Aligning Business Process Quality and Information System Quality

Business process modelling is an important part of system design. When designing or redesigning a business process, stakeholders specify, negotiate, and agree on business requirements to be satisfied, including non-functional requirements that concern the quality of the business process. This thesis addresses the question of how to specify and compute the quality of a business process, given the model that stakeholders use. The motivation for this thesis is the increasing importance of the quality of business processes. Knowing the quality of specific business processes enables stakeholders to judge if these processes need improvement. Knowing the quality of the constructs of those processes (viz., events, inputs, activities, and outputs) and the way they are structured enables a more detailed analysis of their shortcomings and provides a basis for the design of improvements. The research challenge of this thesis is grounded in the assumption that: “Organisations need an appropriate means to effectively compute achievement of their goals and objectives by their business processes.” Given this challenge, the main research question on which this thesis focuses is: “Can the quality of a business process be computed quantitatively at different levels of granularity?” The research objective is: “To develop frameworks, factors, and metrics for computing non-functional requirements (quality) of business processes quantitatively at different levels of granularity.” The outcomes of this thesis are: 1) BPIMM, a language-independent business process integrating meta-model, based on the concepts of seven mainstream business process modelling languages: BPMN, EPC, RAD, UML AD, SADT, IDEF0, and IDEF3. 2) BPC-QC (Business Process Concept - Quality Computation), an approach to quality computation at the lowest level of granularity of a business process. The approach consists of: i. BPC-QEF (Business Process Concept - Quality Evaluation Framework), a language-independent generic framework and algorithm to compute the quality of the constructs of a business process: event, input, activity, and output. ii. A set of business process quality dimensions and factors. The following quality dimensions are distinguished: performance, efficiency, reliability, recoverability, permissibility, and availability. Each dimension categorises different quality aspects in terms of factors. A non-exhaustive set of sixteen quantitative factors is provided. iii. Quality metrics for each of the quality factors, to facilitate a quantitative computation of the quality of a specific construct of a business process. 3) BP-QC (Business Process - Quality Computation), an approach to compute the quality at the highest level of granularity of a business process. The approach consists of: i. BP-CQCF (Business Process - Compositional Quality Computation Framework), a language-independent generic framework and algorithm to compute the quality of a business process as a whole, given the quality of its constructs. ii. A set of generic business process modelling patterns to decompose a business process into more succinct parts, namely: sequential, parallel with synchronisation, exclusive, inclusive, simple loop, and complex loop. iii. A set of over one hundred computational formulae. For each combination of modelling pattern and a quality factor, there is a formula to compute the quality. 4) AAV (Approach to Application and Validation), an evaluation plan to evaluate BPIMM, BPC-QC and BP-QC in practice, together with expert stakeholders. The plan consists of the units of measure, a measurement model, and a case study procedure. To evaluate the applicability of the contributions of this thesis to real world business needs, four case studies have been conducted in different environments: a Dutch educational institution, a global financial institution, an international financial service provider, and a Dutch research project on crisis management. Each of these case studies concerns a different, single business process. This thesis shows that: 1) A quality computation approach can be adopted independent of a business process modelling language. 2) Quantitative quality factors can be introduced specifically for the constructs of a business process. 3) Quantitative metrics and computational formulae can be developed for specific quality factors, allowing the computation of different aspects of the quality of a business process quantitatively at different levels of granularity. 4) An evaluation plan can be developed to evaluate the applicability of the contributions of this thesis (viz., BPIMM, BPC-QC, and BP-QC). The contributions of this thesis are designed to be beneficial to the areas of business and management, requirements engineering, software engineering, and business process modelling. In the areas of requirements engineering and software engineering, these contributions are intended to help practitioners to consider non-functional requirements at the earliest stage. In the area of business process modelling, information systems, service computing, and cloud computing, the contributions can be used for quality-driven modelling, design, and redesign. To conclude, knowing the quality value of a business process at different levels of granularity provides a basis for its improvement.

Business process (BP) designs and enterprise information system (IS) designs are often not well aligned. Missing alignment may result in performance problems at run-time, such as large process execution time or overloaded IS resources. The complex interrelations between BPs and ISs are not adequately understood and considered in development so far. Simulation is a promising approach to predict performance of both BP and IS designs. Based on prediction results, design alternatives can be compared and verified against requirements. Thus, BP and IS designs can be aligned to improve performance. In current simulation approaches, BP simulation and IS simulation are not adequately integrated. This results in limited prediction accuracy due to neglected interrelations between the BP and the IS in simulation. In this paper, we present the novel approach Integrated Business IT Impact Simulation (IntBIIS) to adequately reflect the mutual impact between BPs and ISs in simulation. Three types of mutual impact between BPs and ISs in terms of performance are specified. We discuss several solution alternatives to predict the impact of a BP on the performance of ISs and vice versa. It is argued that an integrated simulation of BPs and ISs is best suited to reflect their interrelations. We propose novel concepts for continuous modeling and integrated simulation. IntBIIS is implemented by extending the Palladio tool chain with BP simulation concepts. In a real-life case study with a BP and IS from practice, we validate the feasibility of IntBIIS and discuss the practicability of the corresponding tool support.

The increasing adoption of Process-aware Information Systems (PAISs), together with the variability of Business Processes (BPs) across different application contexts, has resulted in large process model repositories with collections of related process model variants. To reduce both costs and occurrence of errors, the explicit management of variability throughout the BP lifecycle becomes crucial. In literature, several proposals dealing with BP variability have been proposed. However, the lack of a method for their systematic comparison makes it difficult to select the most appropriate one meeting current needs best. To close this gap, this work presents an evaluation framework that allows analyzing and comparing the variability support provided by existing proposals developed in the context of BP variability. The framework encompasses a set of language requirements as well as a set of variability support features. While language requirements allow assessing the expressiveness required to explicitly represent variability of different process perspectives, variability support features reflect the tool support required to properly cover such expressiveness. Our evaluation framework has been derived based on an in-depth analysis of several large real-world process scenarios, an extensive literature review, and an analysis of existing PAISs. In this vein, the framework helps to understand BP variability along the BP lifecycle. In addition, it supports PAISs engineers in deciding, which of the existing BP variability proposals meets best their needs.

Despite numerous frameworks and models proposed in the literature, Information Systems (IS) assessment still remains elusive. In addition, little agreement exists on the contribution of the IS function within an organization and on how IS is related to the other organizational dimensions. Frameworks that show the relationship between IS and the organization are in the developmental stage and this work proposes a more comprehensive framework to assist in better understanding the relationship between IS and organizational quality. This research examines two popular IS quality assessment frameworks - Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) and Information Systems Assessment (ISA) - and suggests a new framework, IS-MBNQA. This work integrates these two IS quality assessment frameworks into a single comprehensive model that provides a holistic view on how IS quality is interrelated to organizational quality. The existing two IS assessment frameworks attempted to measure IS quality at different levels within an organization. The MBNQA model is the most comprehensive quality framework because it takes an organization wide perspective. On the other hand, ISA employs an IS specific perspective and reflects the relationships of eight major IS success dimensions. ISA is a modified version of DeLone & McLean's model with the inclusion of a success factor for Service Quality. For this study, survey instruments are developed from the MBNQA and ISA frameworks and they are consolidated to allow testing of the single IS-MBNQA framework. Exploratory factor analysis is performed for instrument refinement and confirmatory factor analysis for validity of the models. The instruments developed in this work are utilized as a foundation for identifying the relationships among the dimensions within and between each model. A major contribution of this work is the validation of the 2000 MBNQA model and the extension of existing models/frameworks to better explain the IS contribution to an organization.

Over the last few years, we have seen the transformation of the traditional monolithic enterprise, in which all operations were performed in-house, to the extended enterprise, which consists of a network of collaborating entities. Global operations, outsourcing, and increasing specialization have all contributed to this trend. One challenge facing the extended enterprise is how to reconnect the information flows and business processes that were disconnected as the enterprise disaggregated. The emergence of web services, service-oriented architectures, and business process modeling and execution standards are helping to address this challenge. Our contention is that the next phase of evolution is the rise of the intelligent enterprise, which is characterized by being able to adapt quickly to changes in its operating environment. The intelligent enterprise monitors its own business processes and its interactions with customers, partners, suppliers, and collaborators; it understands how this information relates to its business objectives; and it acts to control and optimize its operations to meet its business objectives. Decisions are made quickly and accurately to modify business processes on the fly, dynamically allocate resources, or change business partners (e.g., suppliers, service providers) and partnerships (e.g., establish new service level agreements). This talk will describe challenges in managing the business operations of an intelligent enterprise. While a plethora of tools exist for managing the IT infrastructure (servers, storage, and network resources) of the enterprise, there is little systematic support today for the closed loop management and control of business operations. We will describe technology approaches to intelligent business operations management that we are pursuing at HP Labs., the progress we have made, and some open research questions.

Companies increasingly adopt process management systems (PrMS), which offer promising perspectives for a more flexible and efficient process execution. However, for many process-aware application systems (e.g., ERP or CRM systems), the underlying process logic is still hard-coded. As a consequence, these business applications are both complex to design and costly to maintain; i.e., they require long development cycles, and even simple process changes might result in costly code adaptions and high efforts for testing. One reason for this situation stems from the fact that contemporary PrMS were primarily designed for the support of highly structured, repetitive business processes. By contrast, many processes found in practice are rather unstructured or semi-structured, i.e., they are knowledge-intensive and driven by user decisions. In addition, the business functions to be integrated with these processes usually cannot be straight-jacketed into activities. For all these reasons, the activity-centered paradigm of contemporary PrMS is by far too inflexible for realizing more advanced business applications. This deficiency mainly stems from the unsatisfactory integration of processes and data in existing PrMS. Despite emerging approaches, which target at a tighter integration of process and data, a unified and comprehensive understanding of the relationships between them is still missing. This thesis first analyzes real processes not adequately supported by existing PrMS and elaborates their characteristic properties. As a major insight it became clear that in many application scenarios comprehensive process support requires both object- and process-awareness. This means, business processes and business data must not be treated independently from each other. Instead, business processes must comply with the underlying data structure. In particular, in accordance to the given data model comprising object types and object relations, the modeling, execution and monitoring of processes must be based on two levels of granularity: object behavior and object interactions. Further, the individual processes, coordinating the behavior of single object instances, must be coordinated with the ones of related object instances. Opposed to these well-defined process support granularity levels, activities must be executable at different levels of granularity. In particular, while a particular user may only want to work on a particular object instance, another one may want to process a number of related object instances in one go. Furthermore, process execution must be accomplished in a data-driven manner; i.e., the progress of a process instance mainly depends on available business objects and on value changes of their attributes. Finally, authorized users must be able to access and manage process-related objects at any point in time. Based on the properties identified, this thesis elaborates major requirements for enabling object-awareness in processes management systems. The major contribution of the thesis is the PHILharmonicFlows framework, which addresses these requirements and enables object-aware process management in a comprehensive manner. In particular, the framework not only provides a new process modeling approach, but also establishes a well-defined operational semantics enabling the automatic and dynamic generation of end-user components for object- and process-aware business applications at run-time (e.g., overview tables and user forms). Overall, a holistic framework integrating data, processes and users offers promising perspectives in order to overcome the numerous limitations of contemporary PrMS. This thesis considers research in this area as fundamental maturation of process management technology.

With the extensive application of informationalized management systems for barcode specimens, the degree of informatization is becoming higher and higher in medical laboratory. Informationalized management combines modern information technology and advanced management concepts, transforms or reengineers the laboratory operation and business process. Test specimen turnaround time (TAT) is an important factor affecting the quality of the inspection. By analyzing the test process of each time node, establish the suitable specimens monitoring program for clinical requirements and real-time monitor the key nodes in test processes,which will effectively shorten TAT, improve reporting timeliness rate and avoid clinical complaints.(Chin J Lab Med, 2014,37: 475-476) Key words: Laboratories, hospital; Management information systems; Clinical laboratory techniques; Total quality management

Evolution in business processes, information systems and modelling notations has resulted in the development of modern modelling languages, such as BPMN or UML. In elaborated notations it could be noticed that there is a high concentration on the activities of processes with the lack or insufficient integration of many important management categories such as communication, quality or risk. This indicates that it is still necessary to further improve modelling approaches. As presented in the literature, especially a systematic approach to communication management is crucial to enable organizations to successfully carry out their projects. Thus, modelling notations should take into account communication management-related features. The main objective of the article is to propose a modelling notation for communication management of business and project processes that would enable better communication between relevant parties. It begins by introducing the current state of modelling notations. The introduction is a starting point for the second section, which contains a presentation of an elaborated communication management notation for business and project processes as a separate diagram type. The next part of the paper shows the verification of this elaborated modelling approach. The article concludes with a summary.

When organizations engage in close cooperation they usually need to reorganize the business processes that serve the interface between them. This reorganization is often done with the help of business process models. As a result, the underlying information systems have to be adapted, too. The changes to the latter can be supported by information system models which are typically “written” in a different language from that of the business processes. Here we suggest an approach to facilitate the development of information system models based on the models of the respective business processes. This is achieved by mapping a suitable business process language to the Unified Modeling Language. We apply this approach in the context of an interorganizational business process.

This paper investigates options to access the resilience of business process architectures, thereby connecting the two hitherto unconnected areas of Business Process Management and Information System Resilience. The overarching goal is to provide for robust and reliable business process execution even under adverse and unexpected situations. Specifically, this paper focuses on one particular resilience indicator as a basis for assessment, namely time. This is because timeliness and time behavior of activities in business processes directly mirror effects and impacts of a changing environment on the business process. We develop an approach based on process mining to analyze the event logs generated during the execution of processes which extract probability distributions of a process’s time behavior to model the effects of occured events. A case study substantiates the applicability of the approach.

Designing cooperative business processes in Industrial Product-Service Systems (IPS2) is a challenging effort. Previous research has developed few comprehensive methods and tools for designing integrated business processes and information systems that foster a seamless cooperation in a network. In this study, a workshop method is developed to identify information that needs to be transferred in an IPS2 in order to jointly engineer, sell, and fulfill complex value propositions. In order to design and implement integrated business processes and information systems on a detailed level, the workshop results can be used subsequently to speed up and inform more comprehensive design endeavors.

Process and data are equally important for business process management. Data is especially relevant in the context of automated business processes, and process controlling. In the context of knowledge-intensive domain, data modified by engineers and used by a fully automatic manufacturing system can lead to unpredictable errors. In this paper, a method permitting the discovery of truly enforced business rules used by the process is proposed. These rules will be highlighted using data from the model of the studied process. The proposed methodology is mainly based on a data mining approach. The proposed method has been tested on data from semiconductor industry, in which processes are known to be complex, and the number of business rules is known to be important. The results show that the method is efficient in assisting engineers in process errors detection and practical process improvement.

In this world of competitive business environment where every thing is getting supersonic speed, the old business trends are not finding them to provide the most suitable business solutions. Business world is becoming global market and the business rules, business processes and techniques are also required to be updated. The new threats and challenges are emerged as the outcome of globalization though the opportunities are also enhanced. The one of the major challenges of the business world is handling of huge data volumes to find relevant data and then to extract relevant and meaningful information to design planning and strategy to get the maximum benefit in any business domain. Although it seems to be Electronic commerce (e-Commerce) is a general concept which covers any form of business transaction or information exchange executed using information and communication technologies (ICT's).E-Commerce includes electronic trading of goods, services and electronic material e-Commerce systems include commercial transactions on the Internet but their scope is much wider than this e.g Electronic Market, Electronic Data Exchange (EDI), Internet Commerce. It is the commercialization and popularization of the Internet that has put e-Commerce towards the top of the public and political agenda but e-Commerce using electronic markets and EDI have been an established part of the business scene for at least a decade prior to the 'Internet era'. This article is provides an account of electronic commerce with respect to the link with various stake holders.

The business value of Information Systems (IS) is one of the most prominent topics in IS research and the collective effort of scholars interested in this topic has offered a thorough understanding of the organisational effects of IS investments. However, the organisation-level view obscures how IS business value emerges from individual-level IS use. This analytical blind spot reduces the plurality of IS business values that users realise through IS use to organisation-level outcomes. We fill this blind spot by theorising about how IS business value is realised through individual-level IS use. Building on the findings of a case study, we theorise the relationships between users’ valueception of IS, their IS use and the realisation of IS business value through this use. Our theorising advances knowledge on IS business value realisation at the individual level and shows that individual-level IS use realises more than one IS business value. This insight into the plurality of IS business value opens the door for further value-reflexive investigations. Our theorising offers analytical vocabulary that future studies can utilise to examine and explain phenomena of value realisation through IS use.

The information systems (IS) audit in public sector organisations is generally conducted to provide assurance about the effectiveness of IS controls, processes, resources, operations, and value for money in the IS investment. Public sector organisations are being confronted with various new demands from businesses, the public and other stakeholders because of the high level of IS investment, which takes long to complete and involves uncertainty of performance. This research argues that the current IS audit practice does not take a broad enough view in assessing the overall system. Hence, it is particularly challenging for an IS auditor not only to identify how well the IS supports the overall business objectives, but also to justify the continuity of IS operation and to produce an effective IS audit report. There have been several cases in which IS were unsuccessful and did not perform as the users expected. Due to the current IS audit practice, IS auditors are unable to recognise any inherent limitations that may exist in the design, development and implementation of application systems that will impact on the organisation’s objectives and operational activities. Sustainability is a relevant and practical way to deal with limitations found in IS audit practice. Sustainability is future oriented and concerned with holistic and integrated systems consisting of humans, nature, social and technology infrastructure. This research is conducted with the goal of incorporating sustainability within the IS audit framework as a strategy to minimise IS control risk, to reduce inherent risks faced by the IS auditors and to produce effective IS audit reports. This research found that the proposed framework known as the Sustainability Driven Information System Audit (SISA) is an appropriate alternative that can overcome these shortcomings, and effectively address risks associated with IS controls. SISA is also considered to reduce uncertainties in decision making by reviewing results, processes and input. It facilitates coordination and communication to produce an audit report that provides effective value to the key stakeholders and the public. This research also studies the appropriate method for IS auditors to make audit judgements, particularly in measuring IS controls. The applicability of the SISA framework to a real case study has been found to be very promising. The result showed that a systematic and numerical approach is suitable for prioritising audit criteria and in order to emphasise the key areas of concern for the audit purpose. The results indicate that the sustainability approach is a practical and reasonable method that can be employed at any public sector organisation. This research contributes theoretically, methodologically and practically to the IS audit body of knowledge.