Process management: an enabler, not an end in itself

Anyone who wants to insulate and seal building envelopes in an energy-efficient way today can hardly avoid Swisspor products and solutions. The Swisspor Group, with seven locations and around 550 employees in Switzerland alone, describes itself as the leading Swiss developer, manufacturer and supplier of products and systems for energy-efficient building envelopes.

Creating an understanding of process management

Everyone agrees that well-developed process management is essential for industrial production. However, when Patrice Urban joined the company in 2022, he realized that Although the processes were defined, they were unclear, poorly documented or outdated. «They were often recorded in Visio images that were already too old when they were created,» he recalls today. Knowledge about process management was also largely lacking. It was therefore obvious to optimize the processes on the basis of operational excellence and tap into potential for improvement. Particularly in the post-coronavirus era, the company realized that it «had to become fit for the future - and to do that, you have to have your processes under control».

Initially, the mood in the company was skeptical, says Patrice Urban. Many considered process management to be «a lot of effort without any return». He therefore set himself the task of creating understanding and acceptance - primarily through practical demonstrations rather than theoretical explanations.

Strategic benefits of the solution

A key moment was deciding on a suitable tool. After comparing various systems, Swisspor opted for ADONIS from the BOC Group. Patrice Urban emphasizes: «ADONIS is clearly one of the benchmark applications.» For him, the decisive factor was that the tool makes the processes «easy to experience» - via an intuitive, homepage-like interface that employees can navigate without specialist knowledge. The focus was on making processes visible, accessible and understandable in order to create responsibility.

A key result of this work was to make previously unclear responsibilities visible. In product management, for example, it became clear that there was «no one person who was really responsible for the process chain». The situation was similar in the area of master data. There was a manager, but «he was always running from pillar to post». It was only through visualization in ADONIS that responsibilities were clarified and roles defined, making the organization as a whole more transparent. According to Patrice Urban, process management is not an end in itself, but a means of creating clarity, efficiency and better cooperation. Only then can a lively process culture emerge - and that is impossible without the right tool.

The process management solution was also able to demonstrate its strategic benefits for large projects. For example, Swisspor is working on a group-wide ERP project. Here, ADONIS serves as a link between the business and IT worlds. Processes are broken down to requirements level, resulting in a «specification directly from the system», says Patrice Urban. This precise documentation prevents undesirable developments and expensive rework. Patrice Urban describes the tool as a «game changer», as it manages master data centrally and automatically transfers changes to all process representations - a major advantage over Visio or Excel.

Share experiences

What lessons can be learned from the introduction of ADONIS and what experience can Patrice Urban pass on to other companies? In this context, he warns against «all-in-one solutions» that only offer process management as a secondary function. «They're all makeshift solutions that don't do it justice.» Good process quality is a significant business lever: «Processes are expensive - and accordingly they are also valuable.

He emphasizes a calm, evolutionary approach to introducing a process management system: not a big bang, but a step-by-step approach. He describes it like this: «The squirrel feeds on hard work.» Changes were not imposed from above, but developed from within. However, he remained consistent: «We are tough on the matter - we only use this tool.»

Resistance was dealt with pragmatically: he selected problem processes with a high level of suffering in order to quickly demonstrate the benefits. Real processes were recorded in workshops and jointly modeled in the system. «We never talked about ADONIS or BPM, we simply tackled the problems.» The participants saw live how their processes were created - without any theoretical training. This on-the-fly method generated enthusiasm and quick understanding.

Patrice Urban also describes the effect of visualization: «When experts look at a mapped process together, they often recognize the complexity of their own processes. »Everyone says: 'Now we're crazy - this is so complicated, we have to do it better'." This realization initiates improvements quite naturally, without pressure or formal CIP processes.

And what happens next?

Patrice Urban points to the natural link with problem solutions and projects for long-term effectiveness. Optimizations arise from daily challenges, such as complaints or controlling information. In this way, process management remains relevant without additional administrative ballast.

He largely rejects key figures to measure success quantitatively. «I can't say: »We now have 20 % efficiency gains«.» The decisive factor is not the tool itself, but the fact that you work with it continuously. "Because it's easy, we do it - otherwise we wouldn't do it." Process management is an enabler, but not an end in itself.

Finally, he explains his business perspective: Investing in process management always pays off. Even for small companies with high personnel costs, the return on investment is obvious: «Anyone who believes that investing in process optimization is too much has not understood that the entire company only moves through things that people do.» Processes are the greatest lever for increasing efficiency, as all actions in the company are handled by processes - without exception.

Further information: BOC Group and Swisspor