A Case Study on The Business Process Mapping Methodologies Used to Analyse Tesla’s Vehicle Ordering Process

Introduction

In the world of business, it is vital to do more than just predict the outcome. Businesses function on more than just predictions and stipulations, wherein every stage and process requires careful breakdown and visual representation of the processes for all the stakeholders to have a representation of what they do and where they need to get to i.e. what the process needs to be (Veyrat, 2023). Business process mapping, a subset of business process management enables us to identify each step of the myriad of processes in an organization, depict how these steps flow from start to finish, identify existing and potential risks, and more (Eby, 2023). Understanding the entirety of the process, including every stage, component, and role responsible for driving the business processes to fruition enables us to capture their roadmaps, in hindsight, can continually improve current and future processes and align them with the organization’s mission (Eby, 2023).

Business process mapping sits between process diagram and process modeling (Veyrat, 2019). Depending on the granularity of the insights required, distinct methods of process mapping are opted for (LinkedIn, 2024). This paper explores some of the methodologies used to map out business processes. Also, it offers an overview of how the methodologies can be used to gain insights into Tesla’s vehicle ordering process.

Benefits and Challenges of Three Business Process Mapping Methodologies

Basic Flowchart — Customer & Business Perspectives

Figure 1. Tesla vehicle ordering business process mapping flowchart — customer perspective

Figure 2. Tesla vehicle ordering business process mapping flowchart — a business perspective

Benefits

Flowcharts provide clarity and simplification of processes as we map them using symbols that offer a comprehensive understanding of stages, decision points, and start and end points among other process stages (Eby, 2017). The sequential simplification provided by flowcharts often does a good job of aiding internal and external stakeholders in understanding procedures that are formulated and will need to be improved upon over time (JohnNeil, 2024). In addition to this, flowcharting outlines key steps thus, offering the utmost transparency to all stakeholders involved. Due to the comprehensive nature of the outlined flowchart, potential risks, gaps, inefficiencies, and bottlenecks can be identified and minimized through analysis (JohnNeil, 2024).

Challenges

The oversimplification of complex processes leads to long and clumsy flowcharts. Alterations to flowcharts are a substantial drawback as flowcharts are generally static.

Flowcharts depend on data from multiple stakeholders in the forms of inputs and feedback, hence oversight in collecting information can render flowcharts inaccurate representations of process flows.

SIPOC — Supplier, Input, Process, Output, and Customer Analysis

Benefits

The SIPOC analysis shows a high-level overview of the contributors of each stage of the process. It can future-proof documentation and make way for improvements in the future. Stakeholders can be identified easily enabling planning and smooth customer relationship management. This analysis also helps prioritize opportunities and challenges with the mapping of input and output (LinkedIn, 2023).

Challenges

Since SIPOC offers a high-level analysis, it is not detail-oriented, disabling operational efficiency and strategic planning. SIPOC analysis can be complex for complex processes, similar to flowcharts. It fails to refer to interdependencies between processes. It could get subjective and isolated sometimes and omits holistic interactions between interlinked processes and departments involved (LinkedIn, 2023).

Gantt Chart Analysis — Business Perspective

Figure 3. Gantt chart — Tesla vehicle ordering process (estimated timeline)

Benefits

It provides a high-level overview of the project’s timeline, critically allowing us to view the order of a process as blocks of actions/tasks. It can show overlaps and dependencies, allowing for better tracking and full visibility of the process. The visual clarity enables us to set realistic deadlines, making way for resource allocation and time management. It is easy to track dependencies as the chart shows a step-by-step progression of stages for task completion. It carries clarity on interdependent events within the process (Ramos, 2021).

Challenges

The Gantt chart, in a way, is merely a calendar. It does not showcase the priority of the tasks involved in the process. For complex processes, the chart can be confusing, defeating its purpose of enabling a simplified understanding of processes. The chart does not focus on what resources are involved in specific tasks. To understand this, additional tools will most likely be used. It fails to offer clarity on the dependencies within a task. This gives rise to seeking help from other methodologies like the PERT chart where tasks are assigned to team members in a sequential order (Eby, 2016).

Deciphering Tesla’s Vehicle Ordering Process Through Various Methodologies

Flowcharting Insights

• Flowcharting effortlessly maps the customer journey. The customer gets a holistic idea of where to begin and where their journey ends. The only exception is part of the journey when the customer is not shown a path to successfully continue to finance a Tesla vehicle in the case where their financing and leasing options are cut short due to credit disapproval (Tesla, n.d).
• The flowchart also showcases possible areas for process optimization, especially at the stage of vehicle trade-in, and financing the vehicle via credit check.

SIPOC Insights

• The SIPOC analysis highlights the importance of the roles of suppliers, inputs, and processes, in the manufacturing, vehicle design by the customer, trade-in, and financing stages.
• Customer expectations are aligned with inputs (customer design) and outputs (vehicle delivery) successfully. This also makes room for customer education (LinkedIn. (2023).

Gantt Chart Insights

• The Gantt chart visualizes the beginning and the end of the customer’s journey with Tesla, right from deciding on the vehicle model to getting post-delivery support.
• The chart identifies the need for resources such as customer service, delivery teams, inventory teams, sales teams, and financial assessment teams that are involved in different stages of the timeline.

Conclusion

Flowcharting, SIPOC Analysis, and Gantt Charts offer distinct advantages in understanding business processes. In the context of Tesla’s vehicle ordering process, each method sheds light on different areas of process strengths and weaknesses. Flowcharting delineates both the customer journey and the business team journey, SIPOC provides a broader perspective in understanding contributors of the ecosystem, and Gantt Chart offers a timeline and resources involved at different stages of the product’s delivery to the customer (Ramos, 2021; Eby, 2017; LinkedIn 2023).

The methodologies, while being great ways to map a business process, are limited to producing results based only on the purpose they are created. The risk of oversimplification by flowcharting, limited detailing of tasks in the SIPOC method, and lack of prioritization seen in the Gantt Chart analysis show that each of the drawbacks when used singularly can set up businesses for failure. Hence, businesses always employ multiple methodologies to negate the shortcomings they face when using individual mapping methodologies (Ramos, 2021; Eby, 2017; LinkedIn 2023). The insights provided by these methodologies can amount to increased process optimization, enhanced customer experience, and streamlined operations.

Historically too, BPM methodologies with the incorporation of digitally superior tools and techniques, have proved to outperform their yesteryear counterparts in growing customer satisfaction, profits, and organizational health.

References

Eby, K. (2017, February 24.). Essential guide to business process mapping. Smartsheet. https://www.smartsheet.com/essential-guide-business-process-mapping

Eby, K. (2023, November 23). PERT 101: Charts, analysis, and templates for more accurate project time estimates. https://www.smartsheet.com/pert-101-charts-analysis-and-templates-more-accurate-project-time-estimates

JohnNeil, M. A. (2024, January 19). Business Process Mapping: Definition, steps, and tips [Guide for 2023]. https://kissflow.com/workflow/bpm/business-process-mapping/

LinkedIn. (2023, December 28). What are the benefits and drawbacks of using SIPOC diagrams for process analysis? https://www.linkedin.com/advice/1/what-benefits-drawbacks-using-sipoc-diagrams-process

LinkedIn. (2024, January 2). How do you use business process mapping to identify customer pain points? https://www.linkedin.com/advice/0/how-do-you-use-business-process-mapping

Ramos, D. (2021, May 3). The Advantages and Limitations of Gantt Charts in Project Management. Smartsheet. https://www.smartsheet.com/content/gantt-chart-pros-cons

Tesla.(n.d). Ordering a Tesla Vehicle. https://www.tesla.com/support/ordering-new-vehicle

Veyrat, P. (2018, March 17). What is Business Process Management? 10 special topics selected for you. HEFLO BPM. https://www.heflo.com/blog/bpm/what-is-business-process-management/

Veyrat, P. (2019, March 3). 5 Examples of Process Maps: Diagram, map and model differences. HEFLO BPM. https://www.heflo.com/blog/process-mapping/examples-of-process-mapping-diagrams/