ERP Consultant Blog

Business Process Assessment Committee: The Key to Ongoing Improvement

Written by Keith Perkins | Mon, Apr 29, 2013

The Business Process Assessment Committee is usually created as an interdepartmental team that keeps track of business processes and how these processes are dependent on one group or another.  The goal of a Business Process Assessment Committee is to look for opportunities to increase efficiency and productivity in the business where improvements can be made to human and software related business processes.  It is the committee’s responsibility to identify areas for improvement in the business which may include upgrading or integrating existing software applications, adding additional software to reduce and automate manual tasks, recommend training opportunities for staff, or making recommendations to switch to another ERP software system altogether.

To get started, each department within the business selects a Business Process Assessment  Committee member to represent their department.  Each committee member asks each person within their department a series of questions to identify human and software related bottlenecks and inefficiencies.  It is helpful for each committee member to find out what each person in their department likes and dislikes about the existing software they use to do their job.  The department committee representative surveys the department to identify opportunities to improve and reports the information back to the Business Process Assessment Committee.
The Business Process Assessment Committee then investigates and makes recommendations on how the bottlenecks or inefficiencies can be improved with extra employee training or implementation of software.  If the Business Process Assessment Committee decides the inefficiencies are Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP software related, then the committee will define the business process management objectives and write a request for proposal from ERP software vendors.  Once the ERP software selection is final the Business Process Assessment Committee overseas the new ERP software related implementation to ensure it meets the objectives of resolving the business process inefficiencies.

The Business Process Assessment Committee focuses on the following objectives during ERP software implementation related projects:

•    Consistent program and project execution
•    Meeting commitments
•    Staying within the parameters to measure progress across the entire organization
•    Employee project inclusiveness
•    Employee culture change

This committee should meet monthly or quarterly or however frequently the business challenges demand them to meet.  The committee is dedicated to the ongoing improvement of the business.  It helps business owners prioritize projects and future budgets to help drive each department within the business to increase productivity and profits.  If you are interested in learning more about Business Process Assessments or Business Process Management please contact us to learn more!

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