42 (114)

266 Chapter 7 have been received from the bank and all flight tickets have been received from the central office of the travel agency in Somewhere Elsę where they are printed, the employee puts all the documents together in a handy folder for the client. The agency has to make surę that everything is ready at least three working days before the trip starts because, then, the client picks up the documents. At that point, the invołvement of the agency with the trip is finished. In case of a private trip, this also means that the process is complete. In case of a business trip, however, the declaration of the client still needs to be processed.

As mentioned, the finance department takes care of processing decla-rations. When it has received a client’s declaration and the necessary information of the bank, an employee of the finance department pro-cesses the declaration and calculates the balance. The result must be approved by the director of the finance department. In case of mistakes, the employee must make the necessary corrections. After the declaration has been approved by the director, the balance is settled with the next salary payment of the client. In addition, the total cost of the trip is deducted from the travel budget of the faculty or other unit where the client is employed. If a client does not hand in his or her declaration in time (within a month after completion of the trip), the finance department assumes that the total cost of the trip equals the sum of the advance payment and the value of the cash and cheąues given to the client.

The board of SU thinks that the main reason the above process takes so long is that the coordination between the three departments involved is poor. It believes that a workflow system might provide a solution. As a starting point, it would like to receive a report covering the following subjects.

(a)    A resource classification of all the resources involved in the current process, distinguishing roles, and groups.

(b)    A process model of the current situation, including information about roles, groups, and triggers.

(c)    An analysis of the resource classification and the process model, using the guidelines for process (re)design discussed in earlier chapters.

(d)    An improved resource classification/process model, based on the results of the analysis.