Effort Engineering Quarter

Process Engineering Quarter (hereinafter, the Quarter) is the first of four lectures of Effort Quadrivium (hereinafter, the Quadrivium):

• The Quarter is designed to introduce its learners to enterprise discovery, or, in other words, to concepts related to obtaining data needed to administer the enterprise effort; and
• The Quadrivium examines concepts of administering various types of enterprises known as enterprise administration as a whole.

The Quadrivium is the first of seven modules of Septem Artes Administrativi, which is a course designed to introduce its learners to general concepts in business administration, management, and organizational behavior.

Outline

The predecessor lecture is Controlling Quarter.

Concepts

1. Process. An action that individuals, groups, and organizations engage in as a result of inputs and that leads to certain outputs.
   • Input. A variable that leads to processes.
   • Output. An immediate and direct result of a process.
   • Organizational process asset. All materials used by groups within an organization to define, tailor, implement, and maintain their processes.
   • Technique. Techniques alter the way a business analysis task is performed or describe a specific form the output of a task may take.
2. Process model.
   • Swimlane. The horizontal or vertical section of a process model that show which activities are performed by a particular actor or role.
3. System. A set of interrelated and interdependent parts arranged in a manner that produces a unified whole.
   • System. A collection of interrelated elements that interact to achieve an objective. System elements can include hardware, software, and people. One system can be a sub-element (or subsystem) of another system.
   • System. A set of interrelated components working together to produce a desired result.
   • Mission. An undertaking that is supported by the system to be designed to be successful (e.g. space mission).
   • Open system. A system that interacts with its environment.
   • Closed system. A system that is not influenced by and does not interact with its environment.
   • External interface. An interface with other systems (hardware, software, and human) that a proposed system will interact with.
   • Boundary. A separation between the interior of a system and what lies outside.
   • Context diagram. An analysis model that illustrates product scope by showing the system in its environment with the external entities (people and systems) that give to and receive from the system.
     1. Context. The users, other systems and other features of the environment of the system that the system will interact with.
4. Business event. A system trigger that is initiated by humans.
   • Event. An event is something that occurs to which an organizational unit, system, or process must respond.
   • Temporal event. A system trigger that is initiated by time.
   • Event response table. An analysis model in table format that defines the events (i.e., the input stimuli that trigger the system to carry out some function) and their responses.
5. Feedback. Information about the output of a system that can be used to adjust it.
   • Output. What is produced by a system.
   • Desired outcome. The business benefits that will result from meeting the business need and the end state desired by stakeholders.
6. Systems engineering. The orderly process of bringing a system into being using a systems approach.
   • Engineering. The application of scientific principles to practical ends.
   • Systems approach. The application of a systematic disciplined engineering approach that considers the system as a whole, its impact on its environment and continues throughout the lifecycle of a project.
   • System design. The identification of all the necessary components, their role, and how they have to interact for the system to fulfill its purpose.
   • System integration. The activity of integrating all the components of a system to make sure they work together as intended.
   • Human factor. Also called ergonomics. The scientific discipline of studying interactions between humans and external systems, including human-computer interaction. When applied to design, the study of human factors seeks to optimise both human well-being and system performance.
   • Interdisciplinarity. People from different disciplines working together to design systems.
   • Specifications. The technical requirements for systems design.
   • Datapoint-device architecture.
   • Object-oriented modeling. An approach to software engineering where software is comprised of components that are encapsulated groups of data and functions which can inherit behavior and attributes from other components; and whose components communicate via messages with one another. In some organizations, the same approach is used for business engineering to describe and package the logical components of the business.
7. Quality assurance (QA). The process of determining whether or not a product meets required specifications and customer expectations.
   • Quality. The degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfills requirements.
   • Quality assurance (QA). (1) The process of evaluating overall project performance on a regular basis to provide confidence that the project will satisfy the relevant quality standards. (2) The organizational unit that is assigned responsibility for quality assurance.
   • Quality assurance. Activities performed to ensure that a process will deliver products that meet an appropriate level of quality.
   • Six Sigma. A quality program designed to reduce defects and help lower costs, save time, and improve customer satisfaction.

Instruments

1. Flowchart software.
   • LibreOffice Draw.
   • Dia software.
   • Inkscape.

Practices

The successor lecture is Operations Management Quarter.