In 2004, Sears began a series of strategic projects to improve its operational effectiveness. One of the projects was to make process improvements at the Accounting Services Center. Dave Fleer, a Business Process Consultant for Sears, helped the Accounting Services Center improve its processes. The accounting processes the Center uses include:
- Asset management
- Inventory control
- Accounts payable
- Travel expense processing
- General accounting
The first step was to find and define the actual processes as they are, turning tribal knowledge into documented processes for the above five processes.
Two working groups were created. One group documented accounts payable and receivable, inventory management, and the travel expense processes. A second group was responsible for fixed assets and general accounting. The plan was to have a one-day workshop on BPM, followed by a one-day workshop on ARIS, the web design tool that was used. Then modeling sessions would follow, and the models would be transcribed into ARIS. The final step would be to link the models together and document all the databases and applications.
The BPM workshop was tasked to identify customer and supplier requirements, document the process, develop measures and build the process system, and implement process management to manage and improve process performance. Fleer related that getting the local accounting teams to come forth and really work to discover what the processes were and how they worked was a challenge. Because change is usually perceived by most people as problematic, more time was needed for the first part. The processes were actually documented using sticky notes put on butcher paper- used because it was longer than white boards.
Next, the ARIS class was held. In this class, Fleer explained how the ARIS web tool worked and how it would be used. 18 topics were covered with 9 exercises. It was a difficult and challenging class. The process modeling continued for several more days as the sticky notes were turned into ARIS models. During this time, there was much give and take between the class participants, their managers and other workers, with continuing debate on just what was being modeled and how the process actually worked. Which process do you document? There are several ways to look at each process. You can document it “as is,” or you can document the manager’s opinion of how it is. Or you can document the procedure that is listed in the manual, or you can document the future state of the process or the process as if it worked perfectly. Headquarters wanted only the “as is” process modeled. This was not an easy sell.
It turned out that trying to train accountants to become process modelers was a labor-intensive activity. In their defense, the accountants did not have much interest in learning a system they would probably not see again for many months. In the end, Fleer gave up on teaching process modeling. The models were put directly into ARIS from the sticky notes, then modified and reconciled as needed. This meant more work for Fleer and the other modelers, but the results were better.
They ended up with about 36 meters of butcher paper that defined 93 detailed process models with six organization charts and five summary-level process models. The results were:
- 1,190 events
- 884 functions
- 530 rules
- 225 application system types
- 158 clusters/data models
- 62 information carriers
The lessons learned included:
- Use SWAT teams to document tribal knowledge
- Train SMEs and process workers in BPM
- Limit ARIS training to process owners and workers
- Model ARIS real-time during modeling sessions
- Level setting is always a challenge
This gave a complete picture of Sears’ accounting procedures for the first time. The benefits were many. There was a new transparency in communications and a new understanding of process complexity. Many process similarities were discovered, including some previously unknown duplicate processes being done by different parts of the organization. There was a new appreciation for exception handling. Ninety percent of some accountants work turned out to be exceptions. The results were a good platform for the second phase of the project.
