6. Process approach and re-engineering

6.1 Process approach

Every company, whether in the manufacturing or service sectors, needs to define its key processes - those that make the greatest contribution to its strategy - and transform them into competitive advantages that generate value for customers, shareholders and employees. A process is a set of activities that produce a tangible result through the use of multiple technologies and skills; it's a value chain where each additional activity adds value to the previous one. We present here a generic model of a company seen through its processes (figure 4 ).