This thesis deals with creation of information system for freshly opened bar. It contains business analysis, process analysis and final design of IS. Business processes are described in further detail including responsibilities. Development is recorded since identification of a business activity, its classification till its placement in final system. Design part consists of division of system into modules, description of database schema for each module and design of purposed transactions. There is focus on covering most frequent and useful activities. Information system is not considered as a standalone application, but as a vital part of the company which is still growing.

Architects are increasingly sought after for their abilities to be creative, knowledgeable, and strategic. Excessive concentration on "product" rather than "process" of architecture is challenging the architect's status as a professional. 20th century Information Technology has brought growing competition, shorter timeframes, and an increasingly knowledgeable client, which present challenges to the profession. Can IT be used effectively to manage all stakeholder relationships and how has it impacted the process of "service delivery"? An inability to effectively serve clients may result in potential loss of repeat business, paucity of new clients by referrals, and lack of projects, which directly impacts finances and an overall loss for the firm?s practice. The object of this thesis has been to study the effect of strategic IT deployment on client-architect relationship, in meeting client expectations and the identification of means by which architects can gain competitive advantage in today?s highly demanding market. IT and CRM are envisioned as enablers of a firm's sustainable competitive advantage.

Business process reengineering (BPR) was analyzed as one of the approaches to considerably improve the performance of the enterprise. The actuality of BPR in times of economic downturn was evaluated. The historic evolution of the concept was examined and findings about the economic nature of BPR emergence were made. The dependence of BPR actuality and simplicity of BPR usage on the level of enterprise business process maturity was shown. A conclusion about optimal point was made via depicting the interrelations graphically. Advantages of BPR usage for enterprises of different sizes were proved and specified. Benefits of BPR were compared with benefits of other related methods like ERP, JIT, TQM and Continuous Improvement. The future possible development of the BPR was analyzed. There offered possible further directions of research in the area of BPR based on current limitations of the concept. Results of the research may be used in companies of maturity level one to three, taking into account size of the company and current state of business process maturity.

Knowledge is considered important for the survival and growth of an enterprise. Currently knowledge is stored in various places including the bottom drawers of employees. The human being is considered to be the most important knowledge provider. Over the years knowledge based systems (KBS) have been developed to capture and nurture the knowledge of domain experts. However, such systems were considered to be separate and different from the traditional information systems development. Many KBS development projects have failed. The main causes for such failures have been recognised as the difficulties associated with the process of knowledge elicitation, in particular the techniques and methods employed. On the other hand, the main emphasis of information systems development has been in the areas of data and information capture relating to transaction based systems. For knowledge to be effectively captured and nurtured it is necessary for knowledge to be part of the information systems development activity. This thesis reports on a process of investigation and analysis conducted into the areas of information, knowledge and the overlapping areas. This research advocates a hybrid approach, where knowledge and information capture to be considered as one in a unified environment. A meta-schema design based on Formal Object Role Modelling (FORM), independent of implementation details, is introduced for this purpose. This is considered to be a key contribution of this research activity. Both information and knowledge is expected to be captured through this approach. Meta data types are provided for the capture of business rules and they form part of the knowledge base of an organisation. The integration of knowledge with data and information is also described. XML is recognised by many as the preferred data interchange language and it is investigated for the purpose of rule interchange. This approach is expected to enable organisations to interchange business rules and their meta-data, in addition to data and their schema. During interchange rules can be interpreted and applied by receiving systems, thus providing a basis for intelligent behaviour. With the emergence of new technologies such as the Internet the modelling of an enterprise as a series of business processes has gained prominence. Enterprises are moving towards integration, establishing well-described business processes within and across enterprises, to include their customers and suppliers. The purpose is to derive a common set of objectives and benefit from potential economic efficiencies. The suggested meta-schema design can be used in the early phases of requirements elicitation to specify, communicate, comprehend and refine various artefacts. This is expected to encourage domain experts and knowledge analysts work towards describing each business process and their interactions. Existing business processes can be documented and business efficiencies can be achieved through a process of refinement. The meta-schema design allows for a ?systems view? and sharing of such views, thus enabling domain experts to focus on their area of specialisation whilst having an understanding of other business areas and their facts. The design also allows for synchronisation of mental models of experts and the knowledge analyst. This has been a major issue with KBS development and one of the main reasons for the failure of such projects. The intention of this research is to provide a facility to overcome this issue. The natural language based FORM encourages verbalisation of the domain, hence increasing the understanding and comprehension of available business facts.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

Die Gestaltung betrieblicher Prozesse stellt heute einen wichtigen Wettbewerbsfaktor dar. Um am Markt erfolgreich agieren zu können, ist es notwendig, die eigenen Prozesse konsequent an den Bedürfnissen der Kunden auszurichten. Methoden der Prozessverbesserung beschreiben, welche Schritte hierfür durchzuführen sind. Modelle stellen dabei ein wesentliches Werkzeug für die Visualisierung der betrieblichen Abläufe dar. Gleichwohl wird in bestehenden Methoden der Prozessverbesserung nur unzureichend auf die systematische Nutzung und Wiederverwendung von Modellen eingegangen. Dadurch klafft eine Lücke zwischen erwartetem und tatsächlichem Nutzen des Modelleinsatzes im Rahmen der Prozessverbesserung. So wird insbesondere die methodische Nutzung und Auswertung von Modellen bisher entweder gar nicht oder lediglich isoliert von der Prozessverbesserung betrachtet. Damit existiert zwar eine Vielzahl an methodischen Puzzleteilen, eine durchgängige Unterstützung der Modellerstellung und -nutzung im Rahmen der Prozessverbesserung kann jedoch nicht erkannt werden. Die vorliegende Arbeit stellt sich diesem methodischen Defizit und beschreibt Schritt für Schritt, wie die Verwendung von Modellen im Rahmen der Prozessverbesserung systematisiert werden kann. Damit soll die Nutzung von Modellen im betrieblichen Alltag forciert und der Aufwand für die Modellierung langfristig reduziert werden.

Thesis (MScEng (Industrial Engineering))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Concurrent and distributed business processes are becoming the norm in many organisations. Current modelling techniques do not address the problems faced by concurrent business processes sufficiently. We showhowmodel checking is applied to business processes to prove behavioural properties to address the aforementioned shortcomings. A method of abstraction is required to construct business process models that can be model checked. In this thesis we show the suitability of the Logical Thinking Process as an abstraction tool. We call the combination of the Logical Thinking Process and model checking the Complexity Alleviation Method (CAM). We apply CAM to two well-known supply chain and manufacturing problems, and insightful results are obtained. This leads us to the conclusion that CAM allows for the quicker modelling of business processes, as well as providing problem-specific and proven solutions in amanner not possible with simulation or other techniques. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Gelyklopende en verspreide besigheidsprosesse word ’n alledaagse verskynsel in menigte instansies. Huidige modelleringstegnieke is nie in staat om die probleme geassosieer met gelyklopende besigheidsprosesse aan te spreek nie. Ons wys hoe model model verifikasie (“model checking”) toegepas word op besigheidsprosesse om gedragseienskappe te bewys en sodoende die voorgenoemde tekortkominge aan te spreek. ’nMetode van abstraksie word benodig ombesigheidsprosesmodelle, wat verifieerbaar is, te konstrueer. In hierdie verhandeling word die geskiktheid van die Logiese Denkproses (“the Logical Thinking Process”) as abstraksie gereedskap aangetoon. Ons noem die kombinasie van die Logiese Denkproses en model verifikasie Kompleksiteitsverligtingsmetodologie (CAM). Ons pas CAM op twee welbekende aanbodketting- en vervaardigingsprobleme toe en insiggewende resultate is verkry. Dit lei ons tot die gevolgtrekking dat CAM vinniger konstruering van modelle te weeg bring, sowel as probleem spesifieke en bewysbare oplossings verskaf wat nie moontlik ismet simulasie of ander tegnieke nie.

Ces dernières années, les progrès en sciences de la gestion et de l’information ont transformé la Gestion de Processus d’Affaires (Business Process Management, BPM) en un sujet important, tant du côté de l’industrie que de celui de la recherche. Le BPM utilise des processus métiers pour améliorer la performance opérationnelle des organisations. Les processus métiers établissent un lien entre les personnes, les systèmes, et les différentes organisations, dans le but de créer de la valeur pour les parties prenantes. La cible de notre travail est la famille des systèmes BPM. Un système BPM est un système logiciel générique guidé par des modèles explicites de processus métier avec pour objectif d’exécuter et de gérer des processus opérationnels. Malgré le vaste éventail de sujets traités par ce domaine de recherche, il reste encore quelques questions qui méritent une étude plus approfondie. Un problème particulier concerne la médiation entre les systèmes BPM et les humains. L’interaction homme-machine dans ces systèmes repose sur des interfaces standard basées sur des listes de taches et des formulaires, ce qui est très contraignant pour les utilisateurs.Ceux-ci ont non seulement des difficultés à exécuter leurs processus métier, mais aussi a trouver le processus métier le mieux adapté à leurs besoins. Il serait beaucoup plus efficace d’utiliser des dialogues en langage naturel. Malheureusement les langages de modélisation de processus ne permettent pas de capturer ni de modéliser un domaine de discours. Le travail présent propose une approche originale de gestion du dialogue basée sur des systèmes multi-agents pour l’exécution des processus métier. La motivation globale pour ce travail fut de concevoir un modèle de dialogue extensible à différents domaines. Ce modèle s’appuie sur les ontologies de domaine, nécessitant un minimum d’effort d’adaptation pour améliorer l’interaction. Les résultats montrent tout le potentiel de notre approche multi-agent pour réaliser une médiation automatiquement, sans qu’il soit nécessaire de reconstruire les modèles de processus métier. / Over the last few years, the advances in management science and information technology have transformed the business process management (BPM) discipline into an important topic for both industry and academy. BPM uses business processes as the means for improving the operational performance of organizations, and setting processes are at the heart of BPM allows linking together people, systems, and different organizations to deliver value to stakeholders. The target of our work is the family of BPM systems. A BPM system is a generic software system that is driven by explicit process designs to enact and manage operational business processes. Despite the wide range of topics addressed by the academy on business processes, there are still aspects not addressed by prior research. A particular problem in this regard is the mediation between BPM systems and humans. Human interaction in those systems follows a standard user interface based predominantly on work item lists and forms. Thus, there is little room for creativity for users. They have not only difficulties in enacting their processes but also for searching the most suitable one for their needs. It would be more efficient to let humans interact in natural language. However, process modeling languages are an insufficient means of capturing and representing the domain of discourse. The present thesis develops an original approach to agent dialog management for the problem of business process enactment. The overarching motivation for this work was to design a dialog model scalable to different domains. The model relies on domain and business process ontologies, and necessitates a minimum effort of adaptation on ontologies to improve the interaction. Results indicate the potential of our agent-based approach to generate natural language.

This thesis is aimed on the business process management of semi-budgetary organizations in the Czech Republic. For description of the field of business process management, the work lists common definitions and important information that is linked to this area. Subsequently, there was described the specificity of public administration in the Czech Republic, taking into account the level of and ability to implement business process management in this area. The important part of this thesis is the analysis of assumptions, which should public organizations fulfill in order to implement business process management. Thesis focuses on business process modeling, both in terms of methodology and standards used, and from the perspective of adequate tools for creating business process models. The main focus of the work is on the consolidation of the business process models of semi-budgetary organizations simultaneous checked on a case study. Case study, which is part of the practical part of this thesis, is a modified description of the implemented project, which aimed to merge two semi-budgetary organizations, especially from the perspective of the consolidation process management and process models.