Bpr Project - Attendance Management System

University of Colombo School of Computing

ICT 2008
Business Process Re-Engineering
SECOND YEAR GROUP ASSIGNMENT II

Lecturer: - Dr. Yamaya Ekanayake

Date of Submission
3rd of October 2012

Index Numbers of Group Members

H.D.G.B.Chandradasa - 10020071

R.M.S.V.Rathnayaka - 10020438

D.G.T.Mendis - 10020578

L.T.Hettiarachchi - 10020675

P.M.S.K. Palansooriya - 10021108

Table of Contents

1) Introduction and Overview .................................................................................................... 2
2) Background of the Organization............................................................................................ 3
3) Vision..................................................................................................................................... 4
4) Identify a critical process to be reengineered and the importance of the identified process . 5
4.1) Task 01 - Identify the Business Process in Jinasena Group............................................ 5
4.2) Task 02 - Identify a critical process & why it is important to reengineer ...................... 6
5) Identify problems/opportunities/issues critical to the process ............................................... 7
5.1) Problems ......................................................................................................................... 7
5.2) Opportunities................................................................................................................... 7
5.3) Issues ............................................................................................................................... 7
6) Existing process model for the Attendance Management Process ........................................ 9
7) New process vision in the new process redesign and performance objectives ................... 10
7.1) Process Vision ............................................................................................................... 10
7.2) Performance Objectives ................................................................................................ 10
7.2.1) Speed Data Capturing............................................................................................. 10
7.2.2) Standardized Data Format ...................................................................................... 10
7.2.3) Distribute Work Effort ........................................................................................... 10
7.2.4) Real Time Data Availability and minimized time and cost ................................... 10
8) New process model for the Attendance Management Process ............................................ 11
9) How the new process may improve the contacts with customers ....................................... 12
10) Possible change to Organizational structure, Job skills /Reward systems, Information
Technologies, Culture and beliefs............................................................................................ 13
10.1) Organizational Structure ............................................................................................. 13
10.2) Job Skills/Reward systems .......................................................................................... 15
10.3) Information Technologies ........................................................................................... 16
10.4) Organization culture, values and beliefs ..................................................................... 16
11) Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 18
12) Reference List .................................................................................................................... 19
13) Appendices ........................................................................................................................ 20

Business Process Re-Engineering ICT 2008| Page 1 of 20

1) Introduction and Overview

There is a historic parallel for the current limited success of business process advancement.
The first wide-scale introductions of IT in the business place focused on the improvement of
isolated parts of business operations, for example the generation of invoices. Productivity
increased locally, but generally the overall effect was small. Only during the 80s and 90s,
companies started to see the benefits of considering entire business processes when
implementing information systems, and as a result, huge gains were achieved.

Today, it seems, companies are at the start of this same loop again. Once again, the view on
the entire process is missing, which prevents the new technology to become truly effective.

This paper puts the emphasis on the Business Process Reengineering. It addresses guidelines
to redesign business processes. The purpose of the redesign is to meet business partners'
expectations, while improving the performance of the redesign. The specific business area
under consideration is the Attendance Management of the Jinasena Group of Company. We
will present some support for this redesign in this paper.

The structure of this paper is as follows. First, in Section 2 and 3, we take a brief introduction
to the company. In Section 4, we present our analysis of identifying a critical process to be
re-engineered. And also the importance of the redesign will be stated clearly. Section 5 is
pretty much important as it explains problems in current process, opportunities and issues of
redesigning the process.

Section 6 to 9 state the modeling of the current process, modeling of the re-engineered
process and the way new design will interact with customers. There onwards this paper
discusses the potential changes to the Organizational Structure, Job Skills/Reward systems,
Information Technologies and Organization culture, values and beliefs.


2) Background of the Organization

Jinasena is a group of company that well known for providing well equipped, innovative and
complex machines for the enhanced services of engineering, agriculture, domestic use and
many other areas. The history of company goes to 1905 year which our country known as
Ceylon under British rule, there was a person called Mr. C. Jinasena, the visionary founder
fulfilled his dream of an enterprise with courage, vision and determination in a very short
period of time.
They began as an enterprise of engineering by repairing and servicing machinery used in tea
and rubber manufacture. Today with the achievements of modern technologies and latest data
processing, Jinasena Group becomes one of the largest industrial and trading organizations in
Sri Lanka. Then the group gets the opportunity to widen many avenues and innovative
creations into outside of the engineering sector.

By giving a significant consideration to the quality standards of the products, the company
gained the satisfaction of the customers in domestically as well as internationally. The
modern structure of the organization geared to meet the most demanding deadlines on
schedule and it helps to build a continuous relationship with business partners over the world.

Basically their product range is divided into five categories as follows;

1. Water pumps- This product become forefront of this field and meets the huge
demand of consumers.

2. Agricultural machinery- In 1978 Jinasena introduced Paddy Thresher and Reaper to
the market by doing a meticulously research. With the improvements of research and
development facilities and demand the separate company formed as Jinasena
Agriculture Machinery (Pvt) Limited. There is a range of products other than
agricultural that can be identified as Bush/Weed cutters, „Ground Master‟ playground
mowers, Pepper Threshers, Rotary Tillers, Choppers, Sieverts and Grinders.

3. Water Purifiers- Company successfully achieved the challenge of providing pure
water using filter technologies that removes excess Iron, Manganese, Sculpture and
other harmful organic matter.


4. Electric Motors- Began to manufacture in the early 1970, which comply with
international quality standards, provided starters and protective gear are of approved
manufacture.

5. Drip and sprinkler irrigation systems- offer buyers the highest quality water
management tools.

3) Vision

“Providing quality products at affordable prices” is the concept that is being driven to
achieve the objectives efficiently and effectively. Jinasena Limited ensures that the products
conform to the highest quality standards with the state of the art facilities and consistently
adhering to the Company‟s core values. Here core processes or Primary activities can be
identified as Design, Manufacturing, Distribution chain, Sales and Marketing. These
activities directly related to the external customers according to the Porter‟s value chain.
Administrative, Finance Human resource management and other technical activities are the
back office activities or supporting services of the organization.

The Company mainly focuses to delivery their products with highest quality to gain customer
satisfaction and sustainability of the market. Adequate resources, Job skills of workers and
top management commitment are also vital factors to achieve overall objectives of the
company. Lack of motivation due to reward systems and facilities, unsuitable working
environment and high bargaining power of suppliers indirectly affect to the company to
satisfy their goals.


4) Identify a critical process to be reengineered and the importance of the
identified process

4.1) Task 01 - Identify the Business Process in Jinasena Group

Bussiness
Process

Distribution Customer Supporting
Design Production
Chain Relationship Services

Human
Accounting Marketing Resource
Management

This business process is created with the functional specializations. The following table
describes the business activities.

Functional Area Business Activities
Design Create product design, Analysis of the product materials,
Researching
Production Manufacture the product, Checking for quality, Testing the
products
Distribution Chain Transportation of the product
Customer Relationship Identify the customers and make relationship with them
Supporting Services
 Accounting Attendance Management, Creating Financial Statements,
Prepare Wages
 Marketing Identify the customers, Selling the products
 Human Resource Hiring employees, Evaluating job performances, Conduct
Management training for the employees.

Note: There are more activities in the business process but in here it only describes the main
activities.


 The functions cannot be alone when doing some activities.
Ex: - The Production must have the HRM & Design support to manufacture the
product.

4.2) Task 02 - Identify a critical process & why it is important to reengineer

We have identified that there are no major problems with the business process except the
“Attendance Management System (AMS).” All the other business processes have been
reengineered and interconnected through the ERP system, Microsoft Dynamics. The
following facts will show the importance of reengineering the AMS.

 Ongoing AMS uses both modern and typical technologies while typical methods
require much human efforts.
 The company is empowered with both human and technological resources.
Technology can be further used to enhance the productivity of some identified
processes which are being manually controlled by the human resource.
 Currently this company produces profit. This reengineering can be further used for
maximizing the profit while it is assisted by the optimization of the AMS with both
human and technological resources.
 Company needs the deviation of the existing process of the AMS. But the employees‟
attitude is bit different to the company point of view. Further it should be fit into their
cost points. Thus this modification should be done with the consideration of all the
considerable aspects.


5) Identify problems/opportunities/issues critical to the process

5.1) Problems

 Retrieving attendance from distribution centers – Retrieving attendance is done
through manual telephone calls. This is a huge problem where it can cause many
issues regarding attendance. These data can be wrong as they are delivered by
humans.
 Attendance data entry - The company policy is that the punch card data should be
given as text file to the attendance office daily. This method is an outdated technology
which requires more human effort while it causes problems.
 Work Load of the attendance officer – Attendance officer have to accept calls from
the distribution centers and at the same time he should accept the attendance details
from the finger print machine. Further he has to correct issues regarding attendance.
Thus the workload of the attendance officer is pretty much high. As a human resource
work load balancing is a critical factor which should be given the consideration.

5.2) Opportunities

 New interface can be introduced – Each distribution center can be given an interface
that can connect with the main system. By using that system, corresponding person
can upload attendance details to the system. It reduces the human effort while
increasing the efficiency and the accuracy of the attendance data.

 Punch card machine can be replaced by the finger print machine - Punch card
system is completely a manual process. It takes time and effort. Thus punch card
machine can be substituted by the finger print machine.

5.3) Issues

 Problem with metal dust in finger – Factory premises is the only place where punch
card is being used. As this factory engaging with heavy metal related productions
metal dust is always in the factory surroundings. Each employee gives the finger print
to the machine daily. If someone had dust on his finger the machine will not accept


that finger. Then there will be problems with employees‟ attendance. Replacing punch
card is a considerable issue when concerning the metal dust.

 High cost of the Eye scanner - As company wants to change punch card method,
our group introduced them the eye scanner because it will resolve the metal dust
problem. But the problem is the investment cost of it which should be incurred by the
company. As they expressed there will be a cost of nearly three million rupees for this
project. Fifty employees work in the factory premises approximately. Thus incurring
this much of a cost for the eye scanner won‟t be profitable for the company.


6) Existing process model for the Attendance Management Process Note:
1. Please see Appendix A for sub processes A &B.

1 2

A

B 3

Notes:
1.Attendance officer collect detail from finger print machine, distribution
centers (via phone) and report from department heads.
2.Check for inconsistencies and faults in the attendance detail.
3.Is leave request can be approved?

7) New process vision in the new process redesign and performance
objectives

7.1) Process Vision

Provide real time employee attendance data to support and improve the core business process
and overall strategic planning in the organization.

7.2) Performance Objectives

7.2.1) Speed Data Capturing

By providing interfaces to each attendance data capturing gateways will speed up the
attendance data capturing of the employees at the places where employees are actually
working rather than gathering all the captured data into single place which decreases the
performance of the process. Especially there are places where thumb scanners cannot be used
to capture due to some cultural and financial constraints. The places such as distribution
centers and production plants will be benefited by those direct interfaces to the organization
ERP system

7.2.2) Standardized Data Format

A standard and compatible employee attendance data format will available since the initial
data capturing points. That will enable more flexible and redundant data manipulations at any
point of the process and will eliminate unnecessary data conversions within the process.

7.2.3) Distribute Work Effort

Distributing attendance capturing work effort into each node in the organization will simplify
and speed up the overall process.

7.2.4) Real Time Data Availability and minimized time and cost

Providing access to real time data about the human resources that currently available in every
node in their organization will help to their strategic planning to gain competitive advantages.
And also this new process redesign will enable to minimize time and cost requirements by
eliminating unnecessary tasks throughout the process cycle.


8) New process model for the Attendance Management Process Note:
1. Sub processes of the existing model will be remained unchanged in the new model.

1

2
C

3
C

Notes:
1. New web based system make the task easier.
2. Correct errors only from finger print
machine.
3. Can request upon Dept. Heads preferences.


9) How the new process may improve the contacts with customers

The whole redesigned process is modeled in order to optimize the business processes with
fully utilized resources. As you can see we have come across three major changes to the
system.

1. Each distribution center will be given web interface to fill their attendance and it
will help to improve the data accuracy and depreciate workload.

This modification is lesser the burden on Attendance Officer. In the existing process
he has to manually retrieve the attendance data from each distribution center. But now
it has been changed. If any person‟s work burden is low he will put his fullest effort to
maximize the business needs. Same as here, Attendance Officer is a much overloaded
employee at Jinasena group of company. Somehow this new vision will depreciate the
work burden on him.

2. Time card data will be fully managed by each Department Head.

In the existing model this activity is done by Attendance Officer. But in the modified
process it will be done by Department Head. One reason for change this process is,
minimize the workload on Attendance Officer. Not only that, Department Head can
easily handle the time card data more than attendance officer. As authority is given
for the employees they will put their best to improve the output.

3. Leave applications/Amendment chits will be controlled under Department Head.

Same as the above point the reason for giving this authority is to spread the workload
balanced. Hence no need to transfer the chits among departments. It will help to
increase the efficiency and productivity.


10) Describe the possible change to Organizational structure, Job skills
/Reward systems, Information technologies, Culture and beliefs

10.1) Organizational Structure

This defined as a framework that organization arranges its lines of authority and allocates
duties. Organization structure determines the extent of employees‟ power, responsibility that
delegated, controlled and coordinated. Here the company formed as a centralized structure
that means the decision making power is concentrated in the top layer of the management and
tight control is applied over departments and divisions.

Briefly Jinasena Group of company main divisions or departments can be structured into
following way.

Top Management

Division of finance Division of Planning & Division of

& Management Engineering Operation

Administration Design Manufacturing

Finance Inventory management Assembling

HR activities Research & Development Quality Assurance


The main purpose of re-engineering is identified as directly connection of Attendance system
(under HR activities) with the Payroll System (under finance). One of the possible changes
that going to made is give the opportunity to connect with DMS system in the particular
employee (HR) of the distribution centers. By doing this there should be significant change in
delegation of responsibilities, powers, duties and authorities of that person other than normal
worker. Delegation is the process of assigning tasks and granting authority for their
accomplishment to others. By giving authorities some extent to that person, should be reliable
and accountable while carrying out their tasks.

Another significant change would be happen in marking attendance of punch card system.
But there is less opportunity to re-engineer the full attendance procedure to finger print
system due to their working environment. Therefore as the modification, assign a responsible
person to enter the attendance of individuals in the departments of casting, assembling into
the DMS system directly. By doing this it helps to reduce time consuming of entering data
manually and also removes redundant data.

Leave approval procedure also going to modify in the manual system to automated system by
using relevant interfaces through the system. Here also a responsible person from each
department should carry out those tasks completely by getting approval from general
manager. Therefore delegating work would involve Head of attendance department giving his
team members the authority to carry out certain aspects of his job. An important aspect of
delegating is that department head would give his staff the discretion to make decisions within a
certain sphere of influence or carry out tasks. However, remain fully accountable for the
decision or tasks undertaken by his staff.

One of the most important benefits of delegation is that it can have a positive impact on
motivating staff. Hertzberg found that encouraging employees to take on responsibility is a
motivating factor in enhancing job satisfaction and can promote better work. This type of
restructuring could also bring decision making closer to the situations that require them, and
potentially improve the decisions since they are being made by those with most knowledge of
the problems involved.


10.2) Job Skills/Reward systems

Job skills and Reward systems are also vital to consider enhancing employees‟ performance
in effective way. Here the attendance support staff in distribution centers and departments
will require necessary information technology skills and basic knowledge of using computer
systems. These days, employers require employees to accomplish many of their normal, daily
duties by way of computers. Hence, lots of jobs require basic computer user skills. Therefore
he or she would able to carry out this kind of tasks;
 Log into the system
 Enter information by using relevant interfaces to the system
 Communication by e-mail
 Download company forms
 Preserve(back up) important data

Therefore the company can choose an employee from each distribution center and department
to providing a training session as they required. This is the way of redeployment workers
without recruiting people from outside. This will help to reduce cost, time and other
resources. Therefore reengineering will enable attendance staff to gain experience of any
work problems and to take on responsibility for coming up with solutions to resolve them. It
can be used as a way of assessing the likely performance of an employee at a higher level,
and enhance employees' prospects for advancement. In this sense delegation is a way of
training staff and preparing them for promotion.

There is a direct relationship between rewards and motivation of employees. According to
Herzberg two factor theory insufficient salary and rewards will lead to dissatisfaction and
reduce their performance. Thus, in order to improve business results, there is a need for
managers and leaders to motivate their employees to work harder, and to align their own
interests with that of the customers. Also the company has an option to increase normal salary
to the staff or providing other incentives such as bonus, allowances to get the maximum
contribution.


10.3) Information Technologies

Information technology (IT) benefits the business world by allowing organizations to work
more efficiently and to maximize productivity. Faster communication, electronic storage and
the protection of records are advantages that IT can have on your enterprise. Information
technology has to do with computer applications, on which nearly every work environment is
dependent. Since computerized systems are widely used, it is advantageous to incorporate
information technology into the organizations.

Here Jinasena Group of company uses computer systems such as DMS system to carry out
day today application. By restructuring the attendance procedure will add some modification
to the existing system. Developing relevant web interfaces to make necessary reports,
providing access to the responsible person have to be implemented as new parts of the
system. Not only creating the interfaces, proper training should be given to the people who
are engaging in the new modifications of the system.

In business, people look for ways to do more work in a shorter amount of time. Information
technology improves company's efficiency by developing automated processes to take burden
off staff creates electronic storage systems to protect your company's valuable records.

Communication is essential to the business world, and information technology gives a
company the resources it needs to communicate quickly and effectively. IT has also helped to
bridge the cultural gap by helping people from different cultures to communicate with one
another, and allow for the exchange of views and ideas, thus increasing awareness and
reducing prejudice. IT has also brought about Cost Effectiveness by helping to computerize
business processes thus streamlining business to make them extremely cost effective money
making machines. This in turn increases productivity which ultimately gives rise to profits
that means better pay and less strenuous working conditions.

10.4) Organization culture, values and beliefs

Organizational culture, values and beliefs have a widespread influence on the behaviors and
actions of employees and, as such, will be a powerful force on Jinasena Company‟s future
strategies, structures, systems and ways of working. It affects the way employees respond to


change and ultimately on how well an organization performs. This is because culture involves
the basic assumptions and beliefs that are shared by the members of the organization.

By improving the connection of DMS system with employees would positively or negatively
affect whole organization. For example as a heavy manufacturing organization, large
numbers of workers are recruited long time ago, thus they are not very familiar with use of
computer applications. Sometimes they disagree with the use of these systems and don‟t trust
about that.

This is often referred to as the glue that binds the organization together or more simply, as
Charles Handy suggests, 'it is the way we do things around here'. Because culture is the
taken for granted ways of doing things and routines that develop over time, it contributes
significantly to how employees respond and behave in relation to the issues that they face.
For an example, some employees are resistance or not ready to change for the new working
environment. Because they thought that they are unable to work with new requirements,
information technologies, afraid to lose their jobs and also changes may occur in
organizational goals or values that exist.

Some writers, such as Hofstede suggests that development of organizational culture is
influenced by the nation in which the organization is based. Several factors that might
influence to the culture and values can be identified as follows;

 The nature of the business- for instances the type of products and the environment in
which the organization operates.
 The ownership status of the organization- such as whether it is owned by a sole
trader/owner manager or by a small number of institutional shareholders or a large
number of small shareholders.
 The extent of risk connected with activities of the organization and the speed of
feedback.
.
The positive influences of Jinasena Company‟s strong culture on organizational performance
are facilitating good communication, coordination and cooperation between different parts of
the Company. This is because culture is the invisible bond which ties the people in the
company together.


Also it can provide a framework for social identity providing the employees of Jinasena
Company with a sense of belonging to the company and in that sense helps in retaining talent
within the company and strengthens the dominant values and attitudes of employees in the
Company and can help in regulating the behavior and norms among members of staff.

As negative influences, strong culture can be difficult to change since beliefs which underpin
culture can be deep rooted and this may lead to Company‟s staff having a rigid view which
could reduce the company‟s ability to grow and for them to learn new skills. The culture may
signal inappropriate values as things in the external environment change, which can lead to a
negative impact on organizational performance.

11) Conclusion

The entire gamut of activities under “Attendance Process Re‐ engineering” of Jinasena
Group of company could be classified into the following four heads:

1. Clear assessment of employees‟ needs.
2. Analysis of the existing processes and identification of the weaknesses and
redundancies.
3. Redesigning of processes and the required changes to be made in the processes and
regulations.
4. Bringing out the changes in processes to meet the business ambition.


12) Reference List

Hammer M and Champy J. Reengineering the Corporation; A manifesto for Business
Revolution. New York: Harper Business, 1993.

Wikipedia, 2012, Two-factor theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, [online], Available:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-factor_theory,[Accessed date: 1st October 2012]

Wikipedia, 2012, Organizational culture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, [online],
Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_culture,[Accessed date: 28th
September 2012]

Unknown, 2012, [E book], Available:
http://www.bizagi.com/docs/BPMN_Quick_Reference_Guide_ENG.pdf, [Accessed date: 28th
September 2012]

Unknown, 2008, Welcome to Jinasena Group of Companies - [ Home ], [online], Available:
http://www.jinasena.com/home.html, [Accessed date: 29th September 2012]


Appendices

Appendix A: Existing sub processes in the process model

Resolve Errors [A]

Check for Approval [B]


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