A
The system is designed, but does it match how we work?
The design described what the software had to do. How an order moves through the business from start to finish was written down nowhere.
Case · Belgian manufacturer
AI did the writing, the people decided the content.
A Belgian manufacturer was moving to a new ERPEén systeem dat je kernprocessen zoals voorraad, boekhouding en orders samenbrengt. and warehouse system. The design was ready, but nobody had drawn the processes from start to finish. With AI as a writing aid, we mapped nineteen of the twenty-four in four weeks, together with the people who carry them out every day.
The figures
Mapped faster, and so cheaper.
24
processes listed
From goods-in to dispatch, each with one owner at the client.
20
processes drawn
Nineteen of them were done after four weeks, drawn and approved by the owners themselves, not by us.
4
deliberately not drawn
Processes the new system doesn't change. Drawing them would have been a waste of time.
AI
did the writing
From the recording of each workshop, AI produced a first version of the flow. Our hours went into listening and checking, not drawing. That makes it faster, and so cheaper.
01 · The starting point
A good design, but no picture of the whole.
The project had a functional design and a supplier who knew what to build. What was missing was a picture of how the work actually runs today.
B
The knowledge sits with a few people.
The people on the shop floor and in the office knew who does what and when. None of it was on paper.
C
A lot runs through Excel.
Planning, batch numbers and certificates were tracked and passed on by hand. What the new system would take over from that was unclear.
Walter Swaenepoel as programme manager at Make IT So, on the steering committee
What have I seen far too often in the past? A project like this starts and nobody looks at the processes.
02 · The approach
One owner, one workshop and one flow on paper per process.
No heavyweight model. A fixed way of working that the people on the floor recognised straight away.
Week 1
List everything
We listed all the processes, twenty-four in total, and found one owner at the client for each. That owner signs off the flow afterwards, not us.
Weeks 1 to 4
Listen and record
One workshop per process with the owner and the people who do the work. We recorded the conversations. AI turned the recording into a first version of the flow, and we worked it out. That way the time went into listening, not drawing.
Weeks 2 to 4
Walk through on paper
Each flow was printed and walked through step by step with the owner. Anything that was wrong was marked on the spot and redrawn, until the owner said it was right.
After that
Use, don't archive
For each process we assessed the impact of the new system. Open points became work for the supplier, and the flows went to one central place where everyone can look them up.
What you only see when you draw it
A design describes what the software has to do. A flow shows how the work runs today. Only when you put the two side by side do you see where they clash. A few examples:
A step was in the wrong order. In the design, stock was booked out before the paperwork was ready. In practice it's the other way round: stock is only booked out once all the documents are in order. Transport planning also turned out to belong at the start, not the end.
A blocked batch was only half blocked. When a batch was blocked in one system, it wasn't automatically blocked in the other. In this industry, that's no detail.
A flow nobody recognised. The way item data moved between the systems had been drawn wrongly. You only see that when the people who work with it read the flow. It was redrawn.
New scope, deliberately parked. During the workshops a registration surfaced that the design didn't account for. The steering committee decided to deliberately move it to later, rather than slip it in unnoticed.
03 · Who did what
What we did. What the client did.
We brought the method and the writing. The knowledge and the final say stayed with the client.
What we did
The structure and the writing.
- List and divide everythingThe list of processes, the owners and the workshop schedule.
- Making the flowsRunning the workshops, recording, working out the flows and updating them after each round.
- Following up until it's doneAssessing the impact per process, passing open points to the supplier and making the flows available in one central place.
What the client did
The knowledge and the final say.
- The process ownersFor each process, one person who knows the work and signs off the flow.
- Making timePeople from the shop floor, the office and dispatch took part in the workshops, on top of their usual work.
04 · The result
Flows still in use today.
The flows didn't end up in a binder. The system is now in use, and the flows serve as the basis for testing, for training new staff and as information for partners and suppliers.
“That came out of the flows. A colleague expected something that had never been in the specifications, so it had never been built. We saw straight away the gap between what we had asked for and what the shop floor expected.”
BP
Belgian manufacturer
Head of IT
19 van 24
Processes mapped in four weeks