civil engineering Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewage ...

and

project management Project management is the process of leading the work of a team to achieve all project goals within the given constraints. This information is usually described in project documentation, created at the beginning of the development process. Th ...

, process management is the management of "systematic series of activities directed towards causing an end result such that one or more inputs will be acted upon to create one or more outputs".PMI (2012), "Process" definition, in: ''A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge'', 5th Ed. Process management offers project organizations a means of applying the same quality improvement and defect reduction techniques used in business and manufacturing processes by taking a process view of project activity; modeling discrete activities and high-level processes.Mitchell (2016). See Chapter 3 Process Management—Evolution and Definition.

Overview

The term ''process management'' usually refers to the management of engineering processes and project management processes where a ''process'' is a collection of related, structured tasks that produce a specific service or product to address a certain goal for a particular actor or set of actors. Processes can be executed with procedures. They can be described as a sequence of steps that can execute a process and their value lies in that they are an accepted method of accomplishing a consistent performance or results. Process management provides engineering and project managers with a means of systemically thinking of project organizations,

semantics Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy Philosophy (f ...

concepts and logical frameworks that allow project activities to be planned, executed, analyzed and facilitate learning. In order for process management as defined to deliver consistent performance, it requires definition, elimination of non-

value-added In business, total value added is calculated by tabulating the unit value added (measured by summing unit profit sale price and production cost">Price.html" ;"title="he difference between Price">sale price and production cost], unit depreciatio ...

activities, Continual improvement process, continuous improvement,

project stakeholder Project stakeholders are persons or entities who have an interest in a given project. According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), the term ''project stakeholder'' refers to "an individual, group, or organization, who may affect, be affect ...

focus and team based approach. Mitchell (2016) notes that managing processes across divisional and organizational boundaries requires a more flexible management strategy as well as close cooperation among managers in diverse functional and operational units to ensure that the process flow is not interrupted by conflicts over lines of authority.

History

Process management originated as part of the manufacturing-based application of

statistical quality control Statistical process control (SPC) or statistical quality control (SQC) is the application of statistical methods to monitor and control the quality of a production process. This helps to ensure that the process operates efficiently, producing ...

movement in the late 1920s and early 1930s. What is relatively new, however, is the transition of process management methods from a manufacturing environment to a total company orientation and project management. Process management in the context of project management or engineering represents a change from the traditional concept of organizational authority using hierarchies and organizational structure to one requiring flexibility to ensure efficient process workflows. Mitchell (2016) notes that managing processes across divisional and organizational boundaries requires a more flexible management strategy as well as close cooperation among managers in diverse functional and operational units to ensure that the process flow is not interrupted by conflicts over lines of authority. Cooper, et al. note that manufacturing has been "a constant reference point and a source of innovation in construction". There is a new phenomenon occurring within the construction sector that is based upon the development and use of fundamental core management processes to improve the efficiency of the industry.

Topics

The notion of process

In the field of process management the notion of process, according to Mitchell (2016), can be characterized by: * Why become a project management professional? * Comprehensive program management. These concepts provides management with the following: *A way of thinking systematically about the behavior of people at work in an organizational setting. *A vocabulary of terms, concepts, theories, and methodologies that allow work experiences to be clearly analyzed, shared, and discussed. *Techniques for dealing with many of the problems that commonly occur in the work setting Process management in this context requires engineering knowledge, management activities and skill sets whereas business processes or manufacturing processes require operations management activities, and skill sets.

Tools and models

Process models are 'an effective way to show how a process works'. Project management process modeling tools provide managers and engineering professionals with the ability to model their processes, implement and execute those models, and refine the models based on actual performance. The result is that business process modeling tools can provide transparency into project management processes, as well as the centralization of project organization process models and execution metrics.
A number of modelling/systems analysis techniques exist such as

data flow diagram A data-flow diagram is a way of representing a flow of data through a process or a system (usually an information system). The DFD also provides information about the outputs and inputs of each entity and the process itself. A data-flow diagram ha ...

s (DFD),

HIPO model HIPO model (hierarchical input process output model) is a systems analysis design aid and documentation technique from the 1970s, used for representing the modules of a system as a hierarchy and for documenting each module.Sandia National Laborat ...

(hierarchy + input-process-output),

data modeling Data modeling in software engineering is the process of creating a data model for an information system by applying certain formal techniques. Overview Data modeling is a process used to define and analyze data requirements needed to suppo ...

and

IDEF0 IDEF0, a compound acronym ("Icam DEFinition for Function Modeling", where ICAM is an acronym for "Integrated Computer Aided Manufacturing"), is a function modeling methodology for describing manufacturing functions, which offers a functional modeli ...

(integration definition language 0 for function modelling) process modelling technique.

Threaded processes

A process activity that is concurrent or simultaneously executing can be termed a thread.

ISO 9000

ISO 9000 The ISO 9000 family is a set of five quality management systems (QMS) standards that help organizations ensure they meet customer and other stakeholder needs within statutory and regulatory requirements related to a product or service. ISO 90 ...

promotes the process approach to managing an

organization An organization or organisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose. The word is derived from ...

...promotes the adoption of a process approach when developing, implementing and improving the effectiveness of a
quality management Quality management ensures that an organization, product or service consistently functions well. It has four main components: quality planning, quality assurance, quality control and quality improvement. Quality management is focused not only ...
system, to enhance
customer satisfaction Customer satisfaction (often abbreviated as CSAT) is a term frequently used in marketing. It is a measure of how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectation. Customer satisfaction is defined as "the number of c ...
by meeting
customer requirement In product development and process optimization, a requirement is a singular documented physical or functional need that a particular design, product or process aims to satisfy. It is commonly used in a formal sense in engineering design, includi ...
s.Source: clause 0.2 of ISO 9001:2000

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Project Management Project management Business process management IEEE standards ISO/IEC standards