Swinburne University of Technology School of Business and Law INF80028 – Business Process Management Summer 2018 Assignment 1 Analysing AS-IS Business Processes for Equipment, materials and service acquisition process at Somewhere
Somewhere University has been providing education for over 50 years, and currently provides for 20,000 students. Numbers of students and staff are increasing. In order to produce a high- level education service to their students and provide quality support to their staff, the university management team believe that increasing the emphasis on Business Process Management (BPM) is the most important requirement. This means that BPM initiatives have to be implemented on a university-wide level in an effort to establish a process infrastructure and a process improvement culture.
To best achieve their strategy ideas, they follow BPM life cycles which includes process identification, discovery, analysis, redesign, implementation and monitoring and controlling.
Presume that they have already completed process identification and process discovery, and designed a clear process map which includes all level of processes. Now they move on to process analysis and redesign stage. This case focuses on one of the support process’ (Equipment, materials and service acquisition at Somewhere University) analysis and redesign. Below are details of the current process description and current issues/problems. Please read the case and refer to the assignments 1, 2, & 3 for detailed tasks.
For the Somewhere university culture and structure, you can use Swinburne as an example. From Swinburne website, you should be able to get basic, relevant information.
Employees, both academic and administrative, of Somewhere University require the University to purchase equipment, materials or services on their behalf.
An employee first fills in and signs a paper form that specifies a description of the goods or services required, the quality, the desired delivery date and the approximate cost. The employee can also nominate a specific supplier. Employees often request quotes from vendors to get the exact specifications of the product they require. If a quote is supplied, it is attached to the purchase requisition form when it is submitted.
The employee makes two photocopies, one for each of two managers, the Financial Manager and Procurement Manager to amend if appropriate. The Financial Manager attaches a budget line to cover the cost. The Procurement Manager locates the University’s policy that covers the proposed purchase. Both managers need to acknowledge the proposed purchase before the purchase requisition can proceed.
The Financial and Procurement Managers must return the purchase request to the employee. Once both are obtained, the employee forwards the request with amendments to the Purchasing Department. Employees usually make a copy of the request and approvals for their own record, in case the originals get lost. Please note that both the Financial Manager and the Procurement Manager must approve the employee’s purchase requisition. If either of them fails to approve the purchase requisition, the employee advises the other of the cancellation. The employee is then free to resubmit if required.
The Purchase clerk enters the purchase requisition into the University’s Enterprise System. If the employee has not nominated any vendors, the clerk will select one from the master vendor List in the Enterprise System (ES). If the employee has recommended an unknown vendor, an agreement has to be negotiated. This is done via a different process.
Sometimes the initial quote is absent or has expired in the meantime. In this case the clerk will have to get a new quote from the vendor. Once the vendor is registered in the ES, this can be done online, but it still may be some time before the quote comes through.
Once the quote is available, the clerk enters it and the ES generates a purchase order. Some vendors accept electronic purchase orders in a standard format, but others require a fax or hardcopy. Either way, the ES produces an electronic, fax or hardcopy form, which is sent to the vendor.
Material goods are always delivered to the Goods Receipt Department. When goods arrive, a clerk at this Department retrieves the corresponding purchase order from the ES. If a purchase order cannot be found, the shipment is returned to the vendor.
The clerk checks the quality and quantity. If there are any significant issues with the goods, the clerk cancels the purchase order in the ES, returns the goods to the vendor and advises both the employee, who made the original request and the Accounts Payable Office that the purchase is cancelled. Accounts Payable then know not to pay any invoice. Otherwise, the shipment is then delivered to the department of the employee through the internal mail and parcel service. The employee is notified they can collect the item from the mail drop in their department.
Once the employee acknowledges delivery, the Goods Receipt clerk generates a goods receipt form from the ES and forwards it to the Accounts Payable Office.
Meanwhile, the vendor sends an invoice for the goods to the University. Sometimes the invoice is included with the goods. Sometimes it is sent separately. Either way, it finds its way to the Accounts Payable Office. The invoice can arrive at any time after the purchase order has been sent, so in fact, it is possible that the Accounts Payable Office can receive the invoice before the goods receipt form. An Accounts Payable clerk attempts to find a matching purchase order in the ES. If not found, the clerk returns the invoice to the vendor unpaid.
Eventually, an Accounts Payable clerk compares the purchase order with the goods receipt form and the invoice. This is called “three-way matching”. When matched, the clerk is authorised to pay the vendor. Vendors often give a discount for early payment, so the amount payable may depend on time issues. Sometime this grace period expires.
Once payment is authorised, the clerk initiates a bank transfer to the vendor’s bank. A payment notice is also sent to the vendor. Payment is not confirmed finally until a receipt is received from the vendor.
Two weeks before the end of the financial year, if there are any purchase orders older than one month for which delivery has been received, but invoices have not yet been received, an Accounts Payable clerk sends out a request for invoice to the vendor. If an invoice is not received within two weeks, the PO is cancelled.
If the item requested is not material goods, but a digital artefact or service, it is delivered directly to the employee who requested the item. In this case, there is no goods receipt form. Once the Accounts Payable clerk receives an invoice and matches it to a purchase order, he asks the employee to confirm that the artefact or service has been satisfactorily received. If so, the clerk can go ahead with payment. However, the ES has not been updated. The Accounts Payable clerk advises the Goods Receipt Department that the item has been received so they can update the ES. A goods receipt form is automatically generated and discarded.
The employee can stipulate a time period, after which, if the item has not been received it would no longer be required. If the time period expires before the item has been ordered, the purchase requisition is cancelled and the employee is notified. If the time period expires after the item has been ordered but before it is received at the Goods Receipt Department, the purchase order is cancelled and both the vendor and the employee are notified. Otherwise, the goods are delivered as normal, even if the expiry time has elapsed before the employee receives the goods. Any invoice for which the PR has expired before goods have been received is just ignored.
There are many issues and problems facing the current business process.
Outline
This assignment requires you to demonstrate your understanding of the basic concepts and context of Business Processes and Business Process Management from both a theoretical and practical level. This is to be done in three stages. Stage 1 (this assignment) simply models the current process of the case you selected, highlights the current problems and suggests areas for potential improvement. If management concur with your report they intend to hire you to complete stage 2 (assignment 2 Part 1) which is to make detailed recommendations for improvement by adopt best practices and methodologies. Final stage, stage 3 (assignment 2 Part 2) which makes detailed recommendation(s) for long term improvement on Design & Execute a Process Automation Solution
Your assignment should be written in the form of a review aimed at the management and staff of the organisation with the current process and the current issues that have been identified. You may agree or disagree with those issues identified in the case study and suggest other issues not identified. There are many issues/problems in the current process. For assignment 1, individual effort, you should provide an overview of all major issues/problems listed in the case file, but only select THREE which you consider to be the most essential to resolve. Discuss this in detail, providing your reasoning. Do not make any specific recommendations at this stage.
The description of the case study processes has been provided to you. However, it may need more information in some sections. At the postgraduate level, you are required to do some research to add detail as necessary to the case we provided. You are allowed to make reasonable assumptions based on your experience and research. All assumptions have to be clearly explained in your report.
You should firstly understand the current process and construct a process model using BPMN level 1 Notation. To make it readable, your model should have a main process and a set of subprocesses. You can also have sub-processes inside sub-processes resulting in a multi-layered design. The number of sub-processes you have depends on your own model design. Each diagram should occupy no more than one page.
Your model of the case study using Level 1 BPM notation must be an AS-IS diagram. Note that some details may not be able to be represented precisely using the level 1 palette. You can list these limitations in the report.
It is always a good idea to use a table(s) to summarize activities for each model (main and sub-process models) - what are the key steps required to complete the activity?
work should include two parts:
Your report should be no more than 1500 words +/-10%, and it should:
Please note that you may need research to get further information.
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