Process

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Process (lat. processus - movement) is a naturaly occurring or designed sequence of changes of properties/attributes of a system/object. More precisely, and from the most general systemic perspective, every process is representable as a particular trajectory (or part thereof) in a system's phase space.

Every measurement is a process. The process of measurement is the fundamental concept in physics, and, in practice, in every field of science and engineering.

For the above goal-oriented reason, from the industrial managerial point of view, the following inputs can be initially applied in an engineering process specification: people, machines and tools, materials, energy, information, professional knowledge, capital, time and space^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] Examples

• From an engineering perspective, industrial and environmental processes relate to the sequence of operations and involved events, taking up time, space, expertise or other resources, which lead/(should lead) to the production of some outcome. The changes they may create in the properties of one or more objects under their influence are especially important for their identification and design. Compare: project

• From mathematical and physical perspectives processes are categorized, for example, as continuous, discrete, convergent, asymptotic, incremental, singular, recurrent and periodic.

A singular process would be one which has a singular property or occurs rarely.

Few processes in nature can be considered singular. Most processes found in nature are recurrent, or repeat more than once. Recurring processes which repeat at a constant rate are considered periodic. The more periodic a process is the more useful it is as the basis of a clock. Various specific processes:

• The Bessemer process is a way of producing steel.
• In thermodynamics, an adiabatic process or an isocaloric process is a process in which no heat is transferred to or from working fluid.
• The process of mining extracts ore.
• Evolution is a natural process which explains the adaptation of species over long periods of time. (generally assumed to be an example of a recurrent process)
• The extinction of the dodo is an example of a singular process, since it is unlikely that it can occur more than once.
• Learning is a process, as are teaching and training
• Process music
• Civic governance and conflict resolution
• Error correction in the information processing of a stream of data.
• Protein biosynthesis

[edit] See also

• process identification
• process architecture
• process control
• process management
• process theory
• Business Process Mapping