Designing business processes

This course provides a practical and insightful approach to designing business processes, preparing you to tackle real-world challenges in innovation and operations. You’ll learn how to optimize organizational structures and systems by integrating technical efficiency with human-centered design, creating workflows that drive both performance and employee well-being.

What to Expect? Through a blend of theory and practical application, this course equips you with the skills to design processes that balance technical efficiency with human-centered considerations. You will learn how to create workflows and structures that are effective, adaptable, and aligned with the needs of both the organization and its people.

Key Learning Activities:

• Lectures : Build a strong foundation in design methodologies and organizational principles while exploring their practical applications.

• Group Assignments: Collaborate on realistic business cases, applying the regulative cycle to redesign structures and systems:

• Assignment 1: Focuses on redesigning organizational structures using sociotechnical principles, such as a production process redesign. (20%)

• Assignment 2: Involves redesigning innovation processes and developing systems to support continuous improvement. (30%)

• Assignment 3 (Ungraded): Prepares you for the final exam by focusing on performance management and feedback systems, including the design of decision support and feedback tools. Plenary feedback will be provided to enhance your understanding.

• Peer Feedback: Strengthen your learning through constructive reviews of your peers’ work, fostering collaboration and improvement.

• Individual Written Exam : Assesses your ability to independently apply course concepts, with a particular focus on the theories and methods explored in Assignment 3.

Why Choose This Course? This elective is perfect for students eager to develop skills in designing business processes that are both innovative and sustainable. By integrating technical and human-centered approaches, you’ll be equipped to create solutions that align organizational performance with employee well-being, setting the stage for long-term success.

After completing this course, students will be able to:

• Explain the principles of designing business processes from an industrial engineering perspective.
• Apply the regulative cycle to develop innovative solutions for organizational challenges.
• Evaluate and critique the effectiveness of organizational structures and systems using relevant theories and models.
• Collaborate effectively in group assignments and peer review activities to enhance collective and individual learning.
• Demonstrate individual proficiency in applying design methodologies to solve complex business cases.

You must meet the following requirements

• Registered for a degree programme other than
• HBO-TOP Applied Physics, Pre-Master

• Selected articles and book chapters, case descriptions, and lecture slides Key readings covering design methodologies, organizational structures, and process optimization. Real-world business cases used for assignments to apply the regulative cycle in process design. Supplementary material summarizing key lecture content for review and study.