Successful completion of the project “Modeling and Redesign of the Processes of the Core Business Unit of DEPA (Natural gas Company), using the software ARIS Connect by SOFTWARE AG. The project included updating of the Value Added Chain, mapping of all processes, as well as modeling and redesigning the top 20 Cost Sensitive processes of the Core Business Unit, taking into account the broad legislative framework governing the Natural Gas Trading sector.
ARIS Connect has been installed since 2021, and 63 executive and support processes have already been modeled. All members of the organization who have joined the system, as ARIS Viewers and Designers, have attended a training program for viewing, monitoring, maintenance & updating of processes, but also for communication / collaboration through the system using the ARIS Collaboration Portal.
At the beginning of the latest project, the organization’s Value Added Chain Diagram was updated to add the six (6) Business Units that constitute the critical Core Functions of the organization.
At the same time, the institutional framework governing the Core Business Unit was studied, with the aim of communicating and understanding the institutional rules and constraints defined by the framework, and to achieve in the following phases their harmonization with the processes to be recorded.
Subsequently, an initial round of interviews with the members of all the Business Units was organized to clarify the set of responsibilities and the total of their critical processes. The mapping of the list was based on the identification of the following for each process:
- Purpose,
- Start event,
- End event,
- Intermediate events,
- Link to the Institutional Framework,
- Deadlines based on the Institutional Framework.
Since the list of processes was presented to all Business Units involved, twenty (20) more “Cost Sensitive” processes were selected as a priority to be modeled according to the BPMN 2.0 standard in the ARIS Connect system. Cost Sensitive processes are associated with activities which, if not followed correctly, can cause various types of risks to the organization:
- financial losses,
- customer dissatisfaction,
- negative publicity (effect on corporate image).
Moreover, we took into consideration the Pareto “20-80” rule (a 20% share is always responsible for 80% of the results).
Following the implementation of individual interviews with each Business Unit, the BPMN 2.0 flow charts were created in the ARIS Connect system, which were enriched with a description for the analysis of each step, using the Procedure Template that combines in addition to the above mapping the fields:
- Process Owner
- Related Units
- Relevant circulars /forms
- Relevant Authorities involved
- Validity of the process
- Frequency of execution
- Description of each action with Responsible Role and corresponding supporting systems/applications and relevant files,
- Record keeping in accordance with the Authorities (file name, file type, etc.)
- Checkpoints per Role Manager
- Associated Procedures by step
Upon completion of the process design phase, focused meetings with the relevant managers of the Business Units were held to improve the processes, with the aim of identifying the “Pain Points”, i.e. the points that prohibit the smooth operation of the processes, or the points that are amenable to improvement.
All redesign proposals were collected in separate tables, focusing on the topic, the proposal for improvement, the expected percentage of process improvement by adopting the proposal, the person responsible for implementation and the proposed implementation time framework. In addition, indicators to measure the efficiency of the process (quantitative and/or qualitative) were proposed (where feasible), to monitor the processes more effectively in the future.
With the completion of the process redesign and in cooperation with the Organization Department of DEPA, a new template of the Process Manual was created, which is automatically exported from the ARIS Connect system in an MS Office file (word, pdf), facilitating the dissemination of information internally in the organization and the monitoring of the processes by Internal Audit.
In conclusion, by modeling and redesigning of the top twenty (20) Cost Sensitive Depa Core processes, the project consolidated:
- The alignment of the organization with the Institutional Framework (Compliance Management),
- The identification of weaknesses and / or risks (Risk Management),
- The strengthening of controls (Controls Management)