A Survey on Evaluation Factors for Business Process Management Technology

Estimating the value of business process management (BPM) technology is a difficult task to accomplish. Computerized business processes have a strong impact on an organization, and BPM projects have a long-term cost amortization. To systematically analyze BPM technology from an economic-driven perspective, we are currently developing an evaluation framework in the EcoPOST project. In order to empirically validate the relevance of assumed evaluation factors (e.g., process knowledge, business process redesign, end user fears, and communication) we have conducted an online survey among 70 BPM experts from more than 50 industrial and academic organizations. This paper summarizes the results of this survey. Our results help both researchers and practitioners to better understand the evaluation factors that determine the value of BPM technology

Extending evolutionary multi-objective optimization of business process designs

Διπλωματική εργασία--Πανεπιστήμιο Μακεδονίας, Θεσσαλονίκη, 2019.Optimizing a problem to produce a set of improved solutions is not a new concept. Many scientific areas have been benefited by the application of optimizations techniques and so have business processes. The competitive business environments have led organizations into examining and re-designing their core business processes, aiming for improving their performance and market responsiveness. The optimization and the continuous improvement of business processes within a company, can give the advantage to the company to be more competitive by reducing its costs, improving the delivery quality and efficiency, and enabling adaptation to changing environments. This thesis focuses on business process multi-objective optimization with evolutionary algorithms. There have already been optimization approaches with evolutionary algorithms for business process optimization problems that demonstrated rather satisfactory results. This thesis aims to improve and extent those approaches by providing a revised and refined version of an existing business process optimization framework by Vergidis (2008), that incorporates a pre-processing technique for enhancing the efficiency of the employed Evolutionary Multi-objective Optimization Algorithms (EMOAs), a new process composition algorithm that make the new framework capable of fulfilling more real-life constraints and handling more complex problems and many other features such as ease of use, more efficient I/O, better interactivity and easy maintenance. The proposed pre-processing technique was tested as a standalone procedure and demonstrated satisfactory results, managing to reduce drastically the problem dataset of all scenarios examined. The results of the whole optimization framework for the real-life scenarios examined, were very promising and indicated that the framework work as expected. It can automate the process composition and identify alternative business process designs with optimized attribute values

Μοντελοποίηση επιχειρησιακών διαδικασιών στον τραπεζικό κλάδο

Διπλωματική εργασία--Πανεπιστήμιο Μακεδονίας, Θεσσαλονίκη, 2019.Η αλματώδης τεχνολογική εξέλιξη που έλαβε χώρα τα τελευταία 20 χρόνια, άλλαξε το τοπίο στο χώρο των επιχειρήσεων, καθώς εισήγαγε νέα εργαλεία στα χέρια των στελεχών που διαχειρίζονται την καθημερινότητα των επιχειρήσεων τους. Οι επιχειρήσεις και ιδιαίτερα οι χρηματοπιστωτικοί οργανισμοί δραστηριοποιούνται σε ένα συνεχώς μεταβαλλόμενο περιβάλλον, στο οποίο οφείλουν να προσαρμόζονται άμεσα και πολλές φορές να είναι προάγγελοι των εξελίξεων και να δημιουργούν νέες συνθήκες για το μέλλον. Ένα πεδίο, στο οποίο οι χρηματοπιστωτικοί οργανισμοί οφείλουν να συνεχίσουν να εξελίσσουν είναι η διαχείριση των επιχειρησιακών διαδικασιών τους. Για να προχωρήσουν στην εξέλιξή τους, όμως, επιβάλλεται πρωτίστως να τις μοντελοποιήσουν και στη συνέχεια να τις βελτιστοποιήσουν. Η εργασία αυτή δίνει το έναυσμα για τη δημιουργία μιας βάσης δεδομένων των επιχειρησιακών διαδικασιών στον τραπεζικό κλάδο στην ελληνική επικράτεια, ξεχωρίζοντας τρεις από τις σημαντικότερες τραπεζικές εργασίες, και αφού καταγραφούν και αναλυθούν τα επιμέρους στοιχεία τους, προχωράει στην μοντελοποίηση τους με τη χρήση μιας σύγχρονης και ευέλικτης πλατφόρμας, της εφαρμογής BizAgi Suite

SNACH a new framework to support business process improvement.

Business processes are central to any organisation. They coordinate activities, roles, resources, systems and constraints within and across organisational boundaries to achieve predefined business goals. The demand for dynamic business environments, customer satisfaction, global competition, system integration, operational efficiency, innovation and adaptation to market changes necessitates the need for continuous process improvement. In order to adequately respond to these demands, business processes are designed in two approaches: Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) and Business Process Improvement (BPI). This thesis follows the BPI approach which considers existing infrastructure in an organization to improve operational efficiency and achieve organisational goals. Many methodologies have been developed for conducting BPI projects, but they provide little support for the actual act of systematically improving a business process. We adopted case study as the research strategy to examine a collaborative business process, specifically the UK Higher Education Institutions (HEI) admission process. The design science research methodology was used to answer the research questions and satisfy the research objectives. The Map technique was employed to construct the new BPI artefact based on the Mandatory Elements of Method (MEM) from Method Engineering. The new BPI framework comprises of a number of elements to support analysts and practitioners in process improvement activities. We present a novel approach to BPI, the SNACH (Simulation Network Analysis Control flow complexity and Heuristics) framework that supports the actual act of process improvement using a combination of process analysis techniques with integrated quantitative measurable concepts to measure and visualize improvement in four dimensions: cost, cycle time, flexibility and complexity. A simulation technique was employed to analyse the process models in terms of time and cost; and Control Flow Complexity was used to calculate the logical complexity of the process model. A complex network analysis approach was used to provide information about the structural relationship and information exchange between process activities. Using a complex network analysis approach to reduce a process model to a network of nodes and links so that its structural properties are analysed to provide information about the structural complexity and flexibility of the network. To achieve this higher level of abstraction, an algorithm was defined and validated using four disparate process models. The complex network analysis technique is integrated into the SNACH framework and its significance lies in the study of the nature of the individual nodes and the pattern of connections in the network. These characteristics are assessed using network metrics to quantitatively analyse the structure of the network, thereby providing insight into the interaction and behavioural structure of the business process activities. To conclude the design science research process phases, the artefact was evaluated in terms of its effectiveness and efficiency to systematically improve a business process by conducting an experiment using another use case

Modeling and Simulating Causal Dependencies on Process-aware Information Systems from a Cost Perspective

Providing effective IT support for business processes has become crucial for enterprises to stay competitive in their market. Business processes must be defined, implemented, enacted, monitored, and continuously adapted to changing situations. Process life cycle support and continuous process improvement become critical success factors in contemporary and future enterprise computing. In this context, process-aware information systems (PAISs) adopt a key role. Thereby, organization-specific and generic process support systems are distinguished. In the former case, the PAIS is build "from scratch" and incorporates organization-specific information about the structure and processes to be supported. In the latter case, the PAIS does not contain any information about the structure and processes of a particular organization. Instead, an organization needs to configure the PAIS by specifying processes, organizational entities, and business objects. To enable the realization of PAISs, numerous process support paradigms, process modeling standards, and business process management tools have been introduced. The application of these approaches in PAIS engineering projects is not only influenced by technological, but also by organizational and project-specific factors. Between these factors there exist numerous causal dependencies, which, in turn, often lead to complex and unexpected effects in PAIS engineering projects. In particular, the costs of PAIS engineering projects are significantly influenced by these causal dependencies. What is therefore needed is a comprehensive approach enabling PAIS engineers to systematically investigate these causal dependencies as well as their impact on the costs of PAIS engineering projects. Existing economic-driven IT evaluation and software cost estimation approaches, however, are unable to take into account causal dependencies and resulting effects. In response, this thesis introduces the EcoPOST framework. This framework utilizes evaluation models to describe the interplay of technological, organizational, and project-specific evaluation factors, and simulation concepts to unfold the dynamic behavior of PAIS engineering projects. In this context, the EcoPOST framework also supports the reuse of evaluation models based on a library of generic, predefined evaluation patterns and also provides governing guidelines (e.g., model design guidelines) which enhance the transfer of the EcoPOST framework into practice. Tool support is available as well. Finally, we present the results of two online surveys, three case studies, and one controlled software experiment. Based on these empirical and experimental research activities, we are able to validate evaluation concepts underlying the EcoPOST framework and additionally demonstrate its practical applicability

Process improvement in higher education institutions.

In a competitive environment for good quality prospective students, where academic institutions are under pressure to develop employable graduates, quality of education has become a crucial differentiator. Therefore, institutions need to focus on the way they manage the quality of their processes in order to remain competitive in the business of education. Although the literature review shows several approaches have been adopted to improve quality in higher education, there is still no agreement on how best to apply quality within Higher Education Institutions. Hence, the main motivation for this research was to be able to improve the quality of educational processes. This research begins by exploring how business process modelling techniques can be transferred to educational processes. A mixture of hard and soft modelling techniques was used and findings were analysed, both with respect to the utility of techniques and the process improvement itself. A 'novel' hybrid Role Activity Diagrams (RADs) – Soft Systems Model (SSM) – Rich Picture was proposed and applied to the student journey process. However, even though the integrated model was useful in uncovering process issues, it did not always support innovative solutions for change nor did it help in deciding which solutions fit best with the organisational context. Therefore, a fusion method combining modelling, improvement alternatives and organisational context was proposed. The fusion method provides guidance to the nature of improvements that are suitable for a given context. While process modelling provides detailed process description, alternative improvements will enable the discovery of better solutions. Finally, determining the suitability of different improvements can be identified by matching those improvements to organisational context which will enable institutions to derive changes according to their capabilities. It would enable HEIs to have a development strategy that leads to continuous improvement. As a result, it would enable institution to being able to provide and then maintain high quality processes and in turn student satisfaction

Workflow Performance Evaluation through WPQL

The problem of performance evaluation of business processes supported by WfMS is discussed in the paper. An approach is proposed to the performance evaluation of automated business processes based on the measurement language WPQL. The paper first describes the WPQL architecture together with a selection mechanism by means of which the workflow entities to measure are isolated. Then, the main construct of WPQL for measure definition and application are presented. A working session is shown and some guidelines for further research close the paper