Business Process Control Research Articles

Quantitative model for evaluating the quality of an automotive business process

One of the key issues to business process control is the identification of measurable process attributes. For manufacturing processes these are typically physical parameters of the process (e.g. temperature, set points) or physical attributes of the manufactured product (e.g. dimension, functional performance). However, for business processes the metrics are more abstract. The challenge has been to develop metrics that capture the contributing subtle and hard to measure factors for business process control. This paper presents an analytical model that uses the weights-of-evidence concept to convert answers to audit or self-assessment questions into a single numerical process quality index. This index is used to forecast process success or failure and monitor its performance from start to end. The application of the approach is illustrated with an automotive industry product development sub-process where the process performance metric is the field warranty data, i.e. incidents per thousand vehicles (IPTV). The analytical model converts process self-assessment (failure mode and effect analysis) questions into a single numeric process quality index. The validity of the model is reflected in the strength of the correlation between the index and the IPTV results. Also, in this paper a measure is developed for identifying critical process quality assessment questions. This measure quantifies the deviation in the automotive business process that should have more focus. The significance of the analytical model proposed in this research is that the project managers or quality assurance auditors may be able to use the metric to predict product quality at any point in the product development process.

INTEROPERABLE ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS: ARCHITECTURES AND METHODS

Interoperable enterprise systems (be they supply chains, extended enterprises, or any forms of virtual organization) must be designed, controlled, and appraised from a holistic and systemic point of view. Systems interoperability is key to Enterprise Integration, which recommends that the IT architecture and infrastructure be aligned with business process organization and control, themselves designed according to a strategic view expressed in an Enterprise Architecture. The paper discusses architectures and methods to build interoperable enterprise systems, advocating a mixed service and process orientation, to support synchronous and asynchronous operations, both at the business level (business events, business services, business processes) and at the application level (workflow, IT and Web services, application programs).

Workflow-Based Knowledge Flow Modeling and Control

Knowledge flow is the knowledge creation, distribution, and reuse among participants. In knowledge intensive organizations, business process control and knowledge assess management are closely related to each other. Workflow management is an important technology for business process control. Yet knowledge management mechanisms can not be represented by current workflow process definition meta models. An innovative extended workflow process definition meta model is first proposed for integrating the above two aspects. Based on that, modeling and control of knowledge flows are studied. A knowledge flow modeling approach is proposed by using five kinds of knowledge flow components to represent knowledge distribution and reuse, cooperation and communication among participants. To deal with dynamic elements in knowledge flows, an adaptive knowledge flow control approach with corresponding algorithms is proposed based on resource constraints, changes of knowledge requirements, and time constraints. This paper presents a beneficial approach for the effective integration of workflow and knowledge management technologies.

A Dispatching Rule for Efficient Workflow

A workflow management system is a software system to support accurate execution, control and management of business processes. It has been known that the system executes complex processes automatically and manages them effectively to improve the productivities. However, though existing systems assure the automatic execution of an individual process, there is room for enhancement from the view of efficient execution of all the processes. In this paper, we propose a method of executing business processes efficiently by introducing the PERT/CPM techniques in the workflow management systems. We first consider the differences between workflow process models and PERT/CPM models, and then develop a method of calculating the critical path and slack time in workflow processes. This leads us to develop a dispatching rule that can guide task performers to prioritize their tasks to increase the efficiency of all the processes. We have carried out a set of simulation experiments and analyzed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Integrating decision making and regulation in the management control process

The significance of control in business is undeniable, and this work revisits management control and the management control process. An interpretation of existing approaches leads to a new way of integrating the managing processes of decision making and regulating. This promises to provide the means of a more explicit behavioural control of operational business processes. Such control is made possible where the controlled work activities (and the work activities of the manager) take place in an IT environment which possesses knowledge of such processes. The control action influences operational behaviour by manipulating the definition of these processes at run time. This will enable control structures to be more formalised where appropriate, improve coordination between control and operations, and improve coordination between control processes. Two implementable models of control processes are proposed together with an indication of how they might be integrated into business processes to provide holistic support for business activity.

The dMARS Architecture: A Specification of the Distributed Multi-Agent Reasoning System

The Procedural Reasoning System (PRS) is the best established agent architecture currently available. It has been deployed in many major industrial applications, ranging from fault diagnosis on the space shuttle to air traffic management and business process control. The theory of PRS-like systems has also been widely studied: within the intelligent agents research community, the belief-desire-intention (BDI) model of practical reasoning that underpins PRS is arguably the dominant force in the theoretical foundations of rational agency. Despite the interest in PRS and BDI agents, no complete attempt has yet been made to precisely specify the behaviour of real PRS systems. This has led to the development of a range of systems that claim to conform to the PRS model, but which differ from it in many important respects. Our aim in this paper is to rectify this omission. We provide an abstract formal model of an idealised dMARS system (the most recent implementation of the PRS architecture), which precisely defines the key data structures present within the architecture and the operations that manipulate these structures. We focus in particular on dMARS plans, since these are the key tool for programming dMARS agents. The specification we present will enable other implementations of PRS to be easily developed, and will serve as a benchmark against which future architectural enhancements can be evaluated.

Effective Safety Management: a Case Study in the Chemical Industry

AbstractA major non‐trivial problem within the area of industrial safety management today is to analyse, next to the safety impact of the technical equipment, the safety impact of a ‘business process’ as currently required by regulation and safety standards.This paper describes a case study of a pesticide company struggling with the question of how to improve the safety of their operational process further and at the same time also improve the reliability of their operational process. According to the literature ‘control of the business process’ is the keyword to improve the safety and reliability ‘performance’ of a company. A formal control model is proposed together with a classification system (using maturity levels) to analyse and qualify business processes with respect to their impact on process safety.This method has been applied in a case study where it resulted in a model of a business process. Using the model it was possible to classify the business process control system used and to identify related improvement opportunities. The proposed method showed that, in contrast to the company's perception, it was not the production department that was responsible for most of the problems but the peripheral processes relating to the production department. The interaction between departments caused not only potential safety problems, but also caused system reliability problems. For the company it was demonstrated that the interdependency of the (different activities in the‐) operational process is an essential element preventing further improvement if not addressed properly. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A BUSINESS PROCESS CENTERED SOFTWARE ANALYSIS METHOD

Based on the requirements arising from process-centered organizations and because of the lack of process modeling mechanisms in traditional software development methods, this paper presents a Business Process-centered Software Analysis method (BPSA), which supports the modeling of business process control logic. As a method, BPSA is composed of two main parts: a model and the steps of how to model the requirements using this model. The model includes the functional, informational and organizational aspects as well as the behavioral aspect that provides the mechanism for modeling the process control logic. The event mechanism is employed in this method as a main technique for modeling the control aspect of business processes. This method is based on technologies such as Structured Analysis, OOA & OOD, Workflow, XML, and has been used in the development of several medium and large information systems, proving to be both useful and effective.

Accidents, often the result of an ‘uncontrolled business process’-a study in the (Dutch) chemical industry

Often companies in the (petro-) chemical industry claim that all possible countermeasures against potential accidents have been taken and therefore accidents are unforeseeable. In this paper we question this statement by analysing the pre-warning signals (precursors) preceding a number of industrial accidents. 17 accidents that occurred in the (petro-) chemical industry have been investigated by exploring FACTS, an accident database containing information about industrial accidents worldwide. This paper will demonstrate that the existence of precursor information could have been used to foresee and even prevent these accidents if a proper control action had been initiated. The accidents are analysed further, according to a control model, which was adapted from that of C. Argyris. It demonstrates the ineffectiveness of several elements of business process control loops and that the so-called ‘double-loop learning’ cycle is more important than the ‘single-loop learning’ cycle if one considers safety improvement. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Measurement and control of business processes

AbstractIt is widely accepted that any well‐designed organizational process includes a control mechanism through which management decides which aspects of the performance of the process are to be measured and how these measurements are to be used to change the level of resources utilized in the process. Little is known, however, about the best ways to design such a control mechanism for typical business processes. Our goal in this research is to identify control mechanisms for business processes that are effective in different types of environments. In this article we present a system dynamics model of a typical service‐sector business process, such as is used in processing administrative paperwork in insurance, banking, and so on. These processes are subject to random, time‐varying, and non‐postponable demands for service. They are also subject to randomness in processing times, as well as delays in the observation of system performance and in the execution of control actions. We assume management has the dual objectives of maximizing profits (revenues on completed work less the costs of labor employed) and keeping cycle times below a predetermined ceiling. In order to achieve these objectives it observes the state of the process and adjusts its labor force accordingly. Management must chose which of several aspects of process performance to measure (cycle time, backlog, or demand) and the parameters governing the control process. Our analysis highlights the interactions among the demand environment faced by the process (e.g., random or seasonal), the control signal chosen (e.g., cycle time or backlog), and the type of control used (e.g., proportional or differential). Our results suggest that, regardless of the demand environment, a control process based on system backlog is generally more robust than the alternatives in the sense that adequate performance is achieved over a broader range of control parameters. We also find that, in most cases, proportional control by itself is inadequate to provide effective performance and that differential control is a necessary adjunct. We conclude the article with a discussion of the managerial implications of this research. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Temporal representation and reasoning for workflow in engineering design change review

Workflow management, which is concerned with the coordination and control of business processes using information technology, has grown from its origins in document routing to include the automation of process logic in business process reengineering. Workflow also has a strong temporal aspect; activity sequencing, deadlines, routing conditions, and scheduling all involve the element of time. Temporal expert systems, which use knowledge-based constructs to represent and reason about time, can be used to enhance the capabilities of workflow software. This paper presents a temporal expert system workflow component for tracking engineering design changes. The authors use Allen's theory of temporal intervals in their model to enhance the decision-making, timing, and routing activities in a workflow application. They test the model using information from a "real-world" engineering design situation and suggest further research opportunities.

Flowcharting business processes: a new approach

An article in the Volume 13, Number 2 issue of the Managerial Auditing Journal introduced a comprehensive business process control model that captures the full spectrum of process controls being implemented by world‐class organizations, including value‐adding controls focused on quality, cost and time. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate a new approach to flowcharting business processes which highlights the five broad categories of controls included in the model. This approach clearly shows how the various types of controls interact with process activities and provides a basis for evaluating how effectively these controls contribute to the achievement of business process objectives.

Business process control for the twenty‐first century

Many of the traditional controls that accountants and auditors are most familiar with can be traced to bureaucratic management. This article introduces a business process control model that fully captures the broader array of process controls now being implemented by world‐class organizations, including value‐adding controls focused on quality, cost and time. The article describes the categories of controls included in the model, presents a new way of mapping process controls that reflects the model, and illustrates the use of the model within the context of an actual business process. The article also discusses the primary benefits of adopting the model. First, the model provides a common business process control language and structure which will facilitate communications and foster a uniform understanding of process controls among senior executives, process owners, accountants and auditors. Second, the model provides a framework for comprehensively assessing business process risks and evaluating and improving business process controls.

The economic view-a concept using metrics to analyse and optimize business processes

A new dimension for business process modelling and engineering, the Economic View, is presented. Usually the analysis and evaluation of the objects of views according to such criteria as performance, cost and time is done by the definition of benchmarks indexes which are defined as attributes of the modelled objects. The benchmarks are distributed over the various objects and views and are therefore difficult to access and evaluate by the user, and relations among benchmarks cannot be defined. The Economic View models map all relevant quantitative aspects for business process analysis and optimization in the form of metrics benchmark systems concentrated in one view, thus the quantitative analysis and optimization of business processes is significantly reduced. The approach can be used to analyse and evaluate individual business processes, resources, products and orders, but also entire business process chains and technologies. In addition to the analysis of business processes during model generation the benchmarks can be applied for control of the implemented business processes.