Business processes open house

Accurate maps are important. It’s frustrating to discover that a road is closed or a bridge is under construction in the middle of your journey.

As McMaster starts its journey to modernize its business processes, staff have developed maps to document every business process at the University that touches finance, student administration or research administration.

The challenge now is to double check that the maps are accurate and no process has been missed, so the project team is holding an open house and asking the McMaster community to “find the missing paths” on the maps.

“This isn’t a theoretical exercise. These maps need to match reality,” says Fred Hall, chair of the Systems Renewal Steering Committee. “I urge people to come and examine the parts of McMaster’s business processes that they interact with and to check that our maps correspond with their on-the-job experience.”

The open house is Tuesday, Sept. 18 from 9 a.m. to noon and Wednesday, Sept. 19 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. in T13 Room 124. Staff and faculty who regularly interact with business processes in finance, student administration and research administration will find the open house especially relevant.

These maps are an early step in the University’s multi-year journey to modernize its business processes and replace its current business systems with an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, ultimately replacing its systems for finance, student administration, research administration, human resources and business intelligence. This fall the project will begin a four month Fit-Gap stage to develop a comprehensive and detailed plan for implementing the system at McMaster.

A recent Daily News article provides additional information about the business process mapping initiative. Background information about the business process modernization and ERP system is available on the project’s website.