mapping and secure progress. This creates an overview, monitors the status and ensures ownership of process steps.

Make sure the improvement process is properly secured from start to finish, as this will
prevent any surprises and keep you from falling back to the current situation. This is the only
way to guarantee success.

What is a process flow?

The schematic representation of all process steps required to execute a process is called a process flow. By means of a process flow, you can see exactly how processes run, which departments are involved and where the risks and opportunities for process optimisation lie.

This helps your organisation to see at a glance where quality rounds should be carried out and where improvement opportunities lie.

You get a visually elaborated process flow for more grip on processes.

So you want to get started with process optimisation? Then first define all existing process flows.

What is process modelling?

The schematic mapping of processes is called process modelling (or Business Process Modelling, BPM). Process modelling can be done in different ways; you can choose from a number of methods and techniques.

When you apply process modelling properly, you improve overview and insight by creating a visual representation of process flows and the steps involved. It also becomes much clearer where steps can be taken through process optimisation.

What levels and steps does process modelling consist of?

  1. Gather all relevant information and identify the right people involved;
  2. Analyse the information you have, see who is involved;
  3. Engage in a conversation to see how the process is actually going;
  4. Determine the input and output of the process;
  5. Choose the right method for process modelling;
  6. Then elaborate the process flow;
  7. Give feedback to the organisation;
  8. Evaluate the process flow with those involved;
  9. Implement any improvements.

The clear mapping of processes can be part of a process optimisation process and can be done with smart process management software. This software helps you, among other things, to link improvement actions and owners, so that you can easily monitor the status and progress.

What is a workflow?

A workflow is a logical sequence of activities that are performed to obtain a predefined outcome.

Take a document update process:

  1. The workflow starts with the author who writes it;
  2. Followed by an external reviewer;
  3. The document is approved by the document owner;
  4. After which there is a reading confirmation of the required target group.

This may sound like a simple set of steps, but knowing the steps of a workflow is crucial to effective document management.

Other workflows within organisations are, for example, business processes, complaint handling, the progress of an order, etc. If you divide these workflows into sub-activities, departments or individuals can perform tasks in the right order.

The advantages of workflows in a process management system

Workflows can be managed with a process management system (such as Zenya FLOW). With such a system, you ensure that the right information goes from one person to another in a clear and efficient way, while the process also complies with the rules of your organisation.

Do you want to be sure that the right people are always informed about e.g. document updates or new tasks? You can set automatic notifications and reminders.

Thanks to clear dashboards, you always have an up-to-date overview of processes, so that you can continuously guarantee the quality of processes.

How does smart software support this?

With powerful process management software such as Zenya, you can easily model business processes, track the status of process steps and secure ownership. This helps organisations to keep an overview and gain insight, including through real-time reporting. On this basis, you can work on process optimisation and avoid waste.

Smart software therefore helps organisations to work more efficiently, reduce the number
of errors and be more agile in a constantly changing environment.

The advantages of process management software in a nutshell:

  • Insights thanks to process mapping;
  • Prevent waste by responding in a timely manner to deviations or bottlenecks;
  • Easily secure and demonstrate ownership;
  • Schematic representation of process steps in a workflow makes it easy to evaluate them;
  • Easily link documents to process steps;
  • Real-time dashboards to track the status and progress of processes;
  • Clear reports increase awareness of risks and opportunities, to which improvement actions can be linked.

Want to learn more about Zenya?

Request the brochure to have all information conveniently at hand.

Download the brochure about Zenya Software - Software for Quality and Riskmanagement

Free demo available

Want to see what Zenya can do for your organisation? Request a free demo.

Want to find out what Zenya
can do for your organisation?

Contact our experts without obligation! We will be pleased to brainstorm with you.