Att producera i egen regi eller köpa utifrån har varit en problematisk fråga alltsedan den industriella revolutionen. Outsourcing har den senaste tiden blivit allt vanligare och fått mer betydelse. Dock är forskningen inom ämnet sparsam. Den senaste tiden har outsourcing i snabb takt upptagits som medel för att förändra sättet affärer görs på. Med outsourcingens hjälp uppnås snabba och hållbara förbättringar i värdekedjorna samt att konkurrenskraften förbättras. Syftet med denna kandidatuppsats i informatik är att identifiera hur outsourcingleverantören skapar värde för kund genom outsourcing sett ur ett kund-leverantörsperspektiv. Uppsatsen har ett kvalitativt angreppssätt och använder fallstudiemetoden. Insamlingsmetoden består av intervjuer och litteraturstudier. De viktigaste slutsatserna visar att Kommunikation är en avgörande faktor för att outsourcingen ska bli värdefull för kunden. Det är mycket viktigt att kommunikationen fungerar inom såväl leverantörsorganisationen som mellan leverantören och kunden. Det gäller att gemensamgöra den outsourcade uppgiften så att båda parter vet vad som förväntas. Kunden måste kunna släppa kontrollen och lita på att leverantören har vad som krävs för att hanterade den outsourcade uppgiften. Att ständigt arbeta med att utveckla och förbättra kommunikationen är viktigt för det fortsatta samarbetet. Expertis är en avgörande effekt för att låta outsourca. Expertisen som är en effekt av outsourcing låter kunden sköta sin egen verksamhet medan viss administration sköts av outsourcingleverantören som har bred kompetens inom ämnet. Det leder till en högre grad av säkerhet och korrekthet. Vid rätt val av leverantör kan kunden förlita sig på att leverantören sköter sina uppgifter på ett korrekt sätt och enligt lag. Det visade sig att minskade kostnader inte är ett avgörande skäl till att outsourca, vilket det tidigare har varit.

Context. The quality of business process models is important in the area of model-based software development. The overall goal of this study was to develop and evaluate a model for assessing the quality of models (Process Diagrams) in Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN). The model was an instantiation of the developed metamodel that adopt ISO/IEC 1926. Objectives. The objectives of the thesis were to propose, implement and evaluate a model for quality assessment of business process models in BPMN. The model was intended to help practitioners to check the quality of their BPMN models and provide meaningful feedback on whether the business process models are of good or bad quality. First objective was to develop a metamodel of models for quality assessment of business process models in BPMN, and later the model that in an instantiation of the metamodel. Within the model, the objectives were to propose the relevant quality characteristics, quality metrics, quality criteria and quality functions. Finally, usefulness of model for quality assessment of business process models in BPMN was to be evaluated. Methods. The methodology was driven by essential elements of the model for quality assessment of business process models in BPMN. This is: quality characteristics, quality metrics, quality criteria and quality functions. In the beginning the metamodel of the model was developed based on the ISO/IEC 1926 standard. Later, in order to identify quality characteristics of models existing in the literature, a systematic literature review was conducted. Quality characteristics explicitly relevant to BPMN were compared against each other and selected. Overlapping quality characteristics relevant to BPMN were merged. Next, in order to obtain quality metrics that measure aspects of models of business processes, a literature review was carried out. The literature review was restricted by a proposed set of selection criteria. The criteria were questions that every relevant literature describing quality metrics must affirmatively answer in order to identify only metrics that were able to be assigned to identify quality characteristics. If the chosen quality metrics needed to be changed or adjusted for the sake of better results, the author added changes or adjustments and provided rationale for them. Next, in order to obtain quality criteria, values of the quality metrics were gathered through measuring a repository of BPMN models. The repository was gathered as a preparatory work for the thesis and it consisted of models of varying quality. Manual measurement of quality metrics for each BPMN model from the repository could not be done within a reasonable amount of time. Therefore, a tool to automatically calculate metrics for BPMN models was implemented. The quality criteria were proposed based on the results from interpretation of the values using statistical analysis. Later, quality functions that aggregate values of the metrics were proposed. The complete model was next integrated into the tool so that it could assess a quality of real BPMN models. Finally, the model for assessing the quality of business process models in BPMN was evaluated for usefulness through a survey and survey-based experiment. Results. A metamodel of models for quality assessment of business process models in BPMN was proposed. A model for the quality assessment of models in BPMN was proposed and evaluated for usefulness. Initial sets of quality characteristics of models were found in the literature and quality characteristics that were relevant to BPMN were extracted. Quality metrics that measure aspects of models were found and adjusted to the BPMN notation. Quality criteria that state how values of quality metrics can be classified as good or bad were provided. Quality functions that state if quality characteristics are good or bad for a chosen BPMN model were provided. Finally, a tool that implements the model for quality assessment of models in BPMN was created. Conclusions. The results of the survey and survey-based experiment showed that the proposed model for quality assessment of models in BPMN works in most cases and is needed in general. Additionally, the elements of the model which should be corrected were identified. Contacted users of BPMN expressed a will to use the suggested tool associated with the model for quality assessment of business process models in BPMN.

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Many of today’s organizations are striving to find ways to make faster and better decisions about their business. One way to achieve this is to develop a data warehouse, offering novel features such as data mining and ad hoc querying on data collected and integrated from many of the computerized systems used in the organization. A data warehouse is of vital interest for decision makers and may reduce uncertainty in decision making. The relationship between data warehousing and business processes may be used at the pre-deployment stage of a data warehouse project, i.e. during the actual development of the data warehouse, as an opportunity to change business processes in an organization. This may then result in improved business processes that in turn may result in a better performing data warehouse. By focusing on the pre-deployment stage instead of the post-deployment stage, we believe that the costs for development will decrease, since needs for changes detected early in a development project probably will be detected anyway, but in a later stage where changes in the business processes may cause a need to restructure the finished data warehouse. We are therefore interested in which factors that may cause a need for changes in the business processes during the pre-deployment stage of a data warehouse project, the types of business processes affected, and also if there is any correspondence between factors that trigger changes and business processes affected. Based on a literature survey and an interview study, general triggering factors to change business processes have been identified, such as needs for new organizational knowledge and for prioritization of goals etc. We have also found that needs for changes more often concern supporting processes than other types of business processes. We have also found a general correspondence at a type level between triggering factors and affected business processes. In combination with the results and conclusions presented, we have also identified propositions for future work, which will refine and confirm the ideas presented here.

Utvecklingen inom IT-området har under de senaste åren varit explosionsartad. Allt fler branscher har börjat att leta efter nya sätt att tillämpa de olika framsteg som skett inom området Detta arbete behandlar en kombinerad litteraturstudie och intervjuundersökning kring objektorientering och Business Process Reengineering. Problemställningen för detta arbete har varit: - På vilka sätt kan objektorientering tillämpas för att utveckla de synsätt och de metoder som används inom Business Process Reengineering Syftet med arbetet var att hitta ett antal generella tillämpningsområden utifrån problemställningen, samt att hitta ett antal fördelar, som dessa generella tillämpningar skulle kunna medföra. Resultatet av detta arbete visar att det finns områden inom Business Process Reengineering, där en objektorienterad tillämpning skulle kunna medför stora fördelar. Som exempel på detta kan nämnas förbättrade möjligheter att skapa och anpassa de informationssystem som skall stötta verksamhetsprocesserna. Även möjligheterna att skapa dynamiska metoder, där varje metodsteg utgörs av färdiga moduler som sedan kombineras, bör nämnas som en fördel.

Att man gör verksamhetsprocesser körbara innebär att man exekverar modellerade processer och förvandlar processerna till ett levande arbetsflöde. För att använda körbara processer i verksamheten behöver man först kartlägga och modellera verksamhetens processer, vilket lämpligast gör enligt metoden Business Process Management. Tre vanliga processrelaterade problem är långa ledtider, dålig följsamhet av fastställda arbetssätt och regelverk samt bristfällig kontroll över hur arbetet fortskrider. Syftet med B-uppsatsen är att undersöka vilken effekt användande av körbara processer får på verksamheten. För uppsatsen har en kvantitativ inriktad forskning tillämpats. Empirisk data har samlats in genom en riktad enkätundersökning till medlemmar i LinkedIn-gruppen ”Processorientering i praktiken”. Gruppens medlemmar är yrkesverksamma från både offentlig och privat näringsliv och har tagit del av någon form av utbildning inom processorientering i praktiken på Karlstad Universitet. Syftet med gruppen är att samproducera metoder för processorientering i praktiken som en del i kompetensutveckling och erfarenhetsutbyte inom processorienterad verksamhetsutveckling. Undersökningen visar att man är tveksam till att körbara processer medför kortare ledtider. Undersökningen visar också att det finns brister i hur verksamheter följer upp att medarbetarna följer fastställda processer och det upplevs att medarbetarna missar viktiga steg i processerna. Körbara processer medför bättre följsamhet av fastställda arbetssätt och regelverk. Körbara processer medför också bättre kontroll över hur arbetet fortskrider.

Denna C-uppsats ämnar att studera prioriteringar hos användare i ett system för processutveckling, med syftet att skapa underlag för en omarbetad implementation. I vissa organisationer handlar det om att öka utnyttjandegraden av investerade resurser, och en sådan plattform ger en bättre kontroll över vilka delar i ett system som påverkas av processförändringar. Underlaget för den konkreta implementation bestod till stor del av resultaten från en enkätstudie, där slutanvändare av ett existerande prototypsystem fick dela med sig av sina synpunkter. Resultatet från studien kombinerades också med relevanta vetenskapliga artiklar och litteraturstudier för att skapa underlag för modellen för den nya plattformen. En stor faktor som påvisades utifrån studien är behovet av tillgänglighet. Detta innefattar bl.a. tydligare relationer mellan entiteter, koncis presentation av data och snabbare informationsåtkomst. Modellen som skapats representerar ett system där fokus på ett dynamiskt och responsivt gränssnitt i kombination med tillgänglighet och logiska arbetsflöden utgör plattformen.

Process mining aims at discovering processes by extracting knowledge about their different perspectives from event logs. The resource perspective (or organisational perspective) deals, among others, with the assignment of resources to process activities. Mining in relation to this perspective aims to extract rules on resource assignments for the process activities. Prior research in this area is limited by the assumption that only one resource is responsible for each process activity, and hence, collaborative activities are disregarded. In this paper, we leverage this assumption by developing a process mining approach that is able to discover team compositions for collaborative process activities from event logs. We evaluate our novel mining approach in terms of computational performance and practical applicability.

Abstract Research on interorganisational relationships is highly fragmented. It can be found in, for example, sociology, economics, anthropology, psychology, marketing, organisational behaviour, strategic management, and entrepreneurship. It is unsurprising that the terminology and units of analysis vary notably, as does the theoretical basis of the research. The forms of interorganisational relationships researched also vary, including among others networking, outsourcing, strategic alliances, joint ventures, and partnering. The focus of this research is on outsourcing partnerships – what is the process involved in the formation and management of a software research and development (R&D) outsourcing partnership and what are the factors that affect the successful outcome of the said relationship. Understanding of how the relationship works, how it grows and develops is crucial for getting the best out of the collaboration and for avoiding possible difficulties. Outsourcing and partnering have been researched from many different viewpoints, depending on the domain. Some common topics of interest can still be found and they are presented in this study. However, a complete picture of an outsourcing partnership life cycle cannot be found in the literature. Because of that a synthesis outsourcing partnership life cycle model has been created based on the models found in other studies. In the second part of the study, empirical data from a software R&D outsourcing partnership case is analysed based on the synthesis model, and a new, improved model is created. The new model gives a more in-depth insight into the formation and management of an outsourcing partnership. Also, the success factors collected from the case are compared to the ones found in the literature. Even though the model is created and presented mainly from the customer company viewpoint, it has been affected by the partner company viewpoint as well, as the case data was collected from both companies.

Corporate governance has been heavily criticised because of failures of companies across the globe. In response to these failures, legislative and regulatory changes have been introduced. However, sceptics argue that compliance to these legislative and regulatory acts is costly and time consuming, contributing to overregulation. Furthermore, these measures lack business value and there is no guarantee that adherence to these measures can be enforced. This thesis presents an argument for the better utilisation of electronic means and specifically Business Process Management Systems (BPMSs) in support of corporate governance. Orlikowski’s theory of “Technologies-in-Practice” is applied as theoretical underpinning to guide the research process. This thesis follows an interpretive research paradigm approach to gain insight and understanding of how the King principles for governance, can be inscribed into BPMSs and their components to improve corporate governance in South Africa. The theory of Orlikowski supports the structuration perspective of the research phenomenon. During this study, data was collected from a BPMS vendor company and seven South African BPMS user companies. After following a process of triangulation, the research findings were used to propose a theoretical framework that explains the utilisation of BPMSs in support of corporate governance in South Africa. Finally, a theoretical framework, reviewed by experts from the domains of corporate governance and business process management, is presented. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / gm2014 / Informatics / unrestricted