Your business practices encompass how you manage your enterprise.
You can start the analyses of your processes by collecting information
about your enterprise. This information helps you to determine the
types of processes that you could automate.
Enterprise analysis
Gather
the following enterprise information to use when designing your workflow
processes:
- If you have an organizational chart, review your
organizational chart to see how your enterprise is organized.
- If your enterprise is multinational, list the languages
that are required for your workflow processes.
- Collect the business process flows that document
the business units of your organization. If there are different process
flows for the same organizations at various locations, gather those
process flows. Compare the business practices at locations to find
out if the differences are significant.
- Review the standard operating procedures, such
as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9000 quality
management or the ISO 14000 procedures.
- Review the regulatory requirements for your industry
and how they affect your business processes.
- Review the policies that define who is responsible
for creating budgets.
- Review the policies that define financial approval limits and
list the individuals who have the authority to approve spending.
- Research the types of records at your enterprise
that require approval.
- Review the policies that define the levels of approval that are
required for each type of record.
Implementation analysis
Gather
the following implementation information for use when designing your
workflow processes:
- Determine the number of organizations and sites
that exist for your enterprise. You create workflow processes at the
system level. Find out if there are separate processes or subprocesses
for different organizations or sites.
- Find out if you use the Integration Framework to
integrate with any external systems.
- Determine if any Maximo® product
options have been purchased.
- Research the applications that your enterprise
has implemented.
- Determine the types of records for which you use the software.
- Find out if the system has been configured to generate
records, such as inventory reorder records, preventive maintenance
work orders, and scheduled payment invoices.
- Determine if your implementation uses Start Centers
that do not include the Workflow Inbox. If users cannot access the
Inbox, you can design your workflow processes to send e-mail messages
to notify users.