Even if we can look back on over twenty years of Business Process Engineering, the business processes are still loaded with activities that waste the scarce means, lead to delays and demotivate the employees. For this reason, there is regularly the need to purge the processes by improving procedures through abandonment.

In order to facilitate them, the procedures should be available in a documented form. If the appropriate descriptions are missing, one cannot help but to determine the flows with the required details. Already on the highest layer, the process map, possible candidates can be found, e.g. entire areas that can be outsourced. Then, the actual business processes can be scanned for unnecessary process steps by looking at the following aspects.

• Put the emphasis on core tasks
  Originally, enterprises handled the entire value creation internally, from the steel production, to the finished vehicle. Meanwhile, service providers offer almost all functions as services – from the food supply, to the facility and the vehicle fleet management, to the services of IT and product development.
  In order to align the processes to the core tasks, the strategic core is specified and other functions are outsourced. Only the coordination of external partners remains internally.
• Simplify activities
  Frequently the procedures are contaminated with old activities that are no longer necessary, e.g. administrating documents or distributing minutes. Since the information is stored electronically, with the appropriate access, the required information is available to the employees at any time.
  The activities can be simplified by constantly using the current IT in various places.
• Eliminate control tasks
  Depending on the existing culture the processes are filled with controls and rework loops. With the Four Eyes Principle the participants are deprived and the flow is slowed down.
  By dissolving the control tasks, the processes will be faster and the quality of the results increases with the authorized self-control of the participants.
• Shorten Processes
  The tendency to keep the number of processes small leads to overloaded monsters. Quickly different activities are integrated into one process, e.g. the sales process, the HR process, the development process.
  By looking at the natural breaking points, these monsters can be divided and/or shortened.
• Delete senseless wasting
  Actually, there are no senseless activities, since there are always unquestionable explanations that show the benefit for the one or the other.
  For this reason all activities should be questioned whether they provide a value-add to the results. If this justification is not comprehensible on an objective basis, the activity should be eliminated without replacement.

Bottom line: Business processes can be designed with less friction loss by abandoning activities. They become faster, obtain better results and give the employees enough time to fulfill the core tasks intently.