TABLE OF CONTENTS In any business enterprise, processes exist everywhere, and they are really among the most important elements. There are many kinds of processes, and they work differently. The frequently encountered processes can be classified into the following categories:
Product design and development
Manufacturing or production
Office or transaction
Service factory
Pure service shop
Retail service store
Professional service
Telephone service
Project shop
Logistics and distribution
Transportation service
Purchasing and supply chain
Each category has distinct features, and we discuss each in detail.
For the manufacturing industry, product design and development is a key process, and it is also usually the most technically sophisticated, costly, and time-consuming process. For the service industry, the product design and development process does exist, but its importance and features vary from industry to industry. For the movie industry, the products are films. Here the product development process is clearly very important and creativity is very important; however, mass production is simply the duplication of films. The software industry is also very product oriented; the products are clearly the software, and the product development process is extremely important. For the health-care industry, the service product can be defined as diagnosis-treatment-care; this diagnosis-treatment-care planning process can be treated as a product development process. The plan will be different for each patient, and it will be developed quickly after the patient is admitted and...
