ENVIRONMENTALLY SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT – DEVELOPING A GREEN BPM READINESS MODEL

During the last half decade, various theories, concepts, and models have been established to make organizations more environmentally sustainable. The IS community had their share with the Green IS/IT domain. As it turned out most of these concepts took a very functional approach, not making a good fit for business process oriented organizations. To fill this gap the research stream of Green Business Process Management (GBPM) arose. In this paper we develop and discuss various capabilities that organizations should have in order to actually take advantage of GBPM. We call these capabilities GBPM readiness

How Software Promotes the Integration of Sustainability in Business Process Management

Business research and practice increasingly focus on integrating sustainability in organizations. To contribute to rising challenges related to the society and the environment, sustainability-driven concepts (e.g., environmental friendly)have to be implemented in the daily business routines, and thus, need to be considered during the design of business processes in any organization. In this study, we conceptualize the field of Green Business Process Management (BPM)and use the derived concepts to classify supporting modelling tools and concrete software features. While our study indicates a lack of realization of the ecological and social sustainability in particular and a gap in supporting users during the redesign phase, there are software features that can potentially serve as a starting point to further incorporate sustainability in the design, implementation, and controlling of business processes

Experimental Evaluation of a Process Benchmarking Tool in a Green Business Process Management Context

Using a combination of metamodels, ontologies, green performance indicators and metrics, we apply a novel approach in Semantic Business Process Benchmarking to the area of Green Business Process Management (Green BPM). Up to now, process benchmarking has mainly been a manual process; the approach described and empirically evaluated in this paper partially automates the time-consuming and costly process analyses while introducing more flexibility regarding varying terminology, level of abstraction and modeling notation. Also, overviews of literature relevant to the field of Green Semantic BPM and commonly applied metrics in a Green BPM context are given

Integrating sustainability into day-to-day business: a tacticalmanagement dashboard for O-LCA

In order to respond to the challenge of sustainable development, organizations need to manage the social, environmental and economic impacts of their activities. Existing approaches to manage organizational sustainability either are limited by a narrow perspective or lack concepts and tools to integrate sustainability considerations into day-to-day business. We address this issue by proposing a tactical management dashboard based on Organizational Life Cycle Assessment (O-LCA), an authoritative and comprehensive methodology for organizational sustainability analysis.We have developed a concept for a tactical sustainability management dashboard based on O-LCA guidelines and best-practices for dashboard design that allows managers (who may not be LCA experts) to explore, analyze and interpret O-LCA study results. The concept was implemented in an early software prototype and evaluated regarding its usability. Our concept and prototype show the viability and utility of a management tool based on O-LCA

Business Process Management: Saving the Planet?

Organisational and government concerns about environmental sustainability (ES) are on the increase. While a significant amount of research from a wide range of domains has addressed various ES challenges, intuitively, Business Process Management (BPM), with its focus on process improvement and process performance measurement, has much to offer the ES field. In this paper we aim to understand the BPM research contribution to ES, including specific Environmental Performance Indicators (EPI), and the BPM concepts that have been utilized in the ES context. To this end we conduct a systematic literature review to capture prior research focused on BPM and ES, coding the articles according to their contribution to EPIs and other ES concepts, while also contrasting their focus with main challenges identified in industry reports. Our study identifies which EPIs have been addressed in prior BPM research and highlights areas of future contribution

Towards a Green IS Taxonomy

This paper proposes a set of categories and topics to guide the formation of a taxonomy of Green IS in an endeavor to stimulate efforts to determine the scope and content the field. The resulting taxonomy will complement the SIGGreen Statement of basic Green IS principles. The suggested categories for the taxonomy presented in this paper include the greening of core IS activities supplemented with additional topics drawn from the emerging body of Green IS literature, outcomes of workshops, conference presentations and meetings of SIGGreen as well as the authors experience and communication with fellow members of SIGGreen. It is hoped that others will engage in a constructive effort to further develop the taxonomy and that it will be used to support the application of IS toward global and local initiatives for Sustainable Development

Eine systematische Analyse des Einflusses ökologischer Ziele auf das IT-Service-Management

IT-Services, wie etwa die Bereitstellung von Suchfunktionen, werden auf Basis einer weltweit verteilten Infrastruktur aus Rechenzentren erstellt. Dies führt dazu, dass Rechenzentren aktuell zu den größten Energieverbrauchern der Informationstechnik zählen. Verfahren zur Steigerung der Energieeffizienz bilden bereits den Gegenstand aktueller Forschungsvorhaben, der Fokus liegt allerdings auf infrastrukturnahen Ansätzen. Methoden zum Management von Rechenzentren wurden bisher nicht oder nur in geringem Umfang auf ihren Beitrag zur Verbesserung der Energieeffizienz untersucht. Aus diesem Grund werden am Beispiel der IT-Infrastructure Library (ITIL) – der defacto-Standard für IT-Service-Management (ITSM) – die Implikationen aus der Berücksichtigung ökologischer Ziele für die ITSM-Prozesse herausgearbeitet und ökologisch orientierte Erweiterungen eingeführt

Nachhaltiges Geschäftsprozessmanagement – Status Quo und Forschungsagenda

Nachhaltigkeit gewinnt in der Unternehmenspraxis an Bedeutung. Dabei stehen derzeit die Steigerung der Energieeffizienz sowie die Verringerung von CO2-Emissionen entlang der Geschäftsprozesse im Mittelpunkt der Betrachtung. Der vorliegende Beitrag gibt einen Überblick über den aktuellen Stand der Forschung im Bereich des nachhaltigen Geschäftsprozessmanagements, diskutiert offene Forschungsfragen und Problemfelder und leitet daraus eine Forschungsagenda ab. Des Weiteren werden ein Prozesslebenszyklus sowie ein konzeptionelles Modell für ein nachhaltiges Geschäftsprozessmanagement vorgestellt

The mediating effect of process innovation on firm specific capability and sustainable innovation in small and medium enterprises

Firms are propelled to be concerned about sustainable innovation as the impact of sustainable development effort affects environmental awareness, social impact and economic benefits. However, the effect of innovation needs to be clarified for sustainable innovation achievement considering that not all innovations have impact on sustainable development. This study investigated the mediating role of process innovation between the relationship of firm-specific capabilities of absorptive capacity, intrapreneurship and stakeholder integration with sustainable innovation in small and medium size enterprises (SMEs). In this research, quantitative methodology using questionnaires was adopted to collect primary data from 190 SMEs selected based on purposive sampling from the manufacturing industry in South Sulawesi province, Indonesia. Direct and mediating effects hypotheses were analysed with the equation modelling method of Partial least squares (SEM-PLS) version 2.0. Results of the research failed to support the hypothesized direct relationships of sustainable innovation from absorptive capacity and stakeholder integration. In contrast, intrapreneurship had a significant positive relationship with sustainable innovation. Absorptive capacity and stakeholder integration were found to be fully mediated by the process innovation for sustainable innovation with the exception of intrapreneurship which had partial mediation. Findings confirmed that process innovation is associated with sustainable innovation. The investigation of this study confirmed that practices of process innovation can be driven by firm-specific capabilities of absorptive capacity, intrapreneurship and stakeholder integration for sustainable innovation

Cyber-physical business systems modelling : advancing Industry 4.0

Abstract: The dynamic digital age drives contemporary multinationals to focus on delivering world-class business solutions with the use of advanced technology. Contemporary multinationals relate to a present-day business primarily engaged to generate profits. These complex multinationals offer value through the manufacture, sale, and management of products and services. Disruptive strategies in operations driven by emerging technological innovations demand continuous business improvements. These insightful opportunities are inclusive of operations, enterprise systems, engineering management, and research. Business sustainability is a strategic priority to deliver exceptional digital solutions. The Fourth Industrial Revolutions (4IR) offer significant technological advancements for total business sustainability. The underlying 4IR technologies include Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). The collective challenges of a large global business are not easy to predict. CPS protocols deliver sustainable prospects required to integrate and model physical systems in real-time driven by the 4IR implementations. The goal of this thesis is to develop a model (CPS) suitable for self-predicting and to determine ideal operational practice driven by technologies of the 4IR. The model (CPS) seeks a novel tool effective for comprehensive business evaluation and optimisation. The competence of the anticipated tool includes suitability to collaborate current operations and predict the impact of change on a complex business. ..D.Phil. (Engineering Management