AAOM Handbook

What goes on in a Process?

Each business Process has at its core the completion of work that will produce the outcomes expected from the Process. The keys to a successful Process are; understanding all of the work that will make the Process successful, and consistently and correctly completing that work. Note. The definition of work used within the BPF documentation derives from the Oxford English Dictionary - viz the application of effort (either physical or mental) towards the achievement of an outcome. Within the BPF we use three terms 1 to classify the different types of work involved in any specific Process. These are; 1. Production Work – activities directly involving transferring, transforming or storing items (materials or information) used in producing the outcome of the process. For example: a. in a mining/mineral processing environment; blasting, hoisting, stockpiling, grinding, smelting. b. in a power generation environment; transferring fuel, transforming energy (eg oil to heat, rotation of alternator to electricity), transforming voltage & current levels and transmitting power over lines.. c. in an accounting environment; collecting, processing and storing information on costs and outputs. Note: The world is full of interconnected processes, and the output of one process will typically produce and/or deliver, through a series of transform, transfer and storage activities, material or information that is used in another process. In the BPF, all activities involved in transforming, transferring or storing materials or information, in any process, are defined as the Production work of that Process. 2. Service Work – activities involved in identifying and managing threats that would otherwise cause the Production work of the Process to stop, either in full or in part. For example: a. in a mining/mineral processing environment; monitoring and maintenance of environmental controls, monitoring and maintenance of ground support or pit walls, monitoring and maintenance of roads, monitoring and maintenance of equipment. b. in a power generation environment; monitoring and maintenance of environmental controls, monitoring and maintenance of equipment. c. in an accounting environment; maintenance of information systems, backup of critical information. From this definition it should be obvious that Service work is a process of risk management.

1 These terms are adapted from the work of Macdonald Associates.