A Meta-model for Analyzing the Influence of Production-related Business Processes

Abstract

The improvement of business processes is viewed as a key to competitive success. Since the beginning of the 1990s, many companies could increase their efficiency through initiatives improving the production process. Despite the existence of numerous different scientific approaches to improve the supporting processes of indirect business areas, comparable successes could not be achieved. In the literature for business process management, the described guidelines and methods for process prioritization are often of very high level and hence not of much assistance when attempting to use them on production-related business processes. Further approaches focus the modelling and analyzing of single processes. These are often very detailed and do not taking into account the interrelations and influences that arise between the processes. An analysis and comparative evaluation of the production-related business processes of indirect areas does not exist. This paper presents an approach to analyze the influence of supporting business processes on the goals of their core process. Therefore, a meta-model is introduced to describe different types of interrelations between processes within in a process system by specific characteristics. The considered system includes the manufacturing process and its support processes as the interrelating elements. Based on the meta-model, influencing factors of the support processes on the characteristic values of the manufacturing process are determined. The paper contributes to theories on business process architecture and the modeling of process systems as well as the basics on system theory. In the literature review of this paper, different approaches for the selection of critical processes, the modelling of process systems and the interdependencies between processes are discussed.