Methodology For Analyzing The Company's Business Processes (For Example, Car Service)

Business Process and Practice Alignment Meta-model

This paper presents experiences in applying the goal decomposition and scenario analysis model in the context of Business Process Reengineering (BPR). The relationships of goals, scenarios, as well as the understanding and description of business processes are discussed. Different methods of goal refinement, and the application of scenarios to support this process of refining goals and roles are reviewed. A case study is presented which serves to exemplify and validate the process of using scenarios in refining business process descriptions. We tried deriving full scenarios for business processes, but obtaining them from the organization's prescriptive goals was difficult. Explanatory scenarios that justify descriptive goals are easier to obtain but are fragmentary. We conclude that both types of scenario and goal analysis are necessary for effective BPR. The need for technology support for this process is discussed and attention is given to future anticipated research in this area.

Project repositories are a central asset in software development, as they preserve the knowledge gathered in past development activities. Locating relevant information in a vast project repository is problematic, because it requires manually tagging projects with accurate metadata, an activity which is time consuming and prone to errors and omissions. Just like any other artifact or web service, business processes can be stored in repositories to be shared and used by third parties, e.g., as building blocks for constructing new business processes. The success of such a paradigm depends partly on the availability of effective search tools to locate business processes that are relevant to the user purposes. A handful of researchers have investigated the problem of business process discovery using as input syntactical and structural information that describes business processes. This work explores an additional source of information encoded in the form of annotations that semantically describe business processes. Business processes can be semantically described using the so called abstract business processes. These are designated by concepts from an ontology which additionally captures their relationships. This ontology can be built in an automatic fashion from a collection of (concrete) business processes, and this work illustrates how it can be refined by domain experts and used in the discovery of business processes, with the purpose of reuse and increase in design productivity.

Business process descriptions are useful documents that are becoming increasingly important for identifying and documenting business processes. They are particularly beneficial during discovery when information about the process is gathered in interviews or by observation. Such business process descriptions are written as natural language text, which makes them intrinsically ambiguous. For this reason, it is the major challenge to formulate them in a precise and correct way right from the start. Therefore, this paper presents a service oriented architecture that analyzes a process description written in natural language to generate a sound process description. Being sound means that a description is structured, unambiguous, reveals possible quality and soundness problems related to BPMN 2.0, and contains clear identifiers for all known process elements in the original text. More specifically, we develop specific analysis and transformation techniques that are integrated by our proposed architecture. For validation purposes, we have implemented a prototype of this architecture. Our evaluation demonstrates that our techniques to generate sound process descriptions cover an average of 95% of the information extracted from its original process description while maintaining quality properties. Finally, our architecture can be enhanced with additional services that contribute to the creation and management of processes descriptions in organizations.

The analysis of graphic and formal methods and techniques for description of business processes is conducted. It is revealed the lack of a common approach to information presenting of all business processes lifecycle. The proposed information technology for combining different descriptions in a unit and methods of transition from one description mode to another is not yet possible to implement without loss of information and ensuring all participants of business processes lifecycle in a single conceptual framework. A comprehensive interrelated description of all aspects of business processes is proposed. This description appears in text, image, formal and algorithmic species as different forms of a single process models, which complement each other and can best solve various problems. This approach provides a convenient way of describing the process by specialists of different levels: from the head in the conceptual process design (planning) to direct performer during his work in securing the conditions for monitoring and control process. The basis for the creation of an information technology and software environment for planning, modeling, analysis, support and performance management of business processes is developed.

Business processes description is traditionally a complex task, requiring involvement of consulting institutions and special training of managers engaged in the description. Poorly formalized management processes are implemented as informal management practices, so their description requires from managers the competencies that exceed their standard skills.The article2 classifies the factors, which help to formalize management business-processes and form the requirements to managers’ competence. The research makes inferences that business processes have an urgent need for description; reveals the problems of business processes management; determines the requirements for managers’ competence; elaborates quantitative and qualitative parameters of managers’ participation in competitions. The study shows, that knowledge formalization is carried out with the direct implementation of the company’s policy that is aimed at establishing and developing personnel’s scientific communication, revealing its creativity. The description of business processes management helps to regulate the requirements to managers’ competence as the ability to knowledge formalization, as well as to form competencies of the development of business processes description as the method of informal knowledge formalizing; the expansion of functional roles managers employed in the description of business processes and identifying the prospects of knowledge formalization under present conditions.

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.

The work is devoted to modeling and reengineering of business processes of a sushi market company. The object of the study covers business processes related to the purchase of ingredients, preparation of dishes, inventory management, customer service and delivery. The subject of the study is precisely the modeling and reengineering of processes, with a special emphasis on analyzing the current state, identifying problem aspects and implementing new solutions to increase efficiency. The purpose of this work is to develop optimized business process models based on reengineering, which will increase the efficiency of the company, reduce costs, improve product quality and service level. It was established that the business processes «Sushi market activities», namely its subprocesses «Order reception and processing», require reengineering, and the main drawback is the lack of order delivery. Measures were proposed to reengineer the business processes of a sushi market sales company aimed at implementing online order delivery services, namely, adding new business processes «Order Delivery» and establishing a connection between other business processes such as: «Dish Preparation», «Order Reception and Processing», «Financial Transactions». Measures were also proposed to implement a warehouse management system to control the quantity of products. IDEF0, IDEF3 diagrams were constructed for the «AS-IS» and «TO-BE» options, and their comparative analysis was performed. The proposed models have real practical significance, as they can be applied both in specific sushi markets and in similar food enterprises. The implementation of reengineering allows companies to increase their competitiveness, stabilize and strengthen profitability, and also meet modern consumer requirements and expectations

Business Process (BP) improvement and alike require accurate descriptions of the BPs. We suggest to describe BPs as use case specifications. A use case specification comprises a description of the context of the BP, the interactions between the agents involved in the BP, the interactions of these agents with an automated system supporting the BP and attached system internal requirements. Constructing such specifications remains a difficult task. Our proposal is to use textual scenarios as inputs, describing fragments of the BP, and to guide, using a set of rules, their incremental production and integration in a use case specification also presented in a textual form. The paper presents the structure of a use case, the linguistic approach adopted for textual scenarios analysis and the guided process for constructing use case specifications from scenarios along with the guidelines and support rules grounding the process. The process is illustrated with a real case study borrowed to an Electricity Company.

The article systemises methodical instruments for evaluating efficiency of measures of digitalisation of business processes of enterprise. A schematic diagram of a general algorithm for evaluating the effectiveness of measures to digitalise the business process of enterprises has been developed. It is determined that assessing the degree of effectiveness of measures to digitalise the business processes of enterprise will also indirectly create conditions for identifying bottlenecks, based on which the management of enterprise will be able to make operational management decisions to optimise the business process through its digital development. It is substantiated that the assessment of business processes and their digitalisation should lie within the functional responsibilities of a certain entity; for this purpose, it is proposed to establish committees at the enterprise to assess the efficiency and digitalisation of business processes. In addition to formulating proposals for eliminating bottlenecks and directions and methods of digitising the company's business processes, the functional responsibilities of the Business Process Efficiency and Digitalisation Committee include the function of assessing the efficiency of an already digitised business process. For this purpose, the Committee develops analytical tools using established business process evaluation methods adapted to the evaluation of a digitised business process, which may include the PDCA cycle, internal audit of business processes, analysis of key performance indicators, functional and cost analysis, and analysis of stakeholder requirements. Each of the proposed instruments for evaluating the effectiveness of measures to digitalise the enterprise's business processes is adapted. It is summarized that when assessing the efficiency of business processes with a view to determining the need for their digital transformation or assessing the efficiency of a digitised business process, it is advisable for an enterprise to approach this issue in a comprehensive manner, namely, to develop clear policies and procedures by establishing and regulating the activities of the committee for assessing the efficiency of the enterprise's business processes by delegating to it a responsible person from each unit for managing business processes that create value or participate in this process.

Business process descriptions are usually stored in internal enterprise repositories. In order to be able to reuse Business Processes (a.k.a. BPs), BP designers require some tools to help them to discover processes (or fragments of processes) in the repository based on these descriptions. In most cases discovery is a difficult task (the diversity of modeling languages, the process descriptions are very close to the IT level being far from the business level, there is a lack of automatic tools, etc.).

Enterprise management systems are complex and large information systems which support business processes of an enterprise. This entails dealing with issues such as the precedence between tasks and activities within a process, as well as resources, roles and enterprise assets involved. These characteristics state that the processes modeling phase that compose the system play a relevant role. Both the description and validation of processes are very important because undetected mistakes in this phase will have a negative effect in the upcoming phases and in the final system quality. This paper deals with description and validation of enterprise management process through a framework that combine some technologies that have great acceptation in both software researchers and developers. The framework is based on the paradigm of Model Driven Architecture and is complemented with ontologies which raise the possibilities to semantically validate the business processes.

Currently, for the effective development of the activities of any company, modern information technologies and information systems are used. In the conditions of digitalization of the economy, special attention is paid to business processes of interaction with customers of companies, the main requirement of which is the mobility of the proposed operations and services. The use of modern tools to improve business processes is designed to increase the efficiency of any company. Depending on the scope of the company, different tools are used. In this regard, it is advisable to describe and analyze the activities of the company, and then its business processes. The result a list of business processes requiring improvement will be.This paper discusses the features and methods of automating business processes using digital technologies, analyzes the activities of the company (using the example of a travel agency), describes its main business processes. The theoretical and methodological description of the features of automation of the company showed the possibility of using modern IT tools to increase the competitiveness of the company and the level of customer satisfaction. As a result of the research of the activities of the travel agency «1001 tour», an analysis of external and internal factors affecting the company. Description of business processes showed the need to improve interaction with customers through the introduction of mobile technology. The theoretical significance of the study is to describe the features of improving customer service. The practical significance of this work is due to the possibility of using the results as a basis for developing models of the main business processes in the notions «as is» and «to be», preparing a project for introducing innovations and conducting a preliminary assessment of its economic efficiency.

Business process modeling (BPM) is one of the key technologies to benefit enterprises with higher efficiencies and greater business values. However, BPM requires intensive business expertise and human resources. Thus, it is valuable and challenging to enable fast delivery of reusable business process designs, regarding the existence of various popular business processes modeling languages and fast changing markets. In this paper, we generate language-specific business process models and process interaction semantics from UML 2.0 process models. A WS-BPEL metadata model and a process interaction semantics metadata model is defined to annotate UML 2.0 business process model as stereotypes; with a set of transformation patterns, we can generate a WS-BPEL business process model and a process interaction semantics file from each annotated UML 2.0 process model. Our approach can also be similarly applied to other process modeling languages to highly reuse the business process model in UML 2.0.

Digital transformation is forcing companies to rethink their processes to meet current customer needs. Business Process Management (BPM) can provide a means to structure and address this change. However, most BPM approaches face limitations on the number of processes they can optimize at the same time, due to complexity and resource constraints. The article is devoted to data mining as a tool for modeling and improving the company's business processes. Process Mining is a collection of data-driven diagnostic and business process improvement methods that combine machine learning and BPM. Among the advantages of Process Mining is more efficient management decision making. The possibility of introducing Process Mining methods into the work of a telecommunications company for the automatic collection of information about business processes and building a map of business processes is analyzed. The use of Process Mining methods will allow a telecommunications company to optimize the work of its departments and increase customer satisfaction. In addition, the implementation of this system contributes to a better analysis of the results of the execution of business processes for providing access to the Internet. This will improve the regulations for these processes, control of their compliance and the procedure for making managerial decisions at a higher quality level.