APQC Process Classification Framework (PCF) - Cross Industry - PDF Version 5.1.0

APQC's Process Classification Framework^SM (PCF) is a taxonomy of cross-functional business processes intended to allow objective comparison of organizational performance within and among organizations. This document is also available in an XLS version.

APQC's PCF was developed in the early 1990s by APQC and a group of members from a number of industries and countries throughout the world. Originally envisioned as a tool to aid in performance improvement projects, the framework evolved into the broad taxonomy that it is today. With more than 10 years of use, the PCF has continued to evolve to meet the needs of organizations throughout the world.

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Organizations can participate in complimentary research projects to determine their performance against other organizations in terms of the processes described in the PCF. Furthermore, the PCF enables organizations to understand their inner workings from a horizontal process viewpoint rather than a vertical functional viewpoint. The PCF does not list all processes within a specific organization, and every process listed in the framework is not present in every organization.

The PCF is used by many organizations of varying sizes. Smaller organizations can easily leverage the breadth of the PCF to determine which processes need additional review or development. Larger organizations leverage the deep research that is organized along PCF guidelines to objectively aid in comparing performance to that of peers or against baselines during process improvement efforts. All organizations can benefit from the abundance of key performance indicators available in terms of the processes and process categories defined in the PCF.

The PCF is organized into 12 distinct categories of business processes: five categories of operating processes and seven of support processes. Each category contains groups of processes and activities that, when considered as a whole, represent the operations of a high-performing organization.

Version 5.1.0 of the PCF incorporates input from the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) and their efforts to map the CSCMP standards to the PCF. APQC used some of their recommendations in order to better enable organizations' process mapping and benchmarking efforts.

The PCF is written in United States English language format.