Comment 1–A business process is a collection of related activities that produce a desired outcome for the company that utilizes the process in order to deliver value to a customer. The business process that I will be using as an example is purchasing a product at Walmart.
The triggering event is a customer purchasing a product at one of Walmart’s stores. Whenever a customer purchases an item, the customer inadvertently interacts with Walmart’s POS system. That information about the product purchased is handed off to the associated Walmart supplier. This supplier produces the product, labels it, and packs it for shipping. Information about the product’s destination is then handed off to an external shipping company. In the shipping activity, there are two outcomes (Claribel Slide 10).
One outcome of the product is the shipment to a Walmart distribution center within 72 hours of ordering the good. This 72 hours could serve as a potential bottleneck. The product is received, selected, packed for shipping, and then reshipped within 48 hours of the product being received by the center. Within another 48 hours, the good is shipped, received by an individual store, and stored in preparation for selling. Eventually, it will be sold to a customer, who will start the process over. The 48-hour time limits mentioned above could prove to be potential bottlenecks. The second outcome of the shipping process is that the good is shipped directly from the manufacturer directly into storage at an individual store, where it will be sold to a customer to restart the process (Claribel Slide 10).
Variations could occur in the manufacturing activity of the process. Goods could be created with defects of other problems that could delay the rest of the process. This can be especially common in businesses that Walmart deals with, as one of Walmart’s business rules is to partner with manufacturers that can produce a good at the lowest possible cost. Variations could also occur in shipping, where a good may not reach the correct destination and delaying the process. The cost of this process is generally very low overall. Walmart is able to use its leverage as a large company to pressure suppliers into producing for minimal profit and at high volumes, potentially causing capacity restrictions.
Mason, Claribel. “Cmpm A00267ppmmJun93G- 1 – Wal-Mart: Supply Chain Management Background Business Process Redesign: Process, IT Implications: Process, IT.” http://slideplayer.com/slide/5911183/. Modified over 2 years ago. Web. Accessed 5/24/2018
Business Process: Freshmen student registration.
Since freshmen are new to the system at Widener University, there are several steps that must happen to ensure that the students are in the correct courses, in the correct sequence for progression. The School of Nursing (SON) curriculum is very rigid and does not have any free electives so there is no room for error. If a student takes a course that does not count for a required pre-requisite or general education requirement, they will be required to pay out of pocket for the course during the summer to stay on track. In addition, there are courses that have pre-requisites or minimum SAT/ACT math and/or English (reading scores). Students cannot take those courses without meeting the pre-requisites.
- Acceptance to Widener University School of Nursing
- Payment of deposit
- Attendance at Pride Registration day
Major Process Activities:
- Secretary sends email to home email address to remind students to set up campus cruiser email and access. She reminds students to sign up for one of six possible Pride Registration days.
- Secretary emails directions to configure computer to have access on campus, directions to access the online student planning system (through Campus Cruiser), a list of social science and humanities courses, a list of required pre-requisite and general education courses. Students are encouraged to go into the system and begin to build a schedule.
- The day of registration, the students receive a brief in person tutorial of how to access Campus Cruiser and Student Planning.
- Students who have taken AP/college courses document the courses on a form to be handed in to the faculty.
- Students log into campus cruiser and open student planning.
- Students choose classes based on curriculum and availability.
- Faculty and volunteer staff walk around room and assist students to build schedule.
- Faculty and volunteer staff confirm schedule before students register.
- Student registers.
Students register for the appropriate classes.
- Departments within the College of Arts and Sciences build courses for freshman general education and non-nursing pre-requisite courses and assigns faculty which are entered into Colleague.
- The SON builds freshman nursing courses and assigns faculty which are entered into Colleague.
- Once the courses are built, the registrar assigns rooms to the courses and they are published in Colleague for the students to see.
- Students then register for classes using the online system.
- Faculty and volunteers then confirm the schedule
- The secretaries in the SON check the schedules of all incoming freshman to ensure they are accurate.
- If there is an error, the Assistant Dean of Students corrects the schedule.
- The freshmen faculty advisors do a final check of the schedule on the Friday before classes start.
- Students cannot register before they pay the deposit.
- Courses are created and approved by the department. No other department can create courses for a different department.
- All courses have a maximum capacity of seats.
- Pre-requisites must be met before a course can be taken.
Current freshman enrollment is 860 students. There must be enough classes for all 860 students to have the required courses needed.
- Students, who do not go into Campus Cruiser and set up their email and Campus Cruiser access prior to registration, must do so during registration. Since the registration time is only 1.5 hours, they may miss the session after registration while they are trying to set up their access.
- Departments do not open up enough seats for registration. The students must then wait for the registrar to get permission to open new sections or raise caps.
- Wifi access can be an issue if a large number of students are trying to access it at the same time.
- Students, who have not reviewed the course selections list, do not know what they would like to take for social science/humanities electives.
1. Students who come to Widener with AP courses or college courses, need a different schedule or a minor depending on the number of credits.
2. Students who have a math SAT score less than 530 or an ACT score less than 19, must take math 101 in the fall. Math 101 or a SAT score 530 or greater or ACT score greater than 19 are required to take chemistry. This means that the student will take Chemistry in the spring semester freshman year and then take anatomy andn physiology I in the summer to get back on track with the science progression.
Prior to the online system, students completed paper registration with their top three choices and the registrar’s office built their schedule. On the Friday before classes started, many students changed their schedules, which required paper drop/add slips processed by the registrar’s office. The costs included paper (for forms) as well as manpower. The student’s schedules were still checked by the SON secretaries.
Since the institution of the online computer system, the registrar’s office has seen a decrease in the number of hours creating schedules and inputting drop/add forms. They do volunteer during student registration. Faculty volunteer their time to assist the students. There is the additional cost of the computer program for online registration but I do not know the actual cost