Non-disruptive knowledge and business processing in knowledge life cycles – aligning value network analysis to process management

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 651-686 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Stary
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Knowledge Claim ◽  
Life Cycles ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Change Processes ◽  
Double Loop ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Value Network

Purpose – This paper aims to achieve fully intertwined knowledge and business processing in change processes. It proposes streamlining situated articulation work, value network analyses (VNA) and subject-oriented business process modelling (S-BPM) and execution to provide non-disruptive single and double learning processes driven by concerned stakeholders. When implementing knowledge life cycles, such as Firestone and McElroy’s knowledge life cycle, the agility of organizations is significantly constrained, in particular, when surviving knowledge claims should be implemented in the business processing environment in a seamless way. Design/methodology/approach – The contribution is based on a conceptual analysis of knowledge life cycle implementations, learning loop developments and an exploratory case study in health care to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The solution towards non-disruptive knowledge and business processing allows stakeholders to actively participate in single- and double-loop learning processes. Findings – The introduced approach supports problem and knowledge claim formulation, knowledge claim evaluation and non-disruptive knowledge integration into a business process environment. Based on stakeholder articulation, the steps to follow are: holomapping, exchange analysis, impact analysis, value creation analysis, subject-oriented modelling, business process validation and execution. Seamless support of stakeholders is enabled through the direct mapping of stakeholder and activity descriptions from value network representations to behaviour specifications (process models) on the individual and organizational layer. Research limitations/implications – Current knowledge life cycle developments and implementations can now be analyzed in a structured way. Elements of the proposed approach could be integrated in disruptive implementations to overcome current limitations of knowledge life cycles. However, further case studies need to be performed to identify hindrances or barriers of combining VNA and S-BPM, both on the technological and methodological layer. What works for expert service industries might need to be adapted for production industries, and tools or tool chains might need to be configured accordingly. Finally, the socio-economic impact of the approach needs to be explored. Practical implications – The presented case study from health care reveals the potential of such a methodological combination, as cycle times can be reduced, in particular, due to the execution of role-specific process models in the respective business processing environment. It can be considered as a fundamental shift for existing change management procedures, as they require rework of the entire functional process models when addressing business processing. Now, stakeholder- or role-specific behaviour can be handled isolated and in parallel, without affecting the entire organization in case of modifications. Originality/value – The proposed methodological integration has not been done before. It enables stakeholders to perform single- and double-loop change processes in a seamless way.

Ownership relevance in aspect-oriented business process models

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 566-593 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julio Cesar Sampaio do Prado Leite ◽  
Flavia Maria Santoro ◽  
Claudia Cappelli ◽  
Thais Vasconcelos Batista ◽  
Fabiana Jack Nogueira Santos
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Process Modeling ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Business Process Modeling ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Business Process Modeling Notation ◽  
Representation Scheme

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a representation scheme based on the i* strategic actor model to represent the process owner information and show how to incorporate this approach into the event driven process chain and Business Process Modeling Notation-BPMN meta-models and also into the aspect-oriented business process modeling (BPM) context. Design/methodology/approach – The authors use a case study in a real setting to evaluate the proposal and a controlled experiment to get more evidence about its relevance. Findings – The authors presented evidence both from a case study in a real-world library showing the importance of representing – previously unavailable – process owner information, and from an experiment which involved participants analyzing the same models of the case study, confirming the preliminary evidences. It is important to stress the recognition that the proposed representation provided more transparency, in terms of ownership, than the usual BPM models. These benefits are due to the combination of the aspect-oriented approach and the strategic actor model, providing ownership information in a more transparent way. Originality/value – The authors not only argue the importance of clearly established process ownership, both of the core process and the aspectual process, but also the authors presented an approach to represent the actor involved in process and aspect ownership as an instantiation of the i* strategic actor. Using this approach, the process owner can be defined in terms of actors instead of the activities performed. It is also possible to define the aspect owner and to include the aspectual process concept in the business process model.

Detecting violation of business constraints in declarative process execution: a case study

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 1043-1063 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vitus S.W. Lam
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Process Modelling ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Business Rules ◽  
Business Rule ◽  
Efficient Manner ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Process Execution ◽  
Business Process Execution

Purpose Declarative process modelling is a constraint-centric approach that treats business rules as first-class citizens in business process models. Augmenting the declarative process modelling technique with capability to detect the constraint violations during business process execution is of crucial importance. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the modelling of business rules through a repository of pattern-oriented templates. Design/methodology/approach The semantics of the business rule templates is underpinned by linear temporal logic (LTL). Automated temporal reasoning is then conducted for determining whether process executions adhere to the business rules through the utilisation of the Logics Workbench (LWB). An application of the methodological framework is illustrated by a realistic case study on degree requirements verification. Findings To access the practicality of the approach, the case study of this paper is based on the verification of degree requirements, which is different from the domain area of the case study in the author’s prior work. The findings indicated that the temporal framework could be applied to the declarative process modelling in a consistent and efficient manner. Originality/value This paper is an extended version of the author’s earlier study. More details on the LTL and LWB are provided in the current study. The author introduces 17 new business rule templates and illustrates the utilisation of the new templates via a case study that belongs to a different domain area.

Identification of asset life cycle stage: case study in heavy-duty truck fleet

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Oscar Daniel Rivera Baena ◽  
Maria Valentina Clavijo Mesa ◽  
Carmen Elena Patino Rodriguez ◽  
Fernando Jesus Guevara Carazas
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Life Cycle Stage ◽  
Waste Collection ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Heavy Duty Truck ◽  
Maintenance Work ◽  
Operational Decision Making ◽  
The Moment

PurposeThis paper aims to determine the stage of the life cycle where the trucks of a waste collection fleet from a Colombian city are located through a reliability approach. The reliability analysis and the evaluation of curve of operational costs allow to know the moment in which it is necessary to make decisions regarding an asset, its maintenance or possible replacement.Design/methodology/approachFor a dataset presented as maintenance work orders, the time to failures (TTFs) for each vehicle in the fleet were calculated. Then, a probability density function for those TTFs was fitted to locate each vehicle in a region of the bathtub curve and to calculate the reliability of the whole fleet. A general functional analysis was also developed to understand the function of the vehicles.FindingsIt was possible to determine that the largest proportion of the fleet was in the final stage of the life cycle, in this sense, the entire fleet represent critical assets which in most of cases could be worth replacement or overhaul.Originality/valueIn this study, an address is exposed for the identification of critical equipment by reliability and statistical analysis. This analysis is also integrated with the maintenance management process. This is a broadly interested topic since it allows to support the maintenance and operational decision-making process, indicating the focus of resource allocation all over the entire asset life cycle.

Environmental service-learning approach in higher education – a descriptive case study on student-led life cycle assessments of university cafeteria meals

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas Johannisson ◽  
Michael Hiete
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Course Design ◽  
Course Evaluation ◽  
Learning Approach ◽  
Graduate Course ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Descriptive Case Study

Purpose This study aims to share experiences of an easy to adapt service-learning approach in a graduate course on life cycle assessment (LCA). Specifically, it reports on how students helped the university’s cafeteria to assess meals by conducting an LCA for 25 meals and identifying environmental hotspots. Design/methodology/approach A descriptive case study of a graduate course at Ulm University is presented. The course included lectures and problem-based exercises, both theoretical and software assisted. A course evaluation was conducted during the course and one year after completion to poll improvement potentials, as well as its impacts on students’ everyday life. Findings It was found that although it was the first LCA for all students, the resulting LCA information of 25 different meals were homogeneous, comparable to the scientific literature and beneficial to the cafeteria’s sustainable development strategy. The concept of service-learning had a higher impact on students’ motivation than a good grade and active-learning is explicitly requested by students. The course design sensitized students to the real-life problems of LCA and made their consumption patterns more elaborate and ecological. Furthermore, this digitization of higher education could be carried out with only minor changes in the present COVID-19 pandemic situation. Originality/value As the subject of service-learning in natural sciences is still expandable, this study presents an easy to adapt case study on how to integrate such an approach into university curricula dominated by traditional learning. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this case study presents the first published LCA university course explicitly describing and evaluating a service-learning approach. The topic touches the everyday lives of students, allows comparisons between different student groups, is easily scalable to different group sizes and credits, and supports learning both how to study in small groups and cooperation between groups to ensure comparability of LCA results.

Network change processes for environmental practices

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lyndie Bayne ◽  
Sharon Purchase ◽  
Geoffrey N. Soutar
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Change Process ◽  
Business Case ◽  
Process Theory ◽  
Change Processes ◽  
Business Networks ◽  
Environmental Practices ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Network Change ◽  
Network Process

Purpose The purpose of this study is to develop an understanding of how change in environmental practices occurs in business networks. The study examines what types of network change processes occur in bringing about environmental change. Further, the basic change process theory types (life-cycle, teleology, dialectics and evolution) involved in the change processes are analyzed. Design/methodology/approach A multiple, embedded, network case study was undertaken in the Australian agrifood sector, focusing on the pork and dairy industries. Findings Change was found to occur through the interaction of multiple network processes operating simultaneously and sequentially over time. Thirteen network process categories were identified, grouped further into legislative, business case and altruistic overarching motivations. Legislative change processes emphasize the need for continued government intervention through enforced legislation. Teleology and dialectics were common at the beginning of many change processes, followed by life-cycle theory types. Originality/value The study brings together change process conceptualizations from prior unconnected literatures into a comprehensive change process categorization framework. Examining changes in the activity dimension adds to network dynamics literature previously focusing on changes in the actor and resource dimensions. Contributions are made to processual research methods by theoretically and empirically clarifying connections between events, activities and processes. Analyzing the underlying change process theory types at the network level adds to both management and business network literature. Finally, the study answers calls to study sustainability issues at a network level.

scholarly journals Business processes exceptions in relation to operational performance

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 908-922 ◽  
Author(s):  
Remco Dijkman ◽  
Oktay Turetken ◽  
Geoffrey Robert van IJzendoorn ◽  
Meint de Vries
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Operational Performance ◽  
Normal Flow ◽  
Throughput Time ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose Business process models describe the way of working in an organization. Typically, business process models distinguish between the normal flow of work and exceptions to that normal flow. However, they often present an idealized view. This means that unexpected exceptions – exceptions that are not modeled in the business process model – can also occur in practice. This has an effect on the efficiency of the organization, because information systems are not developed to handle unexpected exceptions. The purpose of this paper is to study the relation between the occurrence of exceptions and operational performance. Design/methodology/approach The paper does this by analyzing the execution logs of business processes from five organizations, classifying execution paths as normal or exceptional. Subsequently, it analyzes the differences between normal and exceptional paths. Findings The results show that exceptions are related to worse operational performance in terms of a longer throughput time and that unexpected exceptions relate to a stronger increase in throughput time than expected exceptions. Practical implications These findings lead to practical implications on policies that can be followed with respect to exceptions. Most importantly, unexpected exceptions should be avoided by incorporating them into the process – and thus transforming them into expected exceptions – as much as possible. Also, as not all exceptions lead to longer throughput times, continuous improvement should be employed to continuously monitor the occurrence of exceptions and make decisions on their desirability in the process. Originality/value While work exists on analyzing the occurrence of exceptions in business processes, especially in the context of process conformance analysis, to the best of the authors’ knowledge this is the first work that analyzes the possible consequences of such exceptions.

Financial flexibility, managerial efficiency and firm life cycle on firm performance

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-180
Author(s):  
Heng-Yu Chang ◽  
Chun-Ai Ma
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Firm Performance ◽  
Stock Market ◽  
Life Cycles ◽  
Mature Stage ◽  
Chinese Stock Market ◽  
Financial Flexibility ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Listed Firms ◽  
Managerial Efficiency

Purpose As the capital market in China is still developing, several constraints on a Chinese-listed firm’s financing strategy have a direct impact on its financial flexibility. The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct traditional financial flexibility index (FFI) derived from the western context, provide empirical evidence within eastern context by modified FFI and examine how the managerial efficiency of Chinese-listed firms is demonstrated with modified FFI to escort corporate life cycle hypothesis. Design/methodology/approach By tailored FFI to fit the contemporary operations of Chinese-listed firms, this study investigates how managerial efficiency varies across different life stages to demonstrate the moderating power in the firm performance of financially flexible firm. Findings It is found that financially flexible firms in the Chinese stock market generally experience good firm performance, yet the managerial efficiency could gradually be diminishing at their mature stage even firms’ financial flexibility remains consistent with the agency theory. This paper sheds light on the necessity to reexamine the components in financial flexibility based on the eastern context, and provides avenue to further understand the managerial behavior of Chinese listed firms when considering firm life cycles. Research limitations/implications Although it is difficult for this current study to offer the precise weights on each factor in calculating financial flexibility, the judgment matrix method is adopted to at least provide reliable estimates in accordance with Chinese business contexts with less than 10 percent errors in contrast to the actual weights. Practical implications This modified FFI is particularly suitable for Chinese-listed firms under certain unique financial reporting regulations by adjusting a number of weights and factors. This study may help practitioners understand the managerial conduct of publicly listed firms in China. Originality/value The paper constructs a modified FFI with Chinese stock market characteristics embedded, and provides insightful evidence to explain the new pecking order theory by considering the life cycle stage of Chinese-listed companies.

A Method for Eliciting Goals for Business Process Models based on Non-Functional Requirements Catalogues

2013 ◽  
pp. 226-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evellin Cardoso ◽  
João Paulo A. Almeida ◽  
Renata S. S. Guizzardi ◽  
Giancarlo Guizzardi
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Process Modeling ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Business Process Modeling ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Functional Requirements ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
Traditional Approaches ◽  
Goal Models

While traditional approaches in business process modeling tend to focus on “how” the business processes are performed (adopting a behavioral description in which business processes are described in terms of procedural aspects), in goal-oriented business process modeling, the proposals strive to extend traditional business process methodologies by providing a dimension of intentionality to business processes. One of the key difficulties in enabling one to model goal-oriented processes concerns the identification or elicitation of goals. This paper reports on a case study conducted in a Brazilian hospital, which obtained several goal models represented in i*/Tropos, each of which correspond to a business process also modeled in the scope of the study. NFR catalogues were helpful in goal elicitation, uncovering goals that did not come up during previous interviews prior to these catalogues’ use.

Business process centric energy modelling

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (7) ◽  
pp. 1867-1890 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megashnee Munsamy ◽  
Arnesh Telukdarie ◽  
Johannes Fresner
Keyword(s):  
Multinational Corporations ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Emissions ◽  
Industry 4.0 ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Operational Parameters ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Energy Assessment

Purpose Sustainability is an accepted measure of business performance, with reductions in energy demand a commonly practised sustainability initiative by multinational corporations (MNCs). Traditional energy models have limited scope when applied to the entire MNC as the models exhibit high data and time intensity, high technical proficiency, specificity of application and omission of non-manufacturing activities. The purpose of this paper is to propose a process centric energy model (PCEM), which adopts a novel approach of applying business processes for business energy assessment and optimisation. Business processes are a fundamental requirement of MNCs across all sectors. The defining features of the proposed model are genericity, reproducibility, minimum user input data, reduced modelling time and energy evaluation of non-manufacturing activities. The approach forwards the adoption of Industry 4.0, a subset of which focuses on business process automation or part thereof. Design/methodology/approach A quantitative approach is applied in development of the PCEM. The methodology is demonstrated by application to the procure to pay and electroplating business processes. Findings The PCEM quantifies and optimises the business energy demand and associated carbon dioxide emissions of the procure to pay and electroplating business processes, validating the application of business processes. The application demonstrates minimum user inputs as only equipment operational parameters are required and minimum modelling time as business process models and optimisation options are pre-defined requiring only user modification. As MNCs have common business processes across multiple sites, once a business process energy demand is quantified, its inputs are applied as the default in the proceeding sites, only requiring updating. The model has no specialist skills requirement enabling business wide use and eliminating costs associated with training and expert’s services. The business processes applied in the evaluation are developed by the researchers and are not as comprehensive as those in actual MNCs, but is sufficiently detailed to accurately calculate an MNC energy demand. The model databases are not exhaustive of all resources found in MNCs. Originality/value This paper provides a new approach to MNC business energy assessment and optimisation. The model can be applied to MNEs across all sectors. The model allows the integration of manufacturing and non-manufacturing activities, as it occurs in practice, providing holistic business energy assessment and optimisation. The model analyses the impacts of the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies on business energy demand, CO2 emission and personnel hours.

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