How to Exploit the Digitalization Potential of Business Processes

Process improvement is the most value-adding activity in the business process management (BPM) lifecycle. Despite mature knowledge, many approaches have been criticized to lack guidance on how to put process improvement into practice. Given the variety of emerging digital technologies, organizations not only face a process improvement black box, but also high uncertainty regarding digital technologies. This paper thus proposes a method that supports organizations in exploiting the digitalization potential of their business processes. To achieve this, action design research and situational method engineering were adopted. Two design cycles involving practitioners (i.e., managers and BPM experts) and end-users (i.e., process owners and participants) were conducted. In the first cycle, the method’s alpha version was evaluated by interviewing practitioners from five organizations. In the second cycle, the beta version was evaluated via real-world case studies. In this paper, detailed results of one case study, which was conducted at a semiconductor manufacturer, are included

Improving business processes : does anybody have an idea?

As part of process redesign initiatives, substantial time is spent on the systematic description and analysis of the as-is process. By contrast, to-be scenarios are often generated in a less rigorous way. Only one or a few workshops are organized for this purpose, which rely on the use of techniques that are susceptible to bias and incompleteness, e.g. brainstorming. In this paper, we evaluate a new technique for generating process improvement ideas: the RePro (Rethinking of Processes) technique. Its backbone is formed by process improvement principles that guide practitioners in a systematic and comprehensive exploration of the solution space. An experiment was conducted to compare the performance of the RePro technique with traditional brainstorming. Results confirm the potential for using a more advanced technique during process redesign workshops, but also show that the way such a technique is used strongly affects its performance. Keywords: Process redesign Process innovation Improvement principles Controlled experiment RePr

A critical evaluation and framework of business process improvement methods

The redesign of business processes has a huge potential in terms of reducing costs and throughput times, as well as improving customer satisfaction. Despite rapid developments in the business process management discipline during the last decade, a comprehensive overview of the options to methodologically support a team to move from as-is process insights to to-be process alternatives is lacking. As such, no safeguard exists that a systematic exploration of the full range of redesign possibilities takes place by practitioners. Consequently, many attractive redesign possibilities remain unidentified and the improvement potential of redesign initiatives is not fulfilled. This systematic literature review establishes a comprehensive methodological framework, which serves as a catalog for process improvement use cases. The framework contains an overview of all the method options regarding the generation of process improvement ideas. This is established by identifying six key methodological decision areas, e.g. the human actors who can be invited to generate these ideas or the information that can be collected prior to this act. This framework enables practitioners to compose a well-considered method to generate process improvement ideas themselves. Based on a critical evaluation of the framework, the authors also offer recommendations that support academic researchers in grounding and improving methods for generating process improvement ideas. Next to the framework and its critical evaluation, this review investigates the research procedures of the studies that were used to create the framework. Related to this investigation, academic researchers can find additional guidance regarding procedures for building and evaluating new methods

Business Process Improvement Activities : Differences in Organizational Size, Culture, and Resources

Although there are many business process improvement (BPI) methods, organizations are struggling to apply them effectively. We answer to the call to focus more on the organizational context in BPI projects. We use workarounds – deviations from the prescribed way of using an information system – as a specific angle to approach BPI. In five healthcare organizations of different contextual types, we study workarounds and make recommendations for process improvements. Based on this explorative multiple-case study, we propose a set of contextual activities for each stage of a BPI project. Thereby, we shed light on the differences in tackling process improvements in organizations that differ in size, culture, and the availability of resources for BPI projects. We evaluate the completeness and expected adoption of the proposed contextual BPI activities by organizing two focus groups and conducting a survey

Business process improvement activities: differences in organizational size, culture, and resources

Although there are many business process improvement (BPI) methods, organizations are struggling to apply them effectively. We answer to the call to focus more on the organizational context in BPI projects. We use workarounds – deviations from the prescribed way of using an information system – as a specific angle to approach BPI. In five healthcare organizations of different contextual types, we study workarounds and make recommendations for process improvements. Based on this explorative multiple-case study, we propose a set of contextual activities for each stage of a BPI project. Thereby, we shed light on the differences in tackling process improvements in organizations that differ in size, culture, and the availability of resources for BPI projects. We evaluate the completeness and expected adoption of the proposed contextual BPI activities by organizing two focus groups and conducting a survey