The Dynamics Of Business Engineering Introduction To The Minitrack

Abstract

The field of Business Engineering can be best described as the development and use of methods and tools for quantitative and qualitative analysis of current business processes, and for design and implementation of new ways of working. The focus of Business Engineering is usually not on the production and assembly of goods, but more on administrative processes that occur in all public and private organizations. Part of the attention is aimed at the service industry, because high quality processing of information is usually the added value the industry provides for its customers. The administrative processes are their primary process. In that way, Business Engineering is closely linked to business process redesign [2, 3, 5], but it has a broader focus. In this minitrack we look especially at recent developments in the field, focusing on concepts for modeling the dynamic behavior of business processes. Several conferences [e.g. 10], tracks, and minitracks have been devoted to business engineering. This year, we selected a number of interesting papers for the minitrack, which give a good insight into the current state of the field. Two of the papers highlight simulation support for business s engineering. The paper of Van Eijck and De Vreede [4] gives new insight into the support for quantitative analysis of business processes. The modeling template for the ARENA simulation environment they describe is a first example of a one-to-one translation of task / actor / coordination diagrams into a simulation environment. They claim that templates like this can decrease the effort needed for creating an empirical model of a business process tremendously. Lee et al. [8] also look at how to construct simulation models of business processes, but their focus is on group support for model construction. They provide a candidate architecture for supporting collaborative modeling and simulation using the DEVS framework and IDEF-3 like diagrams. More information on collaborative approaches for business engineering can also be found in [11]. The two other papers focus on the relation between performance and workflow modeling. Modeling business processes is an important part of the workflow field [6, 7]. The paper of Brataas, Hughes, and Solvberg [1] pr oposes a method for determining system requirements and performance analysis from a workflow standpoint of view. They suggest that the interaction between computer system performance and organizational performance can best be carried out in the same framework. Seidmann, Walter, and Dewan [9] present a mathematical description of task consolidation and the effect of consolidation on cycle-times and task performance. Their major contribution is the mathematical description of the effects of changes in work processes and tasks. The papers in this minitrack provide new insight into interesting business engineering frameworks. Both the theoretical background and case evidence that the methods work in real life cases are presented. We can clearly see that over the recent years, the research focus has shifted from presenting new methods, to developing tools that can be and that are really applied in practice. All in all, these papers are an important contribution to the field of business engineering, by creating and testing methods for the analysis and design of business systems in service industries, public, and private organizations.