Business Process Management

Concepts, Languages, Architectures (Fourth Edition)

Process-orientation vs. function-orientation in organizations

Adam Smith introduces the paradigm regarding division of labor for enabling a specialization of the workers. The bigger a company, the more fragmented work steps there are. Henry Ford developed this concept further: He divided work into minimal repetitive tasks.


a) Which advantages and disadvantages can be observed in such organizations?

b) What exactly is the advantage of a process-orientated view on the enterprise in this context?

An introduction to Business Process Management can be found in the book in chapter 1.