The process approach is managing an organization’s activities as a system of interacting processes that transform inputs into outputs, rather than as independent tasks.
It is one of the fundamental principles of management system standards and determines the logic by which the system is designed.
When defining a process
- Inputs and outputs
- Process owner and responsibilities
- Resources and competence requirements
- Performance indicators and monitoring method
- Risks and opportunities
- Points of interaction with other processes
Difference from the departmental approach
In department-oriented management each unit optimizes its own objective; problems usually accumulate at the hand-offs between units. The process approach makes these hand-offs visible.
The most common weakness encountered in audits is a process map that is a copy of the organization chart. If processes are defined by department names, the approach has remained on paper.
What it means in an audit
What is examined in a process audit is not whether the process is defined, but whether the chain traced from input to output actually works and whether its performance is measured. The audit programme is also structured on a process basis.
The process approach is the foundation of system design in ISO standards and, in automotive, the starting point of process audit methodologies such as VDA 6.3. You can find its counterpart on the standards side in, for example, the ISO 9001 training, and its application on the audit side in the ISO 19011 training. See the Academy page for our automotive process audit programmes.