Process mapping and process automation are becoming increasingly important in business operations, especially in the energy sector. As with any large-scale operations in a critical industry, many businesses in the energy sector have challenges with tasks that require action from multiple individuals; there are many steps from creation, to sharing, to review, to execution along the way.
These processes necessarily range across a wide spectrum between basic and advanced tasks, which is why process mapping and process automation are key to enabling employees to focus on what is most important for the business—instead of focusing on basic, tedious tasks.
What is Process Mapping?
Process mapping is the design a flow of activity, ensuring all members of a business understand all processes in a way that maximizes the efficiency and productivity of tasks, while also ensuring that all completed tasks work toward higher-level goals and objectives. Businesses of all sizes depend upon organized processes to function, from the sharing of information, to exchange of documents, to sequence of actions, to obtaining approvals.
There are various types of process maps, so it is important to consult with process mapping professionals to make sure you’re creating processes that align with your organization’s current scale, while also ensuring scalability with evolving business operations and logistics.
Creating a process map is only the beginning. Many processes require supervision, and many of the tasks within a workflow can be tedious and time consuming. It can be frustrating to do something as simple as reviewing and uploading a document or sending a basic email when you have far more pertinent tasks to complete. This highlights the importance of process automation.
How Process Automation Lets You Focus on Important Tasks
Process automation allows you to implement software that has been specifically programmed to execute basic tasks throughout a process mapping workflow. This is a rapidly evolving service, and the list of business processes that can be automated is constantly growing. Through processes like document creation and review, email/SMS notifications, help desk support, etc., process automation software is designed to eliminate human error, reduce operating costs, and increase productivity.
Why Process Automation is Crucial to the Energy Sector
In a high-stakes industry like the energy sector, with an increasing amount of government and institutional regulations in response to vital issues like climate change, it can be overwhelming to develop, maintain, and execute processes efficiently. This is why it is crucial for organizations in the energy sector to have a sound process mapping model. Process automation can then help increase the speed and efficiency of all internal processes, helping business areas such as research, manufacturing, workplace safety, and communications with remote workers.
Ensuring efficiency of complex processes, maintaining safe workplaces, and increasing clarity of communications between all employees and stakeholders, are ways in which process mapping and process automation can help businesses in the energy sector thrive.
If you’d like to learn more about how process mapping and process automation can help your ROI, contact us today.
