Investigating reengineering teams in the context of business process change

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University, 27/06/2000.This research is concerned with investigating reengineering teams in the context of business process change, or more widely known, business process reengineering (BPR). Business Process Change, on the one hand, is still considered as being an approach that is required in recent times. Reengineering teams (teams that are involved with the planning, analysis and design of the approach) on the other hand, have been viewed to be essential for the development and implementation of BPR. Bearing these points in mind, it was discovered that although the reengineering teams area warrants attention, there has been little attention paid to it. In the reengineering area, specifically, this research aims to address two main issues: first, the role of reengineering teams in business process change and second, the human and organisational aspects that surround the teams. For this, the research applied several steps and they are described in the following paragraphs. To discover the role of the reengineering teams in the context of business process change, it was initially assumed that the foundations of the BPR lie in organisational change. Using this assumption, it became simpler and clearer to determine the exact role of teams. With regards to the human and organisational aspects, a strategy unique to the topic was adopted. At the outset, some human and organisational aspects that are more commonly found in the organisational behaviour and psychology areas were revealed and research with regards to these particular aspects was described. Whilst that was the theoretical side of the research, the research then had to determine whether the deductions formed from the theoretical side were evident in practice. For the empirical results, the research used a combination of approaches in order to obtain the desired results. A qualitative approach that has its foundations in Interpretivism was the methodology used in the research. The ontology assumed then that subjective meanings could be assumed to reconstruct reality. Evidence from practice was obtained using initially, two pilot studies. Further, a multiple case study strategy and the research techniques of mainly, interviews and referring to archival documents were utilised. Once the data was analysed, a theory that could be used for future research in the reengineering teams area was developed. This was arrived at using a combination of certain grounded theory techniques, particularly, the forming of categories and coding. The findings suggested that reengineering teams are imperative for BPR and that some of the selected human and organisational aspects are evident in the newly formed theory

Combined Approach for Supporting the Business Process Model Lifecycle

Business processes evolve throughout their lifecycle of change. Business Process Modeling (BPM2) notations such as BPMN are used to effectively conceptualize and communicate important process characteristics to relevant stakeholders. Agent-oriented conceptual modeling notations, such as i*, effectively capture and communicate organizational context. In this paper we argue that the management of change throughout the business process model lifecycle can be more effectively supported by combining notations. In particular, we identify two potential sources of process change, one occurring within the organizational context and the other within the operational context. As such the focus in this paper is on the co-evolution of operational (BPMN) and organizational (i*) models. Our intent is to provide a way of expressing changes, which arise in one model, effectively in the other model. We present constrained development methodologies capable of guiding an analyst when reflecting changes from an i* model to a BPMN model and vice-versa

ACUTA Journal of Telecommunications in Higher Education

In This Issue Supporting the Technology Enabled Classroom RUNet 2000 Design and Implementation Gourmet Dining in a Fast-Food World: Change and Challenge in 21st Century Telecommunications Organizing the Technology Leadership Function for Universities in the 21st Century Campus Reengineering at the University of Mississippi Supporting Academic Services One-to-One Deny Internet Access? When? Why? How? Institutional Excellence Award: Indiana University Bill D. Morris Award: Ruth Michalecki Columns Intervie

Mediated data integration and transformation for web service-based software architectures

Service-oriented architecture using XML-based web services has been widely accepted by many organisations as the standard infrastructure to integrate heterogeneous and autonomous data sources. As a result, many Web service providers are built up on top of the data sources to share the data by supporting provided and required interfaces and methods of data access in a unified manner. In the context of data integration, problems arise when Web services are assembled to deliver an integrated view of data, adaptable to the specific needs of individual clients and providers. Traditional approaches of data integration and transformation are not suitable to automate the construction of connectors dedicated to connect selected Web services to render integrated and tailored views of data. We propose a declarative approach that addresses the oftenneglected data integration and adaptivity aspects of serviceoriented architecture

A Process-Oriented Software Architecture Reconstruction Taxonomy

International audienceTo maintain and understand large applications, it is cru- cial to know their architecture. The first problem is that architectures are not explicitly represented in the code as classes and packages are. The second problem is that suc- cessful applications evolve over time so their architecture inevitably drifts. Reconstructing and checking whether the architecture is still valid is thus an important aid. While there is a plethora of approaches and techniques supporting architecture reconstruction, there is no comprehensive state of the art and it is often difficult to compare the ap- proaches. This article presents a first state of the art in soft- ware architecture reconstruction, with the desire to support the understanding of the field

Business Process Modeling for developing Process Oriented IT Systems

International audienceInformation system developers are challenged to develop systems that should meet the requirements of modern organizations. By promoting the enterprise-wide integration, the paradigm of Business Process Management contrasts with traditional information system development, which was suffered, but also crystallized, the vertical division of the enterprise activities. In addition, the paradigms of Business Process Reengineering and Business Process Improvement contrast with traditional information system development that focused on automating and supporting existing business processes. Now, enterprises should create new ways of working to survive in a competitive environment. This organizational transformation depends of the creation of a powerful vision of what future should be like. We claim that an in depth understanding of the current functioning is also required. In this context, enterprise modeling can help understanding the current business situation and establishing a vision of what the future should be like. Therefore, business process modeling becomes a pre-requisite for system requirements elicitation and system development

What are the fundamental features supporting service quality?

Purpose – There are many features that have been regarded as having a critical role in supporting service quality. The purpose of this article is to identify those features that are fundamental in supporting service quality. Methodology/Approach – A literature review was conducted covering TQM, internal marketing, and the service quality literature, especially the study of service quality gaps. All of these are concerned with the search for service excellence. Findings – From a comparative study of these three areas of the literature, it was found that there are seven common features: recruitment & selection, training, teamwork, empowerment, performance appraisals & reward, communication, and culture of the organisation. Each of them is argued to be critical for the management of service quality. Practical implications – Although there are other factors that can influence service quality, the identification of fundamental features provides managers and academics with a valuable framework with which to start in pursuit of service quality across a variety of service businesses. Originality/value of the paper – Although, management of service quality has been regarded as notoriously difficult due to the characteristics of services, by identifying fundamental features supporting service quality, this article provides focal points for the management of service quality

Evaluating Legacy System Migration Technologies through Empirical Studies

We present two controlled experiments conducted with master students and practitioners and a case study conducted with practitioners to evaluate the use of MELIS (Migration Environment for Legacy Information Systems) for the migration of legacy COBOL programs to the web. MELIS has been developed as an Eclipse plug-in within a technology transfer project conducted with a small software company [16]. The partner company has developed and marketed in the last 30 years several COBOL systems that need to be migrated to the web, due to the increasing requests of the customers. The goal of the technology transfer project was to define a systematic migration strategy and the supporting tools to migrate these COBOL systems to the web and make the partner company an owner of the developed technology. The goal of the controlled experiments and case study was to evaluate the effectiveness of introducing MELIS in the partner company and compare it with traditional software development environments. The results of the overall experimentation show that the use of MELIS increases the productivity and reduces the gap between novice and expert software engineers

The Use of Reference Models in Business Process Renovation

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are often used by companies to automate and enhance their business processes. The capabilities of ERP systems can be described by best-practice reference models. The purpose of the article is to demonstrate the business process renovation approach with the use of reference models. Although the use of reference models brings many positive effects for business, they are still rarely used in Slovenian small and medium-sized companies. The reasons for this may be found in the reference models themselves as well as in project implementation methodologies. In the article a reference model based on Microsoft Dynamics NAV is suggested. The reference model is designed using upgraded BPMN notation with additional business objects, which help to describe the models in more detail.ERP solution, reference model, businessprocess renovation, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, BPMN