A Construction Kit for the Application of Workflow- Management-Systems in Production Environments

Transcription

1 A Construction Kit for the Application of Workflow- Management-Systems in Production Environments Klaus Heinz 1 ; Horst-Artur Crostack 2 ; Oliver Grimm 3 ; Reiner Sackermann 4 ;Wissem Ellouze 5 1 Prof. Dr.-Ing., Lehrstuhl für Fertigungsvorbereitung, Universität Dortmund k.heinz@lfv.mb.uni-dortmund.de 2 Prof. Dr.-Ing., Lehrstuhl für Qualitätswesen, Universität Dortmund sekretariat@lqw.mb.uni-dortmund.de 3 Dipl.-Logist. MSIE (USA), Lehrstuhl für Fertigungsvorbereitung, Universität Dortmund grimm@lfv.mb.uni-dortmund.de 4 Dipl.-Ing., Lehrstuhl für Fertigungsvorbereitung, Universität Dortmund sackermann@lfv.mb.uni-dortmund.de 5 Dipl.-Ing., Lehrstuhl für Qualitätswesen, Universität Dortmund wissem.ellouze@lqw.mb.uni-dortmund.de Abstract Companies around the world are nowadays confronted with increased quality demands of customers worldwide. A possible way to cope with this situation is to use Workflow- Management-Systems which provide means for handling business processes. While companies with well structured processes such as financial service providers, have been using Workflow-Management-Systems for several years, their application in production environments and in small-and-medium-sized businesses (SMBs) is underdeveloped. This is mainly due to weak process knowledge, insufficient process standardization and a lack of organizational development in those companies. This paper presents an approach to guide small-and-medium-sized companies through the procedure of standardizing and documenting their processes such that they meet the requirements for the introduction of a Workflow-Management-System. As an example, a reference process model is presented for the failure management process in a production environment. A step-by-step guide book to help companies achieve the necessary progresses in process standardization and documentation is presented as well. To facilitate the application of the proposed procedure to other companies and other types of processes, a thorough description of all steps is given. Keywords quality management, workflow management, WFMS, production, process modeling, failure management Acknowledgements This paper is part of the research project Comprehensive Failure Management in Exception Situations using Workflow-Management-Systems (SAFE). The research project is funded by the Federal Department of Economy and Technology of Germany through the 200

2 Arbeitsgemeinschaft industrieller Forschungsvereinigungen (AiF) e.v. and the Forschungsgemeinschaft Qualität (FQS) e.v.. Introduction Growing market pressure from competitors around the world demands for a flexible and swift response to customers needs while companies have to keep an eye on the utilization ratio of their resources. Nowadays, companies are becoming aware of the fact that a process-oriented view on their value chain is an vital step towards meeting these goals. Process-oriented thinking is a prerequisite for any advances in production operations. Furthermore, process orientation is mandatory when working with international standards such as the ISO 9000 Standard. All fields of management and production nowadays tend to incorporate process oriented approaches. For example, the Activity-Based-Costing (ABC) in controlling and a standardized product data management (PDM) in engineering facilitate the exchange of product data along the value chain. Thus, the cooperation of process resources (staff and technical equipment) is a key factor to an overall success of the company. Given an existing IT infrastructure, a software may be used to govern the process handling. Workflow-Management-Systems are one type of software that can fulfill this task. They excel in the definition and execution of repeatable, structured processes. Unfortunately, many companies do not meet the necessary requirements for their implementation, such as sufficient standardization and a comprehensive documentation of their processes. This is especially true for small-and-medium-sized businesses. Additionally, in a production environment processes have to be handled with more flexibility because a streamlining of processes through a comprehensive standardization does not seem to be applicable. On the other hand, a survey conducted within the scope of the underlying research project SAFE shows that while only about 10% of the companies in the survey are using a Workflow-Management-System today, about 30% of the companies claim they will use one in the future. This development goes along with an estimated decrease in usage of processvisualization-only software in the future. These numbers resemble the results by Klamma (2000) who found that for the case of failure management (which will be used as an example for a reference process in this paper) about 90% of the companies in the survey do have documented process but only 10% use Workflow-Management-Software to handle the execution of these processes. However, 23% of the companies said they plan to use Workflow-Management-Systems in the future. But even those companies that do use a Workflow-Management-System in failure management often only have a few processes modeled and running and are far from having a comprehensive software-supported process execution (Klamma 2000). This leads to the assumption that many companies are already collecting the necessary data for a standardization of processes and are just about to take the leap towards a fully execution supporting system. However, usually some obstacles prevent successful implementation of a Workflow-Management-System in a company, especially in cases where the company is lacking the necessary organizational or technological prerequisites. 201

3 This paper proposes a procedure to assist companies to prepare themselves for the implementation of a Workflow-Management-System. In particular, some special issues for the production environment and small-and-medium-sized businesses are discussed. Throughout the following pages, this paper gives at first an introduction into the usage of Workflow-Management-Systems as a tool for process oriented businesses. Thereafter it defines the prerequisites for setting up such a system, presents an easy-to-follow guidebook to meet the requirements for an example reference process and also discusses briefly some issues about how to transfer the results to other processes and companies. Workflow-Management-Systems (WFMS) Structure and core features of WFMS A Workflow-Management-System is a software tool that helps to facilitate frequently repeated tasks within an organization. Therefore it uses standardized process definitions ( schemes ) which describe the workflow of a complex task. Whenever there is a new process to be started that is based on a known definition, a workflow scheme is instantiated, i.e. copied and individualized with specific process data. In addition to these process design and execution capabilities, Workflow-Management-Systems usually provide means for monitoring ongoing processes and examining completed processes. Protocol data gathered from the workflow engine (software which is running a process) can be a valuable source of information for an ongoing process improvement (Heinz et al. 2002). WFMC (1995) describes Workflow-Management-Systems as a system that completely defines, manages and executes workflows through the execution of software whose order of execution is driven by a computer representation of the workflow logic with a workflow being a computerized facilitation or automation of a business process, in whole or part (WFMC 1995). WFMS are well suited to handling all kinds of repetitive business processes described by the sequential execution of single process steps (activities) by different actors, human or nonhuman. Since an exact definition of the workflow logic is a prerequisite for the execution of a workflow, a certain number of repetitions is required for an economic use of a WFMS. While in the field of administration, management, bank services and insurance companies WFMS have been used for some time, they are not yet widely accepted in industrial environments. Reasons for this include the additional bureaucracy expected due to the implementation of an additional software system (often a lot of other software packages are in use in the company) and the lack of computer terminals on the shop-floor area. Another main hindrance with setting up a WFMS in production environment is the complexity and variety of many production processes compared to pure administrative processes which raises the efforts and thus costs for defining appropriate workflow schemes. Prerequisites for the application of a Workflow-Management-System The two main prerequisites for the application of a Workflow-Management-System are 202

4 a thorough knowledge and comprehensive documentation of all the company s core processes and a sufficient degree of development of these processes in terms of process quality and availability of data. Especially small-and-medium-sized businesses may have problems to meet these two requirements, since processes are often only documented in cases where the company is obliged to do so through supplier contracts, e.g. within the automotive industry, or the company reaches a critical level of complexity where a documentation becomes necessary in helping with the improvement of critical processes. The availability of process data and the quality of the processes cannot be assessed for the general case. Thus, this paper can only give an idea on how to provide guidelines for the improvement of the process quality for a specific case. The combination of the two core ideas of this paper, the model of a reference process and the step-by-step guidebook for its implementation, are tools to help companies to meet the two requirements for using a Workflow-Management-System. First the reference process presented gives an impression of the necessary degree of detail for the modeling of processes and shows a possible way of visualizing the processes using the set of symbols commonly used in quality management. The documentation of current processes as a first step towards the introduction of a process execution software also forces the manager-in-charge or engineer to think about the main and auxiliary processes. Secondly, the step-by-step guide can be used by companies to achieve the necessary degree of development of the processes. But one has to point out that the guide book can only be used for the specific reference process presented in this paper; it is not to be seen as a general purpose handbook for the improvement of processes. A reference process for the failure management in production Failure Management as an example for the proposed procedure Firstly, in order to satisfy the quality demands of a globalized market while pursuing innovative product strategies, it is necessary for companies to quickly respond to failures. Especially in cases where product problems were not discovered through quality inspection and faulty products were delivered to customers, a quick and comprehensive reaction that considers all possible effects of a failure is crucial to the company s success. Secondly, given an increasing complexity of products and operations and shorter life cycles, production processes become more prone to failures. The truth of this assumption is shown by the success of methods like Six Sigma, which divide any processes into their integral parts and even further, i.e. into their single variable parameters, which they seek to control in order to successfully master the main processes. Thus, the failure management process is a good example for a process to be prepared and implemented with a workflow-management-system, since a process streamlining and software 203

5 support of the failure management may significantly improve both the speed and the accuracy of reaction and a certain complexity of the products and processes offers a challenge to a successful implementation. Procedure for setting up the reference process and data sources A reference process can be considered to be the blueprint for a certain type of process. It is a generalized version of a process scheme not an actually usable scheme. In terms of broadness it usually contains far more steps than necessary while it lacks a detailed description of all actions. The reference process cannot by directly applied in a company but has to be reduced by cutting out the unnecessary steps which are not applicable for the specific company. As a second step, the reference process has to be adjusted to the company s needs and specified using the company s data. Within the scope of this project, there are three sources of input out of which the reference process for the failure management are compiled: Theoretical concepts for failure management processes described in literature, real failure management processes recorded in companies and results from a survey conducted among companies in Germany. These three sources of input are used for the modeling of the reference process as well as the modeling of the activities which represent the single steps that make up the reference process. The four most important models in literature upon which a process for failure management can be based and which are frequently cited are the Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) - Cycle by Deming (see e.g. Zollondz 2002 for a good description) Five steps for eliminating nonconformance (Crosby 1994), Six Sigma (Harry & Schröder 2000) and The Escalation Principle (Pfeifer 1997). The Plan, Do, Check, Act - Cycle (PDCA) by Deming is a tool for the ongoing improvement of a process. The PDCA cycle is not only focused on the single process but should also be considered as a procedure for the company as a whole. Crosby s Five steps for eliminating nonconformance was developed in 1961 in successfully implemented at the ITT Company. Its main addition to the PDCA cycle is that it distinguishes between immediate measures and the removal of the causes of a failure. The Six Sigma procedure as introduced by Harry in 1981 divides every process into its atomic parameters and has the final goal of reducing the statistical variability of every parameter. A Six Sigma process consists of the five steps Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Check (DMAIC). The Escalation Principle adds a vertical component to the failure management cycle. With the Escalation Principle, clear conditions are set, under which a failure management process is escalated, i.e. transferred to another level to solve the problem. In the SAFE -Project two companies have been selected and their processes have been analyzed. The companies use different types of failure management processes. Fortunately, 204

6 the processes used in these companies had already been documented to some degree. However, there was still need to record some auxiliary processes on-site. The processes recorded at the companies gave us a good insight into standard procedures used in practice. They especially pointed to the problem of interfacing the failure management process with external processes. The third source of data used was a survey among companies in Germany with a focus on production. The 12-page survey form contains 48 questions that can be divided into three blocks: Staff responsibilities, qualifications and training Processes of data acquisition and data processing Quality of current failure management processes Among many results that helped shaping the reference process in detail, such as the qualification profile of employees who are responsible for the failure management, the two main results from the survey are There is growing interest in the application of Workflow-Management-Systems. Standardized processes and those that can be standardized easily account for a high percentage of processes in failure management, according to the companies responses. Based on these three sources a reference process for the failure management has been modeled as described in the following paragraph. The reference process The reference process for the failure management consists of eight steps as shown in Figure 1. While the first six steps are assigned to the removal of a single failure and its causes, the seventh and eighth step are to be seen in a broader perspective. Even though Controlling, Motivation and Qualification are included in the reference they are rather cross-section tasks since they can only be completed successfully when paying attention to the complete situation. Changing the working instructions (Qualification) for example or changing the wage payment system (Motivation) is an action that will usually not be taken as a response to a single failure but to counteract an undesired development in the medium and long term run. 205

7 Figure 1. The failure management reference process For the description of the single steps (activities) of the reference model a joint IDEF-0/UML description model (Figure 2) is proposed. The IDEF model we are referring to in this case is the basic IDEF-0 model. The box in the middle of the diagram is filled with the functions which let the control object (the staff) convert the inputs into outputs by using the resources. Contrary to the original IDEF model, the function in the box in the centre is described using an UML application view diagram. In such a diagram, an actor (specified by his rights and tasks) performs a task on the input data. The link between an actor and an application view, i.e. the functional definition within the box, is called communication. In the combined IDEF-0/UML model, the UML application view and the functional description of the IDEF-0 mode are the same. Using the UML application view approach, it is easy to describe the activities and actors quite generally at first and later specify them further in case it is necessary. 206

8 Figure 2. The IDEF-0/UML process description model A step-by-step guide for setting up the reference process To meet the requirements for the implementation of the reference process with respect to the organizational structure of the company and the process quality a step-by-step guide as presented in this paragraph is useful. Before the implementation of the reference process, the guide book can be used to self-asses a company s capacity to act by determining the current degree of accomplishment for each step of the reference process. At the same time it also allows to uncover potentials for improvement of the failure management in particular and for the quality management in general. Therefore the implementation of the eight steps of the reference model is divided into five levels which represent the core functions of the reference model. The whole guide book developed within the scope of the SAFE research project contains the following main chapters: Instructions for using the guide book 207

9 A drawing of the failure management reference model and a description 40 pages of checklists which represent the 8 steps of the reference process and the 5 levels of accomplishment in each step The checklists (Figure 3) are a combination between unstructured checklists consisting of equal tasks on the one hand and a strong hierarchy of preconditioned procedures on the other hand. The guide book thus combines the advantages of both types of structures: Preconditions for the order of the tasks are only enforced in cases where it is determined by logic, e.g. using a software package is only possible if it was introduced in a previous level and the staff is sufficiently instructed in its usage. These preconditions are marked in the top left-hand corner of each of the 40 checklists. Beside these preconditions, the user is free to choose any sequence to accomplish the necessary tasks. The checklists make up the core of the guide book with one checklist for every combination of the reference process and of the five levels of accomplishment for each step. While the completion of the first four levels of each step means a full compliance with the requirements for implementing a Workflow-Management-System for the failure management, the fifth step contains all tasks which further extend the scope of the reference model. Thus, working on the fifth level adds some strategic aspects to the pure reference model compliance. Figure 3. An example for a checklist/level descriptor page in the guide book The checklists on the first level of each step contain the basic capabilities for any further development of this area. Usually these are measures which are quite easy to implement. 208

10 Nevertheless, companies are strongly obliged to immediately trigger the necessary measures because a deficit at level zero prevents any further action towards achieving complianc with the reference model. Conclusions Workflow-Management-Systems are tools which facilitate the execution and handling of any kind of repeatable and well-structured processes. The special situation in a production environment and within a small-and-medium-sized business imposes additional challenges to the implementation of Workflow-Management-Systems. First, production environments often lack the repetitiveness within their processes, thus requiring a more flexible process handling. Secondly, small-and-medium-sized businesses often lack a thorough documentation and sometimes even any documented knowledge of their processes at all. In this paper, we have presented a procedure to guide companies through the preparation for implementing a Workflow-Management-System. A reference model was set up based on onsite process recordings in companies, a literature review and a survey among companies. The procedure of achieving a conformity with the reference process step-by-step for every level can be transferred to any other process by changing the checklists and the contents of the guide book. Currently, the applicability of the procedure is validated by implementing the failure management reference process in selected companies. In the future, also the transferability of the proposed procedure has to be proven. In addition, it might be interesting to extend the self-assessing feature (box diagram) of the guide book to a point, where it can be used as a tool for a self-audit or a benchmark. References Crosby, P. B Completeness: quality for the 21st century. New York: Plume Heinz, K., Mesenhöller, E.; Grünz, L Workflow-Management-Systeme: Datenermittlung und - analyse für die Prozessoptimierung. Dortmund: Praxiswissen. ISO International Organization for Standardization: ISO Klamma, R Vernetztes Verbesserungsmanagement mit einem Unternehmensgedächtnis- Repository. Aachen: RWTH, Dissertation. p. 95. Pfeifer, T Wissensbasierte Systeme in der Qualitätssicherung. Berlin: Springer. pp Harry, M., Schröder, R Six Sigma. New York: Currency. WFMC The Workflow Management Coalition: Workflow Reference Model May 2004 Zollondz, H.-D Grundlagen Qualitätsmanagement : Einführung in Geschichte, Begriffe, Systeme und Konzepte. München: Oldenbourg. pp