Business Process Modeling Techniques Research Articles

Developing conceptual model for safety risk management in aviation as building capacity and resilience strategy

Purpose This study aims to develop an inclusive, multidisciplinary, flexible and organizationally adaptable safety risk management framework, including diversity management, that will be implemented to ensure safety is and remains at the desired level. If the number of incidents and potential incidents that could lead to accidents and their impact rates are to be reduced operationally and administratively, aviation safety risks and sources of risk must be better understood, sources of risk identified, and the safety risk management framework designed in an organization-specific and organization-wide sustainable way. At this point, it is necessary to draw the conceptual framework well and to define the boundaries of the concepts well. In this study, a framework model that can be adapted to the organization is proposed to optimize the management of risks and provide both efficient and effective resource allocation and organizational structure design in its operations and management functions. Design/methodology/approach The qualitative research method – triple techniques – was deemed appropriate for this study, which aims to identify, examine, interpret and develop the situations of safety management models. In this context, document analysis, business process modeling technique and Delphi techniques from qualitative research methods were used via integration as the methodology of this research. Findings To manage dynamic civil aviation management activities and business processes effectively and efficiently, the risk management process is the building block of the “Proposed Process Model” that supports the decision-making processes of aviation organizations and managers. This “Framework Conceptual Model” building block also helps build capacity and resilience by enabling continuous development, organizational learning, and flexible structuring. Research limitations/implications This research is limited to air transportation and aviation safety management issues. This research is limited specifically to a safety-based risk management framework for the aviation industry. This research may have social implications as source saving, optimum resource use and capacity building will make a contribution to society and add value besides operational and practical implementation. Social implications This research may contribute to more safe operations and functions in the aviation industry. Originality/value Management and academia may gain considerable support from this research to manage their safety risks via a corporate-tailored risk management framework, both improving resilience and developing corporate capacity. With this model presented, decision-makers will have a guiding structure that can optimally manage the main risk types that may be encountered in the safety risk in the fields of suppliers, manufacturers, demand changes, logistics, information management, environmental, legal and regulatory. Existing studies in the literature are generally in the form of algorithms and cannot be used as a decision-making support tool. This model aims to fill the gap in the literature. In addition, added value may be created by applying this model to optimum management safety risks in the real aviation industry and its related sectors.

BUSINESS PROCESS MODELLING PADA DIVISI PUBLIC RELATION PERGURUAN TINGGI

Public relations division is part of a company or organization that is responsible for preparing special communication plans with various media in an effort to build an image and good and beneficial relations between the organization and the public. Some of these public relations jobs are related to public communications such as managing incoming and outgoing mail. This research was conducted to design new business processes in the development of current business processes. Where the problem to be solved is a problem in terms of time. The business process flow will be described with the Business Process Modeling And Notation (BPMN) modeling technique. The research was carried out in several stages, namely data collection, information, literature study, analysis of the old process flow and business flow analysis of the recommendation process. Based on the research conducted, it was found that the new business process flow can speed up the processing time for the completion of incoming and outgoing letters. With the time analysis of this business process, the stages of work on the tasks of each section can be known in the form of time estimates that accelerate the business process of managing letters in the public relation division.

Routines as a conceptual tool for studying resources management in SMEs: evidence from Brazilian bakeries

Purpose This study aims to investigate routines as a conceptual tool to analyze resources management in small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs) productive processes. Design/methodology/approach The authors developed a qualitative multiple case study with Brazilian companies in the bakery industry. Data were collected through interviews, on-site observation and documentary analysis. Plus, the authors used business process modeling (BPM) techniques to map the observed routines. Findings The restrictions of SMEs accentuate the improvisation of routines. However, contrary to expected, many of these deviations expand the possibilities of organizational action as they become successful in terms of operational efficiency, which allows these companies to extract performance from ordinary resources and imitable management practices. Practical implications The BPM shows its value to track the allocation of resources in SMEs by recording the evolution of its routines and helping to preserve an operational memory. This finding could be useful to help public agencies to develop accessible management tools to assist small business owners. Originality/value Most of the conceptual tools developed to analyze the resources management are based on the study of large organizations, which may limit the analysis and lead to restricted or mistaken results if used in another context without proper adaptation. The authors apply an objective and representational epistemological lens to organizational routines to adapt it to the pragmatic context of operations management. Also, the authors suggest that better than a resource-based view, the practice-based view is a theoretical approach more compatible with the resource constraints context of SMEs.

USAGE OF INFORMATION-SEARCH ENGINE AT HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTION ARCHIVAL WORK MANAGEMENT

The purpose of the article is to justify the need to use the information-search engine in universities’ archival affairs management, as well as to develop data workflows diagrams to understand the process of information searching automation in universities’ archival funds. The methodology uses business process modeling techniques, namely DWFD data workflow modeling. A functional approach is used to determine the minimum number of objects in the subject area and the relations between the objects. Structural-logical query generation method was also used to work with structured information databases. The scientific novelty of the work is to create a data workflow diagram (DWFD), which is included in the functional model. DWFD will allow, at the functional modeling stage, to determine the basic data requirements and to trace how information is exchanged, both within the archived information-search engine being designed and the system as a whole with the external information environment. Conclusions. With the help of structural modeling tools, DWFD the process of information-search engine development for archival units of higher education institutions, taking into account the international archival standard ISAD (G) was designed. Thus, the proposed project to develop an information-search engine that is able to accumulate information and output it on multidimensional requests will allow the university archival department staff to increase the efficiency of fulfilling requests for university graduated and employees’ personal data verification. As a prospect for further scientific research is the digitization of archival documents with the assignment of a certain indexation, that is, metadata and uploading them to the database, as well as the ability to create thematic virtual exhibitions of the archive fund on the based on the digitization of archival materials.Key words: information-search engine, automation, archival subdivision, higher education institution informatization, university informatization, ISAD (G), verification, projecting, archival affairs management.

Business processes in business management

Over time, companies have organized themselves in different ways to develop the economy. During the industrial era they organized themselves as a collection of tasks that, according to the knowledge of the time, allowed economies of scale. At the end of the 20th century, new organizational structures emerged, such as the product line and the matrix. More recently, these architectures have evolved in a way that aligns people, work and capital with the processes that create value for the client. Business process management is a business methodology whose objective is to improve efficiency through the systematic management of processes, which must be modeled, automated, integrated, monitored and optimized continuously. This specialized essay deals with this topic and is developed in six sections. In the first, the generalities, history and evolution of process management are presented; the second and third deal with the process management approach and the life cycle phases. The fourth section is dedicated to the business process modeling techniques; one of them, BPMN, is discussed in section five, concluding the essay with section six related to the modeling tools.

Towards a Business Process Modeling Technique for Agile Development of Case Management Systems

A modern organization needs to adapt its behavior to changes in the business environment by changing its Business Processes (BP) and corresponding Business Process Support (BPS) systems. One way of achieving such adaptability is via separation of the system code from the process description/model by applying the concept of executable process models. Furthermore, to ease introduction of changes, such process model should separate different perspectives, for example, control-flow, human resources, and data perspectives, from each other. In addition, for developing a completely new process, it should be possible to start with a reduced process model to get a BPS system quickly running, and then continue to develop it in an agile manner. This article consists of two parts, the first sets requirements on modeling techniques that could be used in the tools that supports agile development of BPs and BPS systems. The second part suggests a business process modeling technique that allows to start modeling with the data/information perspective which would be appropriate for processes supported by Case or Adaptive Case Management (CM/ACM) systems. In a model produced by this technique, called data-centric business process model, a process instance/case is defined as sequence of states in a specially designed instance database, while the process model is defined as a set of rules that set restrictions on allowed states and transitions between them. The article details the background for the project of developing the data-centric process modeling technique, presents the outline of the structure of the model, and gives formal definitions for a substantial part of the model.

Graphical business process modelling standards, techniques and languages: a literature review

Literature shows that there are many graphical business process modelling (PM) tools, techniques and standards. However, choosing the right tools and techniques with which to model BPs is very complicated as there are not as many guidelines to describe the concepts involved. Thus, the modellers should know the purpose of their model in order to select the right techniques and tools. Categorising the different graphical business PM techniques, tools and standards into different groups with the same functions and characteristics can make logical sense of them. In this paper, we have categorised the existing graphical business PM techniques and tools into two groups: graphical standard at enterprise level and at process level, and have provided a comprehensive analysis on the existing graphical business PM techniques and tools. Our proposed literature review can help in enhancing manufacturing practice as it provides a right picture for the business analysts and modellers regarding what are the most satiable techniques for their cases and requirement. Thus, the manufacturing and companies' process time, cost and performance can be enhanced and improved their revenue.

An Evaluation of Understandability of Patient Journey Models in Mental Health.

BackgroundThere is a significant trend toward implementing health information technology to reduce administrative costs and improve patient care. Unfortunately, little awareness exists of the challenges of integrating information systems with existing clinical practice. The systematic integration of clinical processes with information system and health information technology can benefit the patients, staff, and the delivery of care.ObjectivesThis paper presents a comparison of the degree of understandability of patient journey models. In particular, the authors demonstrate the value of a relatively new patient journey modeling technique called the Patient Journey Modeling Architecture (PaJMa) when compared with traditional manufacturing based process modeling tools. The paper also presents results from a small pilot case study that compared the usability of 5 modeling approaches in a mental health care environment.MethodFive business process modeling techniques were used to represent a selected patient journey. A mix of both qualitative and quantitative methods was used to evaluate these models. Techniques included a focus group and survey to measure usability of the various models.ResultsThe preliminary evaluation of the usability of the 5 modeling techniques has shown increased staff understanding of the representation of their processes and activities when presented with the models. Improved individual role identification throughout the models was also observed. The extended version of the PaJMa methodology provided the most clarity of information flows for clinicians.ConclusionsThe extended version of PaJMa provided a significant improvement in the ease of interpretation for clinicians and increased the engagement with the modeling process. The use of color and its effectiveness in distinguishing the representation of roles was a key feature of the framework not present in other modeling approaches. Future research should focus on extending the pilot case study to a more diversified group of clinicians and health care support workers.

A Comparative of business process modelling techniques

In this era, there is a lot of business process modeling techniques. This article is the research about differences of business process modeling techniques. For each technique will explain about the definition and the structure. This paper presents a comparative analysis of some popular business process modelling techniques. The comparative framework is based on 2 criteria: notation and how it works when implemented in Somerleyton Animal Park. Each technique will end with the advantages and disadvantages. The final conclusion will give recommend of business process modeling techniques that easy to use and serve the basis for evaluating further modelling techniques.

DETERMINING THE SUITABILITY OF A BUSINESS PROCESS MODELLING TECHNIQUE FOR A PARTICULAR APPLICATION

Organisations formally define and document their business processes in order to understand them and, subsequently, to enable continuous development, improvement, and management. Organisations can use business process modelling (BPM), which represents the design of graphical models that portray their business processes, to define and document their business processes formally. It is difficult, however, to select a suitable BPM technique in support of a specific application of BPM, owing to the considerable number of existing BPM techniques, the impact of their varying capabilities, and the lack of available formal measures to support evaluations of their suitability for specific modelling applications. This article presents a measurement framework to evaluate the usefulness of BPM techniques in specific modelling applications. It also presents the use of this measurement framework to determine an applicable BPM technique that can be applied in a specific modelling case.

Does lift of liquid ban raise or compromise the current level of aviation security in the European Union? Simulation-based quantitative security risk analysis and assessment

To protect aviation security against terrorist attacks, air passengers and luggage must be screened for threat items, such as explosives using liquids, aerosols and gels (LAG). This paper treats basic problems of the effectiveness and cost-efficiency of liquid screening within a rigorous methodological framework of quantitative security risk assessment. The risks to be evaluated are measured in terms of statistical distributions of fatalities incurred in in-flight terrorist attacks simulated in computer experiments. The simulations combine ‘What-if’ attack scenarios involving the use of LAG explosives, LAG explosive detection systems and alternative procedures of security checks of passengers and hand luggage at European airports. The operational constraints and consequences of security incidents are modelled as random events, employing software-based business process-modelling techniques. Frequency distributions of fatalities generated in the computer experiments are evaluated and compared, systematically and in quantitative terms, using risk assessment methods recently developed in the operational sciences. Basic consequences of the lift of the current liquid ban on aviation security in the European Union will be discussed with reference to the results obtained in the risk analysis.

Ontology Mapping of Business Process Modeling Based on Formal Temporal Logic

A business process is the combination of a set of activities with logical order and dependence, whose objective is to produce a desired goal. Business process modeling (BPM) using knowledge of the available process modeling techniques enables a common understanding and analysis of a business process. Industry and academics use informal and formal techniques respectively to represent business processes (BP), having the main objective to support an organization. Despite both are aiming at BPM, the techniques used are quite different in their semantics. While carrying out literature research, it has been found that there is no general representation of business process modeling is available that is expressive than the commercial modeling tools and techniques. Therefore, it is primarily conceived to provide an ontology mapping of modeling terms of Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN), Unified Modeling Language (UML) Activity Diagrams (AD) and Event Driven Process Chains (EPC) to temporal logic. Being a formal system, first order logic assists in thorough understanding of process modeling and its application. However, our contribution is to devise a versatile conceptual categorization of modeling terms/constructs and also formalizing them, based on well accepted business notions, such as action, event, process, connector and flow. It is demonstrated that the new categorization of modeling terms mapped to formal temporal logic, provides the expressive power to subsume business process modeling techniques i.e. BPMN, UML AD and EPC.

Unified Modeling Language (UML) IT adoption — A holistic model of organizational capabilities perspective

This study develops an integrated research model to examine various factors affecting the IT adoption in the context of the Unified Modeling Language (UML). UML is one type of business process modeling techniques, which in turn is a key aspect of the business process reengineering. The proposed research model is based on IT adoption framework and organizational culture theory. The model identifies fourteen variables, covering seven broad categories (IT characteristics, organization technology, environment, organization structure, organization process, organization culture, and project culture) that could potentially impact UML adoption in organizations. This comprehensive conceptual model is further validated by survey data collected from 251 North American organizations across five different industries. Our results support the proposed conceptualization and shed new light on the key factors associated with firms' adoption of UML technologies. Theoretical and managerial implications of the findings are discussed.

A hybrid approach to workflow modelling

PurposeThe increase in business process management projects in the past decade has seen an increase in demand for business process modelling (BPM) techniques. A rapidly growing aspect of BPM is the use of workflow management systems to automate routine and sequential processes. Workflows tend to move away from traditional definitions of business processes that can often be forced to fit a model that does not suit its nature. Existing process modelling tools tend to be biased to either the informational, behavioural or object‐oriented aspect of the workflow. Because of this, models can often miss important aspects of a workflow. As well as managing the relationship between the types of model it is important to consider who will be using it, as process models are useful in various ways. The paper aims to address these issues.Design/methodology/approachThis paper reports on a case study in a manufacturing company, where users were surveyed to see which are the notations that are most common in modelling based on two main categories (i.e. behavioural and informational).FindingsThe research outcomes showed that there is no prevailing set of standards used for either of these categories, while most users feel the need to use more than one approach to model their system at any given time. Many companies face problems when trying to model the behaviour of human workers in the business processes. Existing techniques are mostly designed at modelling information systems or business processes, and rarely attempt to integrate the two.Originality/valueThis paper proposes the use of a new hybrid modelling methodology, which is an original idea, on existing tools and methodologies. Key authors in the literature recommend against the trend of developing a brand new methodology, so existing tools from each end of the scale were combined to provide a solution which is capable of modelling IS and BP.

Improving the business processes of a bank

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze the business processes of a bank by considering a graphical and a descriptive view in order to find critical processes and to improve them.Design/methodology/approachA methodology with which the business processes are modeled based on the flow diagram (FD) and integrated definitions (IDEF0) techniques.FindingsDetects the descriptive and graphical view of the main critical business processes of a bank. Allows to propose correct and effective improvements to them and considers different views and degrees of detail.Research limitations/implicationsThis study considers a static view of the processes. A future line of research includes the simulation of the critical business processes of the bank detected with the modeling techniques herein proposed.Practical implicationsThe business process modeling techniques apply to one subsidiary of a bank company, and can thus be extended to all subsidiaries to compare their performance and to apply the improvements by considering global objectives.Originality/valueThis paper proposes a structured modeling to capture the critical business processes of a bank through well‐known techniques, such as the FDs and IDEF0, and helps compare and detect these relevant aspects for the bank.

Business Process Modeling- A Comparative Analysis

Many business process modeling techniques have been proposed over the last decades, creating a demand for theory to assist in the comparison and evaluation of these techniques. A widely established way of determining the effectiveness and efficiency of modeling techniques is by way of representational analysis. This paper comparatively assesses representational analyses of 12 popular process modeling techniques in order to provide insights into the extent to which they differ from each other. We discuss several implications of our findings. Our analysis uncovers and explores representational root causes for a number of shortcomings that remain in process modeling practice, such as lack of process decomposition and integration of business rule specification. Our findings also serve as motivation and input to future research in areas such as context-aware business process design and conventions management.

Process Modeling Based Integration

Process modeling technologies have been widely applied in industry for system integration. However, the application of different process modeling methods and tools causes serious processstovepipe issues. Process modeling based integration is the direction to overcome the problem. This paper reviews the development of business process modeling and analysis techniques, and then tries to construct a framework with suitable methodology, interoperable medium and verification method to realize process modeling based system integration.

Business Process Analysis and Optimization: Beyond Reengineering

There is an abundance of business process modeling techniques that capture and address different aspects of a business process. A limited number of these process models allow further quantitative analysis, and only a few enable structured process improvement. This paper reviews and classifies the main techniques for business process modeling with regard to their analysis and optimization capabilities. Three primary groups are identified, and a selection of representative business process modeling techniques is classified based on these. Similar classification is also presented for the analysis and optimization approaches for business processes that were identified in relevant literature. The main contribution of the paper is that it identifies which types of business process models are suitable for analysis and optimization, and also highlights the lack of such approaches. This paper offers a state-of-the-art review in the areas of business process modeling, analysis, and optimization-underlining that the latter two have not received enough coverage and support in the literature.

Assessing the impact of e-Procurement strategies through the use of business process modelling and simulation techniques

In the last years, a strong disillusion has heavily affected many companies in the implementation of business to business (B2B) applications. These drawbacks are mainly due to the rushing adoption and acquisition of these new systems, believing that they would have acted as tools for automating processes, rather than real opportunities for modifying the business strategy. Their added value can be negligible and, paradoxically, negative, if not accompanied by a thorough revision of the decision-making activities and of the roles performed by the involved actors. Focusing on e-Procurement systems, this paper intends to demonstrate how the adoption of rigorous business process simulation methodologies enables analysts to properly map current and future processes and to evaluate the expected pay-offs resulting from the re-engineering activity. The paper analyses at first the main issues deriving from the new strategic role of the purchasing function. Then, it provides a literature review of the main business process modelling and simulation techniques, pointing out their role in e-Procurement projects. Finally, it introduces an industrial application experienced in a multinational pharmaceutical company and motivates how the use of business process simulation methodologies effectively supported the re-engineering process of the procurement division and the evaluation a priori of different possible solutions.

Business processes—attempts to find a definition

Definitions of business process given in much of the literature on Business Process Management are limited in depth and their related models of business processes are correspondingly constrained. After giving a brief history of the progress of business process modeling techniques from production systems to the office environment, this paper proposes that most definitions are based on machine metaphor type explorations of a process. While these techniques are often rich and illuminating it is suggested that they are too limited to express the true nature of business processes that need to develop and adapt to today's challenging environment.