IFMR/PGDMB16/BPM/Assignment 01/4th July 2016 due by EOD 6th

July 2016.
1. COLLEGE - Consider the process of admission of students to IFMR for the Ph.D. program
assume that there are number of applicants is far lower than any limit on the number of
seats available, so that any eligible students who meets the criteria will be selected.

a. Which generic process (among the five you have encountered in this lesson) is this similar to?
Application-to-Approval
b. Who are the actors in this process?
Applicants, Interview panel, PGDM-Ph.D Office
c. Which actor(s) can be considered the customer(s) for this process?
Applicants
d. What value does the process deliver to the customer(s)?
Final admission
e. What are the possible outcomes of this process?
Selection/Rejection of applicants
f. What the measures of performance for this process?
Time taken for the admission process by the selection team and time taken to respond to the
applicants to announce the result,
g. What would you suggest in terms of process redesign to improve performance on these
measures?
Having a clearly defined eligibility criteria helps applicants to verify themselves whether they
qualify for the admission or not. Have FAQ Session. Have video conference to interview.

2. COMPANY - In a company the purchase department raises the purchase order in triplicate plus one. The
original goes to the vendor, the copies go the warehouse and the accounts department, while the plus one
remains in the purchase department files. Upon receipt of goods along with a delivery challan (or
shipping notice as the Americans call it) in triplicate plus one, the warehouse compares the same against
the PO to check whether only the ordered goods have come and whether the quantity of goods received
within the order quantity. Then the Warehouse stamps the delivery challan (all copies) and sends the
original to accounts department and two copies to the vendor, while retaining the plus one. The vendor
attaches one of these copies with his invoice and sends it to accounts department while keeping one
copy for his file (this is in addition) to the backup copy in the file kept at the time of dispatch of goods.
The accounts department compares the following documents and only then makes payment to the
vendor viz. purchase order, delivery challan received from warehouse, delivery challan received from
the vendor, invoice received from the vendor.
a. Which generic process (among the five you have encountered in this lesson) is this similar to?
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IFMR/PGDMB16/BPM/Assignment 01/4th July 2016 due by EOD 6th

July 2016.
Procure-to-Pay
b. Who are the actors in this process?
Vendors, Purchase Dept., Accounts Dept., Warehouse team
c. Which actor(s) can be considered the customer(s) for this process?
Purchase Dept
d. What value does the process deliver to the customer(s)?
for purchase dept. it is of delivered of the ordered goods
e. What are the possible outcomes of this process?
Acceptance or rejection of goods delivered.
f. What the measures of performance for this process?
Time taken to deliver the goods, quality of the goods delivered and the number of documents
which are produced.
g. What would you suggest in terms of process redesign to improve performance on these
measures?
Scanned copy of confirmation receipts can be sent through online (this can even be used for
clarifying queries even after long time) and delivery tracker can be implemented.

3. PHARMACY Customers drop off their prescriptions either in the drive through counter or in the front
counter of the pharmacy. Customers can request that their prescription be filled immediately. In this
case, they have to wait between 15 min and 1 hour depending on the current work load. Most customers
are not willing to wait that long, so they opt to nominate a pick up time at a later point during the day.
Generally, customers dropped their prescriptions in the morning before going to work (or at lunch time)
and they come back to pick up the drugs after work, typically between 5 pm and 6 pm. When dropping
their prescription, a technician asks the customer for the pickup time and puts the prescription in a box
labeled with the hour before the pickup time. For e.g., if the customer asks to have the prescription be
ready at 5 pm, the technician will drop it in the box labeled 4 pm (there is one box for each hour of the
day).
a. Every hour one of the pharmacy technicians picks up the prescriptions due to be filled in the
current hour. The technician then enters the details of each prescription (doctor, patient,
medication) into the pharmacy computer. As soon as the details of a prescription are entered, the
pharmacy system performs an automated check called Drug Utilization Review (DUR). This
check is meant to determine if the prescription contains any drugs that may be incompatible with
other drugs that had been dispensed to the same customer in the past, or drugs that be
inappropriate for the customer taking into account the customer data maintained in the system
(e.g. age). Any alarms raised during the automated DUR are reviewed by a pharmacist who
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IFMR/PGDMB16/BPM/Assignment 01/4th July 2016 due by EOD 6th

July 2016.
performs a more thorough check. In some cases, the pharmacist even has to call the doctor who
issued the prescription in order to confirm it.
b. After the DUR, the system performs an insurance check, in order to determine whether the
customers insurance policy will pay for part or whole cost of the drugs. In most cases, the output
of this check is that the insurance company would pay for a certain % of the costs while the
customer has to pay for the remaining part (also called the co payment). The rules for
determining how much the insurance company will pay and how much the customer has to pay
are very complicated. Every insurance company has different rules. In some cases, the insurance
policy does not cover one or several drugs in a prescription but the drug in question can be
replaced by another drug that is covered by the insurance policy. When such cases are detected,
the pharmacist generally calls the doctor and/or the patient to determine if it is possible to
perform the drug replacement.
c. Once the prescription passes the insurance check, it is assigned to a technician, who collects the
drugs from the shelves and bags them, with the prescription stapled to the bag. After the
technician has filled a given prescription, the bag is passed to the pharmacist who doubles checks
that the prescription has been filled correctly.
d. After this quality check, the pharmacist seals the bag and puts it in the pickup area. When a
customer arrives to pick-up a prescription, a technician retrieves the prescription and asks the
customer for payment in case the drugs in the prescription are not (fully) covered by the
customers insurance.

With respect to the above process, consider the following questions.

1. Which generic process (among the five you have encountered in this lesson) is this similar to?
Order to cash (issue to resolution)
2. Who are the actors in this process?
Customer, Pharmacy technician, Doctors, Pharmacist
3. What value does the process deliver to the customer(s)?
Delivery of required drugs to patients.
4. What are the possible outcomes of this process?
Delivery of prescribed drugs to customer.
Change of prescribed drugs due to side effects with confirmation from doctor and then delivering to
customer.
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IFMR/PGDMB16/BPM/Assignment 01/4th July 2016 due by EOD 6th

July 2016.
Non availability of prescribed drug and its substitute with confirmation from doctor.
Partial payment or full payment to drugs prescribed.
Waiting time can be more or less
5. What the measures of performance for this process?
Time required to successfully completing fulfillment of a request
Minimize the cost incurred by patients through suggesting drugs covered through insurance
Apt drugs required as per prescription
6. What potential issues do you foresee this process might have? What information would you need to
collect in order to analyze these issues?
Some drugs when combined with other can cause health issues. In this case the technician should ask
customer beforehand about past prescription and further consult with doctor for correct medication. Also
some insurance coverage under drugs varies with every insurer, so on consulting with doctor and patient
alternative drugs has to be prescribed.
Uneven demand in scheduled pick up time may cause distress in queue. Customer does not know
whether the prescription is filled or not.
7. What would you suggest in terms of process redesign to improve performance on these measures?
Predefined set of drugs which comes under each insurer can be put in a large banner so that customer
while dropping the prescription can enquire with the attendant at that time itself for suitable substitutes.
This can reduce the time required.
Home delivery to customers living around same vicinity.

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