Function assignment diagram

The function assignment diagram (FZD) is a model for the representation of the relationships between business functions and resources , information objects and other objects of business process modeling . It is mainly used for the detailed presentation of business processes , where it describes a function in more detail.

Features and relationships of the function mapping diagram

In the function assignment diagram, the function can have relationships with a large number of elements. Therefore, only a selection of the possible elements that are of particular importance in practice will be described here.

resources

As a human resource, roles / types of people are most common. They should be used when one or more people in a company need to be identified and the assignment of the person (s) to an organizational unit plays a subordinate role.
Groups are also widely used as human resources. They should be used when a clearly defined team is to be designated.
Organizational units are used less often to express a human resource. The main disadvantage of this is that the names of organizational units are regularly changed with a company reorganization and this change must then also be maintained in the function assignment diagrams.
Application systems are most common as a technical resource. They should be used if software is to be described that is not available at almost every workstation in the company, e.g. not an e-mail program / office suite.

element	Relationship to function
Role / person type	responsible
group
organizational unit
Role / person type	decides
group
organizational unit
Role / person type	executes
group
organizational unit
Role / person type	will be informed
group
organizational unit
Role / person type	participates
group
organizational unit
Application system	supported

Information objects

Technical terms are the most common information objects. They should be used when the information object mainly represents a business term.
Also information carriers are widely used as information objects. They should be used when the information object represents a document, a file, an optical data carrier or the like.

element	Relationship to function
Technical term	is input
Technical term	is output
Information carrier	carries input
Information carrier	carries output

Standards, regulations and recommendations

The use of Documented Knowledge is most common as a standard, regulation or recommendation .

element	Relationship to function
Documented knowledge	is required

Other elements and relationships

event
mask
Risk, control
Cluster
Entity type
attribute
class
Use case
Hardware component
Cost drivers
power

Areas of application

The following image shows an example of a function assignment diagram with a focus on the description of business processes. The main aim is to describe a function in more detail, for example to create a quality management manual (QMM), to carry out business process optimization or simply to complete the business process model .

Example of a function assignment diagram with a focus on the description of business processes

The following figure shows an example of a function assignment diagram with a focus on the description of data flows and the associated application systems. It is primarily a matter of describing the data supplied to the functions with their origin and the data generated by the function with their storage location. In addition, the application systems, dialogs and system transactions used in the function can be recorded.

By evaluating all the function assignment diagrams created according to this scheme, the application systems

a list of the interfaces used ,
a list of the dialogs used and
a list of the system transactions used can be created.

For the roles and organizational units it is possible

an authorization concept for access to the application systems, dialogs and system transactions as well
to derive a training concept for the application systems.

It can also provide valuable information

for the life cycle planning of the application systems and
for the requirements analysis in the planning, selection or introduction of new application systems.

Example of a function assignment diagram with a focus on the description of business processes

Advantages and disadvantages of the function assignment diagram

advantages

Function assignment diagrams can be used to improve the clarity of value-added chain diagrams (WKDs) by outsourcing the non-structure-forming relationships.
With the extended event- controlled process chain (eEPK), the complexity can be reduced by outsourcing the non-structure-forming relationships in any gradation and in extreme cases an event- controlled process chain can be used instead.

With the process chain diagram (VKD), too , the complexity can be reduced by outsourcing the non-structure-forming relationships in any gradation.

When using function trees , function assignment diagrams can enable the representation of non-structure-forming relationships.

Basically, it can be said that the use of a function assignment diagram can be advantageous wherever the representation of non-structure-forming relationships is not in the foreground, but also cannot be entirely dispensed with.

disadvantage

If function assignment diagrams are used to improve the clarity of value chain diagrams or to reduce the complexity of extended event-driven process chains (EPCs) or process chain diagrams, access to the non-structure-forming relationships of a function requires a separate / additional representation that must be accessed explicitly.

In the function assignment diagram, the representation of relationships between elements (except for functions) is subject to some restrictions:
- For example, a function can be linked to a role via the relationship leads , but it is not possible to assign the role to an organizational unit using a relationship .