What is Process Fragmentation?

‘Process fragmentation happens when business‑critical processes are not managed in a unified workflow. They become a series of handoffs among departments, teams and systems, introducing a risk of error, mistakes and delay with each handoff.” Business Process Management Institute

Process Fragmentation can occur across many of the key elements within a business and include:

Physical fragmentation such as different geographical locations

Cultural fragmentation arising from different regions, countries or departments within an organisation (e.g., Sales versus accounts)

IT Fragmentation such as legacy systems versus new systems or cloud versus on-premise

Lack of process measurement, metrics, and objective data

Understanding the four main areas where fragmentation can exist is important. However, the most critical element is capturing objective data and studying the results of where fragmentation is creating friction and flow issues.

Silo Structure and Process Enforcement

Traditionally most organisations still concentrate their power in vertical units, whether generated through organic growth or through acquisition.  These vertical units can often become silos that operate as functional islands that deliver a functional output within the process chain.

Typical Silo’s include:

Even within defined silos, multiple functions and mini-Silos can exist such as Account Payables (AP) and Account Receivables (AR) if there is no joined up process flow.

Systems Fragmentation

Typically, when processes grow organically over time, ERP workflows can become a complex series of handoffs between business functions, job roles and information systems. This is particularly relevant when organisations use multiple systems of record such as Oracle, SAP, ServiceNow, SalesForce….

Over time the systems and applications are customised and enhanced in response to business strategy changes, compliance, security and a wide range of other drivers that move the business processes away from the original process path.

Each handoff or work around represents a possibility to introduce mistakes, delays and added cost which all contribute to further organisational and process complexity.  Devoid of a fully integrated process workflow and full understanding of all the variables and metrics within the process, value deteriorates and system complexity increases.

The potential for further friction and resistance increases again as tactical individual work arounds, whilst satisfying a need locally, fail to recognise the upstream and downstream consequences of changing the flow and this impacts the efficiency of the complete system.

Fragmented Process Flows are like a dammed stream

Processes that are fragmented across the organisation are like dams that block a stream or river and prevent a smooth flow of water. Eventually the water backs up and find other routes to travel down, however if this outside of the required course that the stream needs to follow it becomes a problem leading to localised flooding or breaking through to areas not requiring water and without any formal control.

So how do you find where those dammed processes are?

As with any business change exercise, identifying where to start is the first major hurdle for stakeholders and managers to contend with. Typical engagements involve teams of ‘Process Documenters’ who map out the ‘as-is’ to the ‘to-be’, taking up valuable time and resources with interviewing everyone in the process chain.

Not only is this very time consuming and frustrating for those needing to perform their day jobs, but it also typically fails to capture all of the process flows including the workarounds and exceptions. This creates a misunderstanding of the scale of the issue at best and at worst means that any future defined strategy is doomed to failure as it does not cater for the real world but rather the more limited perceived one. Therefore, process improvement projects only part solve the problem.

The Future is Process Mining

There is a solution and service that allows you to look deep inside your organisations systems by utilising already captured data, making it an objective rather than subjective exercise.

Process Mining utilises Data Mining technology to replicate processes in real time and capture all the interactions and timelines of the process. This   gives an holistic oversight across the process landscape and allows changes to be tested and modelled before implemented into production. Process Mining allows a complete view of the end to process including all upstream and downstream components. This is particularly important where the process flow touches multiple systems of record such as Oracle, SAP, Salesforce, ServiceNow….

The level of detail and understanding of the complexity of the internal workings with the ability to capture all the process touch points and interactions empowers stakeholders and users with the ability to make changes and deliver significantly improved outcomes.

Summary

Process Mining is a next generation Digital transformation product that enables accurate assessments and fully measurable analysis of process flows with captured systems data. It allows organisations to predict outcomes before changes are made and once changes have been made measure them against the expected results.

For further information on how Process Mining can help your organisation please contact Jim Brown at ONQU Automation at jim@onquautomation.com or phone 0121 803 8808

For further information on ONQU Process Tuning Services please contact Jim Brown at hello@onquautomation.com or visit www.onquautomation.com 

About ONQU Automation

ONQU Automation is a specialist delivery partner for UiPath Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Process Mining and ABBYY Intelligent Document Solutions.

 Operating from a Head Office in Birmingham (UK) and with bases in London (UK) for automation and Kerala (India) for managed RPA, Oracle services and support, ONQU delivers a wide range of discovery, consultancy and support services for whatever stage of the automation or support journey organisations are on.

Process Mining  delivers a full understanding and comprehensive ovewrview of the prcesses that exist within your organisation. No longer do process reviews take months of interviews and long documentation reviews.

Free your customer services team from undertaking processes that don’t require human attention or interaction. Remove processes that don’t add customer value. 

As with any investment the proposed outcome must be measured, monitored and compared. Because a process can be isolated then modelled chnages to the process or when automated can demostratre accuratley how much value has been achieved.