Axion Innovations - 4TQ Process Management Software

Recent Changes to 4TQ Applications

Bob Digance — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 06:33:00 GMT

Recent changes include:

•         Upgrade from Release 6 to Release 7 which is Word 12 and Vista compatible.

•         Critical Checks capability in process map that enables listing on website as a critical procedure.

•         Capability to colour value adding figures in 4TQFlow.

•         Ability to designate the default path in a process chart.

•         XML capability for Website.

•         Includes RSS feed capability to notify amendments.

•         Improved email facility to notify audits and also tasking capability in Outlook for audits and reviews

For compatibility with Word 12 you must have at least version 6.17.

Displaying Documents in the 4TQWebGen "Document Reference List"

Bob Digance — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 05:46:32 GMT

To display documents in the Document Reference List as shown in the figure below requires the completion of the Document reference field in 4TQExplorer.

To complete the fields for Document number (Reference in 4TQExplorer), Version, Status, and Next Review enter them for Word, PowerPoint, Excel and MSProjects as below.

For later versions of Acrobat:

Entering Outputs and Outcomes in the 4TQFlow Finish Figure

Bob Digance — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:27:00 GMT

The 4TQFlow Finish figure has the facility to enter descriptions of process outputs and outcomes.

What is the difference between a process output and outcome?

Process

A process represents what an organizations does - work! It is a series of inter-related activities that transforms inputs such as materials and information into outputs and outcomes that have value for stakeholders.

Outputs and Outcomes

The process outputs can be considered to be a product or a result that is related in some way to the process inputs.

Outputs are measured before they emerge from the process whereas outcomes are the impact the processes have. For example, an outcome could be an impact on the business or an unforeseen impact on the environment. Let us take the budget process where the output is all the budget details entered into the financial management system. One of the outcomes is that resources are provided for the business to function effectively.

4TQFlow Example

Managing Reviews / Audits of Policies and Forms in 4TQExplorer

Bob Digance — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 08:01:00 GMT

4TQExplorer allows viewing of a Review Schedule for 4TQFlow procedures. Also the Next Review date is displayed in the Details window of 4TQExplorer.

Often we are asked, "How can we manage the reviews or audits of our policies and forms?"

One solution is to use the Document Properties of Microsoft Office docments to insert a custom NextReview field.

Document properties, also known as metadata (metadata: Data that describes other data. For example, the words in a document are data; the word count is an example of metadata.), are details about a file that describe or identify it.

Document properties include details such as title, author name, subject, and keywords that identify the document's topic or contents. 4TQExplorer uses the document properties to display informations including the Title and Process Owner.

To insert a NextReview date in the document properties go to the custom window in the document properties as shown below.

In the Name box, type NextReview. Then select the data type which is Date. In the Value box, type a value date using the dd/mm/yyyy format. Click Add and exit document properties and Save the file.

Add the file to the 4TQExplorer framework or if it is already in the framework Update the file.

In 4TQExplorer Click the Details tab. The date will appear in the Next Review column. If the Next Review column is not visible, enable it using the Customize function accessed at the bottom of the Explore window.

Click on the Procedure Review tab to view the review schedule where the review is indicated as set by the letter S.

Operational efficiency and risk management are critical in the current financial crisis

Bob Digance — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 23:22:00 GMT

As the financial crisis unfolds, the implications for companies are becoming clearer. Companies need to:

improve operational efficiency, and
manage risk more effectively.

As the financial crisis unfolds, the implications for companies are becoming clearer. Companies need to:

improve operational efficiency, and
manage risk more effectively.

How can this be achieved? - by focusing on the critical processes in the business. Profitability can be improved and risk reduced and it does not require process redesign to achieve significant operational improvements.

Gartner claims that by "making the current-state handoffs, timings and responsibilities explicit, productivity improvements of more than 12 percent are normally realized." Business Process Management Success Hinges on Business-Led Initiatives, Gartner, 26July 2005. This can be achieved quickly and easily by simple process mapping. Risk is also reduced by a common understanding of processes, handoffs, timings and responsibilities.

Many organizations have documented, managed and improved their business processes by implementing formal process management systems. A study by Surrey University of 222 companies showed:

profit margins - more than twice the industry average,
return on capital employed (ROCE) - averaged more than double the industry average,
sales per employee - 40 percent higher, and
profit per employee - three times the industry average.

The first step is to quickly gain a common understanding of your key business processes through process mapping and identifying process simplification opportunities. Simplification can produce quick gains with minimum resources and upheaval to the business.

4TQToolKit Process Management software provides the tools for you to quickly and easily process map and simplify your operational processes.

For further information, go to www.axioninnovations.com.au

Welcome

Bob Digance — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 10:30:00 GMT

The Axion Innovations blog was created to provide an online space for people to connect and talk about managing and improving business processes and 4TQ products. Whether you have used the 4TQ products, sell them, or are interested in learning more, you have come to the right place!

You can find videos about 4TQ, read articles written by experts, provide comments and submit articles, and even meet other 4TQ users! You can view and subscribe to a RSS Feed in the Syndicate window. To receive blog entries or entry comments via email please subscribe by entering your email address in the Subscribe window. For further information on 4TQ software, you can also go to www.axioninnovations.com.au

Adding images to 4TQFlow process maps

Bob Digance — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:54:24 GMT

The text tool in 4TQFlow can be used to display additional information regarding the process map. The information can be in text or small image form.

Add a text figure to the process map by accessing the text tool in the Toolbox menu or via the pop-up menu on the workspace. A dialogue box will appear allowing the insertion of a link to a picture file as shown in the example below. Step 1 in the process map has an action that requires the wearing of hearing protection. The hearing protection image is inserted by entering in c:\4tq\Images|PPE\EAR_52X52.BMP" in the field between the Picture and the Edit button and Save the file.

Only small images may displayed in the text figure. If the image does not appear in the text figure it may be too large. Text figure size can be changed by increasing the font size or the figure scale size say from 5 X 2 to 5 X 3 in Preferences.

Sample images are provided in the Images folder in the System Path. For further information contact Bob Digance at www.axioninnovations.com.au

Text Image Example

Improving the performance of intranet sites made with 4TQWebGen

Bob Digance — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 07:19:00 GMT

User acceptance of process information deployed using an internet site is dependent on the speed of accessing the information. There are a number of simple design rules that will speed up the site significantly.

Most clients use the Site_Index.htm file as the entry point to the web site. This utilizes the internal Java script of your computer and therefore speed is dependent on your computer’s resources processing capability.

Processing capability can be improved by:

· The number of items (4TQFlow process maps, documents, and forms) within a 4TQExplorer framework is the main determinant of processing speed. Use less than 40 items per categories.

· Keep the source file names and file paths as short as possible.

· Do not use the space character in file or folder names. Use the underscore character ( _ ) as a replacement.

· The site supports the use of multiple frameworks (4TQExplorer files) for the one main entry point (Site_Index.htm file). You are not restricted to just one framework, and splitting up a large framework into two or more smaller ones will make a significant difference to the speed of the site refresh.

About the Author

Bob Digance is a principal consultant with Axion Innovations specializing in business process management and improvement and the effective use of 4TQ business process management applications.

For further information go to www.axioninnovations.com.au

Formatting text in 4TQFlow

Bob Digance — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 04:34:03 GMT

Text can be formatted and pictures files and hyperlinks can be inserted into text boxes in 4TQFlow by using format tags. The table lists the tags and the resulting actions that occur in MD Word and 4TQWebGen. The tags table is shown below.

Examples are provided in the attached 4TQFlow demonstration file TAGS_DMO.flw. Click on the link http://www.axioninnovations.com.au/TAGS_DMO.FLW to download or run the examples file.

4TQFlow Tags Table

Create 4TQFlow process maps with ease using 4TQScribe

Bob Digance — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:02:20 GMT

4TQScribe helps you create process maps quickly and accurately from existing procedures or by using the “Brainstorm” mode to capture the process by listing the process steps. Either way 4TQscibe will automate the geneation of 4TQFlow process maps for you.

4TQScribe Video

Click on the following link http://www.axioninnovations.com.au/4TQscribe.htm to view a video on how to use 4TQScibe to reduce your process mapping time and improve process mapping effectiveness.

For further information go to www.axioninnovations.com.au

Managing compliance requirements with 4TQPolicy Compliance Manager

Bob Digance — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:02:42 GMT

Introduction

What is compliance? "Adhering to the requirements of laws, industry and organizational standards and codes, principles of good governance and accepted community and ethical standards." AS 3806-2006 Compliance programs

The number of compliance requirements has increased in the last few years to a level where it takes significant resources to design, develop, implement, and maintain effective compliance programs. Also non compliance can result in penalties and damage to your reputation (which in the long term can have the greater impact than penalties).

How do organizations cope with managing compliance? Generally they have a range of policies and procedures for the conduct of their business that include compliance management issues. However they generally lack a coherent structure for managing and demonstrating compliance. In particular, there is inadequate risk assessment and mitigation of compliance requirements.

4TQPolicy Compliance Manager is designed to assist organizations manage compliance requirements effectively. Our approach is focused on:

Providing a coherent structure that enables you to identify and assess your compliance obligations,
Doing risk assessments to prioritize activities such as policy development and procedure development so compliance obligations are translated into practice.
Providing a means of integrating compliance obligations into existing practices and procedures.

The challenge in designing and developing a compliance program is to quickly get an overview of your compliance requirements and how these are currently being addressed and then produce a gap analysis.

Purpose

This article outlines how to:

use 4TQPolicy to develop a coherent structure of compliance obligations;
carry out an initial risk assessment of these obligations to prioritize the development of policies and procedures that translate the compliance obligations into practice; and
identify work needed to implement a compliance program.

Compliance Program Development Outline

Review compliance obligations documentation to determine the plan categories (such as Government, Legal, Financial, Business and Standards) and compliance plans (such as Business Objectives, Legislation and Standards).
Enter compliance plans into 4TQPolicy and produce the compliance plan register.
Determine the top priority plans for your organization.
Develop the initial policy sections and clauses based on your priority plans.
Map the compliance obligations in the plans to policy clauses.
Identify existing written policies for policy clauses and enter references in the policy statement text windows.
Carry out a high level initial risk assessment of policy clauses including tagging of clauses that do not have identified written policies.
Produce a gap analysis report based on the risks.
Determine and enter in section implementation or review dates as appropriate.
Load compliance obligation information into 4TQExplorer to allow mapping into the ways of working procedures.
Review the 4TQPolicy compliance management information to identify next steps such as:

Verification of compliance obligations and mapping, and initial risk assessments by appropriate managers.
Development of policy statements.
Documentation of associated processes.
Produce project closure report.

Outcomes

Compliance Obligation Plan Register in 4TQPolicy.
Policy framework in 4TQPolicy.
Compliance obligations clauses mapped to policy clauses.
High level risk assessment for the purpose of prioritizing implementation activities.
Risk register for compliance obligations.
Gap analysis report.
Identification of outstanding work.

Conclusions

The benefits of this approach include:

Simplification of the compliance obligations information so it is easier to read and understand.

Better understanding of compliance obligations’ risks and their associated controls so these obligations can be more effectively managed.
Producing a prioritised output report that enables focus on the highest risk items first.
A means of deploying compliance obligations into the ways of working so these obligations are translated into practice.
The ability to produce up-to-date compliance status reports that demonstrate how compliance obligations are being managed.

4TQPolicy Video

Click on the following link www.axioninnovations.com.au/4TQPolicy.htm to view a video on how to use 4TQPolicy to help manage compliance.

About the Author

Bob Digance is a principal consultant with Axion Innovations specializing in business process management and improvement and the effective use of 4TQ business process management applications.

For further information go to www.axioninnovations.com.au

How effective are your business processes? Are you measuring the right things?

Bob Digance — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 01:55:13 GMT

Traditionally process measures are focused on easy to measure costs such as people, resource and asset costs. Costs such as opportunity costs or indirect costs are less obvious and harder to measure. Often these hidden costs due to less visible causes have a greater impact on the process effectiveness. Factors such as waste and poor equipment performance can result in:

Late delivery
Poor use of people’s skills
Poor image
Low customer satisfaction
Less ability to respond to customers’ needs.

What is a measure that demonstrates process effectiveness and can form the basis for improvement? The maintenance industry has been using a measure of Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE).

OEE = availability X performance rate X quality rate

We have adapted OEE to measure Overall Process Effectiveness (OPE) where:

OPE = process availability X process performance rate X quality rate

Availability is the ratio of available time for processing to scheduled process time.

Availability = Available process time / Scheduled process time

For instance in a payment process in an hour three minutes are lost due to printer and computer breakdowns and setup and adjustment issues. Then the availability is 57/60 = 0.95 or 95 percent.

Performance rate is the ratio of actual process speed to rated process speed.

Performance rate = Actual process speed / Rated process speed

If the payment process is rated to pay 60 invoices per hour but only achieves forty five then the performance rate is 45/60 = 0.75 or 75 percent. Reduced speed can be due to issues such as a replacement operator who is untrained or equipment such as an enveloper having to run at reduced speed because it is not set up correctly.

The quality rate is the ratio of the number of items that meet requirements to the total items produced.

Quality rate = Number meeting requirements / Total produced

For instance in the example of invoice processing if three payments in 60 were incorrect then the quality rate is 57/60 = 0.95 or 95 percent.

For the payment process example:

Overall Process Efficiency OPE = 0.95 X 0.75 X 0.95 = 0.677 or 67.7 percent

An appropriate target for process improvement could be 85 percent. The achievement of 85 percent as compared to 67.7 percent should directly impact on the profitability of the process.

About the Author

Bob Digance is a principal consultant with Axion Innovations specializing in business process management and improvement and the effective use of 4TQ business process management applications.

For further information go to www.axioninnovations.com.au

Remote site access to process information

Bob Digance — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 23:55:15 GMT

A council in far outback Queensland Australia had the need to distribute their system documents to remote workforces.

The solution - create a web site with 4TQWebgen. The webroot folder can then be copied to a cd. Then on the remote computer desktop create a short cut to the web site index. The operator can access the system documentation by putting the cd in its drive and then clicking on the desktop icon.

Supervisors pick up updated cds fortnightly as required.

About the Author

Ray Richards is a principal consultant with Axion Innovations specializing in business process management systems and the effective use of 4TQ business process management applications.

For further information go to www.axioninnovations.com.au