Process Model And Its Real Application In The Selected Management Areas

The process approach became an integral part of quality management systems due to the requirements of the ISO 9001 standard as early as in 2000. However, the application of the process approach has been implemented in two different ways: (1) a declarative application and (2) a real application in enterprise management systems. The fulfilment of the ISO 9001 standard concerning the application of a process approach into practice is represented by a business process model. As the standard requests, it usually contains identified processes and activities, their interactions, the determination of responsibilities for processes, and the determination of sources and proper indicators for monitoring and improving company processes. The existence of a business process model does not guarantee its real application in enterprise management and may only satisfy a declarative fulfilment of the ISO 9001 standard requirements, which is often sufficient for external auditors. Based on the above mentioned different approaches to application, two research questions have been defined: (1) does the declarative application of the process approach prevail over its real application in enterprises with the ISO 9001 quality management certificate and (2) what is the selected management areas where enterprises certified to the ISO 9001 standard could apply their developed business process models? The research was carried out for a sample set of Slovak enterprises. This paper was supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under the contract No. LPP-0384-09: “Concept HCS model 3E vs. Concept Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). This study is basis for the future correlation analysis in sample enterprises divided by size as well as for exploring the causes of different business process model utilization in the management practice.