Business process management is a means, not an end
Companies in all industries, including aviation (airlines, airplane manufacturers, etc.), are constantly challenged to ensure business growth and efficiency. This is the most important factor of competition and business development. One of the tasks that must be solved to achieve this goal is increasing the efficiency of business processes. This implies achieving the following objectives:
reduction of business process execution time;
reducing the number of participants;
increasing the probability of successful results;
increasing satisfaction of external and internal consumers of business process results;
business process management based on its digitized quality indicators.
Knowing what improvements in business processes the company wants to achieve, it is necessary to identify the tool that will make it possible to achieve this. In this case, one of the best options would be Business Process Management (BPM) methodology, which is a systematic approach to analyze, design, execute, document, measure, monitor and control automated and non-automated processes to achieve the company's goals and business strategy.
Thus, business process management (BPM) involves the following steps:
Identification and categorization of business processes;
Business process modeling;
Optimization and automation of business processes.
Let's take a closer look at each of these points using airlines as an example.
Step 1 - Identification and categorization of business processes
First of all, it is necessary to determine all the airline's business processes. This task should be based on the functions that each department performs, as well as the results and products that external customers (passengers) receive. Then all identified functions should be combined into logical groups, each of which corresponds to a separate business process. For example, the business process "Obtaining flight permit" is a logical group of functions "simulator session scheduling", "instructor scheduling", "pilot exam", etc.
All identified airline business processes can be categorized into three types:
management - realizes the management and functioning of the airline;
operational - ensure the main activities of the airline and create the main revenue stream (ticket sales, flight planning, flight supply, aircraft maintenance, marketing, etc.). They can be additionally divided into internal and external business processes;
supporting - provide the infrastructure and resources needed to keep the company running efficiently (personnel recruitment, technical support of IT systems, office management, accounting, etc.).
In the second part of this article we will detail the next step in implementing a BPM approach.