Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-01T23:38:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 tese_10969_Dissertação Luciana França_Versão Final.pdf: 2442120 bytes, checksum: c6bc5141d2f33e637a2a6eb80e448216 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-12-06 / A auditoria de processos de negócios é um tema de relevância crescente na literatura. No entanto, técnicas tradicionais e manuais demonstram-se insatisfatórias ou insuficientes, visto que as mesmas são custosas, podem ser tendenciosas e passíveis de erros, além de envolverem grande quantidade de recursos temporais, humanos e materiais. Nesse sentido, o presente estudo vem demonstrar como a técnica de process mining pode ser utilizada, de forma automática, na auditoria de processos governamentais, a partir de um sistema de informação e de uma ferramenta de mining denominada ProM. A partir de técnicas de verificação de conformidade, realizou-se a comparação entre os processos reais e seus respectivos modelos oficiais de uma organização governamental. Os resultados obtidos demonstram algumas divergências entre eles, e indicam que a técnica pode ser utilizada como um meio auxiliar na realização de auditoria de processos de negócios.

A growing number of initiatives in recent studies have continued to pursue improvements in e-business through the use of Business Process Management (BPM) methods and tools. However there are still some limitations that need to be addressed. While BPM has been beneficial in healthcare, there are issues around context. These involve a clear need for approaches that facilitate the understanding of context when implementing healthcare processes. This thesis introduces a BPM framework and its supporting methodology for representing and modeling context for information systems design. Scenario compositions are developed as a mechanism for linking descriptive workflow information and graphical models representing many viewpoints involved in the system development and use processes. Design patterns are used as a common information platform to bridge different context representation formats. By combining scenarios and design patterns representing context, chains of relations between context, their triggering factors, and their influences on user actions can explicitly be described and modeled.

Category management (CM) is an approach of cooperation on category development between supplier and retailer. Supplier brings the knowledge of consumer and products within the category. Retailer brings sell-out data. The whole concept is based on managing categories as strategic business units and delivering maximum value to consumer in form of satisfying his needs. Even though first CM projects in ČR started about 15 years ago, most of the companies have not been able to fully implement CM. The barriers are high organizational demands on integration of CM into company structure and the necessity of trust between the supplier and the retailer in form of sharing data. The objective of this thesis is to identify opportunities in CM based on the analysis of current business process in Plzeňský Prazdroj, a. s. Opportunities identification is reached through comparison of ideal business process defined by specialized literature with the real experience from Plzeňský Prazdroj. Opportunities to enhance the current setting of the CM process will be summarized based on the comparison. Also, new areas of possible utilization of CM will be pointed out.

The main objective of this thesis is to map some of the business process management, business process reengineering methodologies and compare it according to several criteria. Part of this thesis is survey of the state of business process management in Czech Republic and Hungary.

The diploma thesis is focused on improving the functioning of business process management in the selected trading company. With the help of theoretical knowledge, based on which an analytical evaluation of the current status and a qualitative research are created, it proposes changes in the individual phases of the currently used process.

Organizational leaders continue to use business process reengineering (BPR) as a process improvement methodology even though BPR implementations have had low success rates. To increase BPR success rates, organizational leaders must understand what specific factors contribute to successful BPR implementations. Grounded in Lewin's field theory, the purpose of this nonexperimental, cross-sectional study was to examine the impact of gender and education on BPR. Data collection consisted of nonprobability convenience sample of 122 members from the professional networking website LinkedIn and the professional organizational website American Society for Quality. Data were gathered from a 6-point Likert-type scale survey instrument based on Hammer and Stanton's pre-identified BPR failure factors. The MANOVA results indicated no significant gender, education, or gender and education interaction effect on a linear combination of perception of BPR success factors, F (33.00, 318.00) = .591, p > 0.05, partial eta squared =.058. The results of this study might contribute to social change by helping organizational leaders understand factors that do not appear to be related to successful BPR implementations. The elimination of these factors could allow organizational leaders to focus on other factors for successful BPR implementations. Successful BPR implementations might lead to increased organizational profits, which could allow organizational leaders more opportunity and increase corporate social responsibility, all of which may directly affect the quality of life in a community.

Business process re-engineering (part of the Business Process Management domain) is among the top three concerns of Information Technology (IT) leaders and is deemed to be one of many important IT leveraging opportunities. Two major challenges have been identified in relation to BPM and the use of IT. The first challenge is related to involving business process participants in process improvement initiatives using BPM systems. BPM technologies are considered to be primarily targeted for developers and not BPM users, and the need to engage process participants into process improvement initiatives is not addressed, contributing to the business-IT gap. The second challenge is related to potential de-skilling of knowledge workers when knowledge-intensive processes are automated and process knowledge resides in IT, rather than human process participants. The two identified challenges are not separate issues. Process participants need to be knowledgeable about the process in order to actively contribute to BPM initiatives, and the loss of process knowledge as a result of passive use of automated systems may further threaten their participation in process improvement. In response to the call for more research on the individual impacts of business process initiatives, the purpose of this dissertation study is to understand the relationship between IT configurations (particularly process support and process visualization), process characteristics and individual level process outcomes, such as task performance and process knowledge. In the development of the research model we rely on organizational knowledge creation literature and scaffolding in Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development, business process modeling and workflow automation research, as well as research on the influence of IT on individual performance. The theoretical model is tested empirically in experimental settings using a series of two studies. In both studies participants were asked to complete tasks as part of a business process using different versions of a mock-up information system. Together, the studies evaluate the effect of IT process support, process visualization and process complexity on process participant performance and process knowledge. The results of the studies show the significant influence of IT process support on individual process outcomes. The studies indicate that task performance does increase but at the cost of users’ process knowledge. Process visualization however is shown to enhance user’s process knowledge in the event of no formal process training while having no negative impact on task performance. The key contribution of this research is that it suggests a practical way to counteract potential negative effects of IT process automation by converting the use of the information system into a learning experience, where the IT itself acts as a scaffold for the acquisition of process knowledge. The results have practical implications for the design of workflow automation systems, as well as for process training.

The extensive use of fossil fuels coupled with its decreasing availability has ignited many countries to enact policies on energy usage. Energy Services Companies (ESCOs) all over the world are implementing initiatives to save energy. The South African ESCO industry must still overcome many barriers for it to be as effective as other global ESCOs. One of the stakeholders of an energy-savings intervention is the measurement and verification (M&V) team. The M&V team aims to provide objective and independent quantification of energy savings realised during an intervention. Despite the importance of the M&V function, the M&V process was shown to be inefficient, lacking in standardisation and research. The focus of this dissertation is to identify opportunities for improvement within the M&V process and to determine methods for the easy management thereof. The first two research aims are met by evaluating the process and determining the requirements for improving the process with regard to the critical areas that were identified. It is realised that the management of the M&V process could be simplified by using an information management system. This leads to the design of an information management system for the M&V process using the knowledge obtained during the evaluation. A case study is performed on one of South Africa’s largest ESCOs. The findings of the case study underline improvements regarding certain performance indicators. Moreover, the findings suggest that an information management system can support all the desired process requirements. / MIng (Mechanical Engineering), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

The constant changes in governmental and customer requirements are forcing organizations to adapt in today’s dynamic market. Challenges such as international competition, increased cost pressure and efficient resource allocation are just a few examples of what organizations currently are facing. The need of managing business processes has become evident, as processes describes how well the organization is operating. Processes are no longer seen as just a tool, but as a way to visualize and standardize the organization in order to decrease variation and waste. With limited resources, ABB HVC has been working with business processes for over 20 years without any major influence since the competition has not required it. During the last three years the focus has shifted and business processes are now a hot topic. A stance has been taken and ABB HVC is now aiming to become a process-oriented organization. To become a process-oriented organization, ABB HVC needs a solid foundation built around processes. This project aims to satisfy a part of that foundation by designing a process for the technology department. As the technology department currently lacks a defined process, they cannot in a clear and visual way describe how they operate. Most of the time spent during this project, was focused on designing a functional process and to identify options for development. The research type of this project is a change focused research with an action research strategy. The selected approach is a design research methodology with qualitative data collection. In order to gather all the required information to complete the task, a literature review and an empirical analysis of ABB HVC were conducted. The result of this project was a process map describing the workflow and interactions of the technology department. An implementation plan, tools and suggested improvements have also been included in the report to provide the technology department with a strategy in how to continue the process work. / Ständiga förändringar och krav från myndigheter och kunder tvingar organisationer att anpassa sig till dagens dynamiska marknad. Utmaningar som internationell konkurrens, ökat kostnadstryckt och en effektiv resursfördelning är bara några exempel på vad organisationer för närvarande står inför. Behovet av att hantera affärsprocesser har blivit uppenbart eftersom processerna beskriver hur väl organisationen fungerar. Processer ses inte längre som bara ett verktyg, utan som ett sätt att visualisera och standardisera organisationen för att minska variation och slöseri. Med begränsade resurser har ABB HVC arbetat med affärsprocesser i över 20 år utan någon större påverkan för att konkurrensen inte har krävt det. Under de senaste tre åren har fokus skiftat och affärsprocesser är nu ett hett samtalsämne. En ställning har tagits och ABB HVC siktar nu på att bli en processorienterad organisation. För att bli en processorienterad organisation behöver ABB HVC en stabil grund uppbyggd kring processer. Detta projekt syftar till att tillfredsställa en del av denna grund genom att utforma en process för teknikavdelningen. Eftersom teknikavdelningen idag saknar en definierad process kan de inte tydligt beskriva hur de arbetar. Merparten av tiden spenderat under detta projekt var inriktad på att utforma en fungerande process och att identifiera alternativ för utveckling. Forskningstypen för detta projekt är en förändringsfokuserad forskning med en aktionsforskningsstrategi. Det valda tillvägagångssättet är att använda design research metodiken med kvalitativ datainsamling. För att samla in all den information som krävts för att slutföra uppgiften, har en litteraturstudie och en empirisk analys av ABB HVC utförts. Resultatet av detta projekt var en processkarta som beskriver arbetsflödet och interaktionerna för teknikavdelningen. En genomförandeplan, verktyg och förslag på förbättringar har också tagits med i rapporten för att ge teknikavdelningen en strategi för hur man ska fortsätta processarbetet.

The extensive use of fossil fuels coupled with its decreasing availability has ignited many countries to enact policies on energy usage. Energy Services Companies (ESCOs) all over the world are implementing initiatives to save energy. The South African ESCO industry must still overcome many barriers for it to be as effective as other global ESCOs. One of the stakeholders of an energy-savings intervention is the measurement and verification (M&V) team. The M&V team aims to provide objective and independent quantification of energy savings realised during an intervention. Despite the importance of the M&V function, the M&V process was shown to be inefficient, lacking in standardisation and research. The focus of this dissertation is to identify opportunities for improvement within the M&V process and to determine methods for the easy management thereof. The first two research aims are met by evaluating the process and determining the requirements for improving the process with regard to the critical areas that were identified. It is realised that the management of the M&V process could be simplified by using an information management system. This leads to the design of an information management system for the M&V process using the knowledge obtained during the evaluation. A case study is performed on one of South Africa’s largest ESCOs. The findings of the case study underline improvements regarding certain performance indicators. Moreover, the findings suggest that an information management system can support all the desired process requirements. / MIng (Mechanical Engineering), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014