Research comparing public-private services outsourcing applying a longitudinal approach including the production/delivery processes (life after purchase) in services sourcing contexts is scarce. In addition, prior studies on service sourcing tend be under conceptualized. To address the above this licentiate thesis presents the results of a comparative and grounded theory inspired case study of two major Swedish FM services outsourcing projects, a public and a private case of operational partnering. Client-provider interaction processes on management level have been followed regularly over time utilizing participant observation as a core element combined with interviews and documentary studies. Observed variations in relational orientation over time, are problematized and discussed. A substantive theory – Business streamlining - of Facility Management outsourcing processes, including the seldom-researched life after purchase processes, is outlined and contextualized. It is argued that existing relational classifications, such as operational partnering, do not capture the life after purchase dynamics of the studied relationships. Business streamlining rests on four main categories, which have major influence on how Facility Management relationships evolve over time. / <p>Lic.-avh. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2014</p>

Problems of requirements which are identified in the earlier phase of a software development project can deeply affect the success of the project. Thus studies which aim to decrease these problems are crucial. Automation is foreseen to be one of the possible solutions for decreasing or removing some of the problems originating from requirements. This study focuses on the development and implementation of an automated tool that will generate requirements in natural language from business process models. In this study, The benefits of the tool are discussed, and the tool is compared with other software requirement s related tools with respect to their functionality. The developed tool has been tested within a large military project and the results of using the tool are presented.

In dieser Arbeit wird ein Ansatz zur automatischen Berechnung und Ausführung von strukturellen Anpassungsmöglichkeiten für Workflows auf Basis von Kontextinformationen entwickelt. Zur Sicherstellung der semantischen Korrektheit der Anpassungsmöglichkeiten werden zwei Arten von Einschränkungen berücksichtigt: Zustandsbezogene Einschränkungen (ZBE) und Aktivitätsabhängigkeiten (AA). ZBEs spezifizieren Einschränkungen zwischen Anpassungsoperationen und dem Ausführungszustand des Workflows. AAs beschreiben temporale Beziehungen zwischen Aktivitäten eines Workflows.

The new age, the "Information Age" (Davenport and Prusak 1997) has increased society's and businesses' reliance on Information Technology (IT). Hence, there is an increasing focus on the management of IT, not only from a technological perspective but also from a business perspective. This research, sponsored by REALTECH and the Australian Research Council, applies one of the modern management approaches, business process management (Hammer 1990), to the domain IT service provision, by designing a business process reference model for IT Service Provision. A reference model is an abstracted depiction of reality that serves as a standardised or suggestive conceptual basis for the design of enterprise specific models, usually within a like domain. They are one method of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of enterprise modelling and can also be used to standardise communication or capture knowledge. There is a general lack of theory regarding the classification, design and quality of reference models. The first part of this thesis attempts to fill these gaps, by presenting a reference model classification scheme, outlining 7 philosophies for the design of reference models and detailing 2 case studies on the user-perceived quality of business process reference models. Reference models and the Business Process Management Lifecycle (Rosemann 2000) are integrated to show how reference models can be applied to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of business process improvement projects. This reference model theory was then applied to produce a model for domain of IT Service Provision. Investment in IT has increased to become the largest single element of capital expenditure (Thorp 1998). Gartner predicted that organisations will spend over 10% of revenue on IT by 2005 (Haines 2000). A major input for this model is the ITIL best practice documents (CCTA 2000). The reference model focuses on Incident Management and used focus groups with participants from several large IT service providers to validate the models. The designed reference model is then tested in two case studies to determine its accuracy and usefulness. The thesis finishes with a discussion of the designed model, the effectiveness of the procedural model and provides suggestions for the design of other reference models. The final chapter provides a summary and an outlook for further research into the area.

Shared Services (SS) involves the convergence and streamlining of an organisation’s functions to ensure timely service delivery as effectively and efficiently as possible. As a management structure designed to promote value generation, cost savings and improved service delivery by leveraging on economies of scale, the idea of SS is driven by cost reduction and improvements in quality levels of service and efficiency. Current conventional wisdom is that the potential for SS is increasing due to the increasing costs of changing systems and business requirements for organisations and in implementing and running information systems. In addition, due to commoditisation of large information systems such as enterprise systems, many common, supporting functions across organisations are becoming more similar than not, leading to an increasing overlap in processes and fuelling the notion that it is possible for organisations to derive benefits from collaborating and sharing their common services through an inter-organisational shared services (IOSS) arrangement. While there is some research on traditional SS, very little research has been done on IOSS. In particular, it is unclear what are the potential drivers and inhibitors of IOSS. As the concepts of IOSS and SS are closely related to that of Outsourcing, and their distinction is sometimes blurred, this research has the first objective of seeking a clear conceptual understanding of the differences between SS and Outsourcing (in motivators, arrangements, benefits, disadvantages, etc) and based on this conceptual understanding, the second objective of this research is to develop a decision model (Shared Services Potential model) which would aid organisations in deciding which arrangement would be more appropriate for them to adopt in pursuit of process improvements for their operations. As the context of the study is on universities in higher education sharing administrative services common to or across them and with the assumption that such services were homogenous in nature, this thesis also reports on a case study. The case study involved face to face interviews from representatives of an Australian university to explore the potential for IOSS. Our key findings suggest that it is possible for universities to share services common across them as most of them were currently using the same systems although independently.

Master-Arbeit Univ. St. Gallen, 2008.

abstract: The objective of this research is to understand how a set of systems, as defined by the business process, creates value. The three studies contained in this work develop the model of process-based automation. The model states that complementarities among systems are specified by handoffs in the business process. The model also provides theory to explain why entry systems, boundary spanning systems, and back-end control systems provide different impacts on process quality and cost. The first study includes 135 U. S. acute care hospitals. The study finds that hospitals which followed an organizational pattern of process automation have better financial outcomes. The second study looks in more depth at where synergies might be found. It includes 341 California acute care hospitals over 11 years. It finds that increased costs and increase adverse drug events are associated with increased automation discontinuity. Further, the study shows that automation in the front end of the process has a more desirable outcome on cost than automation in the back end of the process. The third study examines the assumption that the systems are actually used. It is a cross-sectional analysis of over 2000 U. S. hospitals. This study finds that system usage is a critical factor in realizing benefits from automating the business process. The model of process-based automation has implications for information technology decision makers, long-term automation planning, and for information systems research. The analyses have additional implications for the healthcare industry. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Information Management 2011

A adoção da metodologia BPM (Business Process Management) tem como objetivo trazer resultados significativos para uma organização através do levantamento, priorização, reorganização e melhoria de desempenho dos processos de negócio. O consequente ganho de eficiência geralmente pode ser verificado no incremento de receita ou na redução do custo operacional de uma organização. Entretanto, existem alguns fatores que precisam ser observados de forma a evitar um problema generalizado, através da resistência à mudança, falta de comprometimento e desinteresse geral de todos os colaboradores envolvidos. Por isso, esta pesquisa buscou identificar os fatores críticos de uma implementação da metodologia BPM nos principais processos de negócio de uma instituição financeira cooperativa no Brasil. Para tanto, foi realizado um estudo de casos múltiplos considerando três projetos (cada um como sendo um caso completo) de modernização de processos e de sistemas de informação utilizando a metodologia BPM, analisados junto de três públicos alvo: gestores das unidades de negócio, gestores das áreas de tecnologia da informação e colaboradores das áreas usuárias de cada projeto. Os fatores críticos unânimes encontrados para os três projetos e para os três públicos são: escopo claro e definido, participação dos usuários, capacitação dos envolvidos e alinhamento estratégico entre TI e negócios. A principal contribuição acadêmica desta pesquisa consiste na convergência de fatores críticos de outras tecnologias previamente identificados na literatura e também uma classificação dos fatores encontrados nas seguintes dimensões: organização, tecnologia BPM, metodologia BPM e projeto. A contribuição para a empresa estudada está no conhecimento dos principais fatores que poderão transformar novos projetos em projetos de sucesso. / The adoption of the methodology BPM (Business Process Management) aims to bring significant results for an organization by collecting, prioritizing, reorganizing and improving the performance of business processes. The consequent efficiency gains can usually be found in increasing revenue or reducing the operating cost of an organization. However, there are certain factors that need to be observed to avoid structural collapse, through resistance to change, lack of commitment and general disinterest of all employees involved. Therefore, this study sought to identify the critical factors of an implementation methodology of BPM in the main processes of a cooperative financial institution business in Brazil. Thus, a multiple case study considering three projects (each as a full case) modernization of processes and information systems using BPM methodology, analyzed from three target groups was conducted: managers of business units, managers the areas of information technology and users of the user areas of each project. The unanimous critical factors found for the three projects and the three public are clear and defined scope, user participation, training of those involved and strategic alignment between IT and business. As the main academic contribution of this research have the convergence of critical factors other technologies previously identified in the literature and also a classification of factors found in the following dimensions: organization, technology BPM, BPM methodology and design. The contribution for the studied company is in the knowledge of the principal factors that could turn new projects in successful projects.

A Notação e Modelo de Processo de Negócio (BPMN - Business Process Model and Notation) possibilita apresentar informações sobre o fluxo de dados de um processo por meio de dados e artefatos, tais como objetos, associações e repositórios de dados. No entanto, esses elementos apresentam poder de expressão limitado, principalmente quando se referem ao mapeamento das fontes de dados (ex.: serviço web) em um modelo de processo. Neste contexto, o presente trabalho propõe uma abordagem para associar fontes de dados a elementos de BPMN (ex.: tarefa de serviço). Tal abordagem deve servir como um ponto de partida para profissionais de gerenciamento de processos de negócio quanto ao mapeamento, na etapa de modelagem, da fonte de dados que está sendo utilizada pelo processo, através da utilização de elementos de BPMN. Visando demonstrar os resultados, foram evidenciadas cinco correlações, que são chamadas de “propostas de definições”, seguidas por sua descrição textual e um exemplo de uso. Essas propostas de definições, juntamente com as fontes de dados utilizadas, foram avaliadas por meio de uma pesquisa de opinião. Como resultado, destaca-se que as fontes de dados selecionadas foram validadas pelos participantes da pesquisa de opinião, que demonstraram conhecimento em ao menos uma das fontes de dados, fornecendo indícios que as fontes de dados selecionadas são as mais apropriadas para o trabalho em questão. Ainda, como resultados, as propostas de definições foram validadas com os participantes, obtendo resultados positivos quanto aos fragmentos de processo elaborados para representar as fontes de dados internos, transferência de arquivos e base de dados compartilhada. A principal contribuição deste trabalho é auxiliar na identificação de fontes de dados de um processo de negócio, a partir do conjunto de elementos disponibilizado pela BPMN 2.0.2, onde, anteriormente, tal identificação era possível apenas através da documentação do processo. / Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) makes it possible to display information about the data flow of a process through data and artifacts such as objects, associations and data stores. However, these elements provide a limited capacity, especially when referring to the mapping of the data sources (e.g. web service) in a process model. In this context, this paper proposes an approach to associate data sources to BPMN elements (e.g. service task). Such approach aims to serve as a starting point to business process management professionals in order to map, in design time, the data source that is being used by the process, through the use of BPMN elements. In order to demonstrate the results, five correlations were evidenced, which are called “definitions proposals”, followed by their textual description and an example of use. These definitions proposals, together with the data sources used, were evaluated through a survey. As a result, the selected data sources were validated by the participants of the survey that demonstrated knowledge in at least one of the data sources, providing evidence that the selected data sources are the most appropriated for the work concerned. Also, as results, the definitions proposals were validated with the participants, obtaining positive results regarding to the process fragments designed to represent the data sources internal data, file transfer and shared database. The main contribution of this thesis is to assist the identification of data sources of a business process, from the set of elements provided by BPMN 2.0.2, where, previously, such identification was only possible through the process documentation.

Around 2.5 million utility works (street works) occurred in England in 2016 with a construction cost of approximately £2 billion. Comparative figures for highway works (road works) are not readily available, but are expected to be similarly significant. Unsurprisingly, the volume of road works and street works (RWSW) activity in urban areas is considered to have a negative impact on the road network causing disruption and premature deterioration, blighting the street scene, damaging local business trade, and significantly increasing social, economic and environmental costs. Indeed the social costs of street works alone are estimated to be around £5.1 billion annually. Despite the economic significance of highway infrastructure, the subject of road works and street works management is under-researched, with greater research emphasis on technology-based, as opposed to policy-based management approaches. Consequently, the aim of this study was to investigate the efficiency and effectiveness of managing the business process of RWSW. Due to limited academic literature in the subject domain, earlier research focused on identifying the industry actors, their motivations, as well as drivers and barriers to RWSW management. Semi-structured interviews with industry stakeholders highlighted the industry s complexity and revealed that several issues contributed to ineffective RWSW management. Principal problems included Street Authorities (SA) failing to take enough ownership of the RWSW coordination process, highway legislation not encouraging joint working due to inherent challenges arising from reinstatement guarantees, and entrenched attitudes and adversarial practices in the construction industry encouraging silo working. The Derby Permit Scheme (legislative tool) was intended to improve RWSW management through giving SAs greater control of highway works. Accordingly, RWSW activity was tested through a statistical time series intervention analysis to separately examine the impacts of the Highway Authority (HA) led works and utility industry led works over 6.5 years. The Permit Scheme was found to reduce utility works durations by around 5.4%; equivalent to 727 days, saving between £2.1 - £7.4 million in construction and societal costs annually. Conversely, the Permit Scheme did not noticeable reduce the HA led works. Instead, the introduction of a works order management system (WOMS) to automate some of the back office road works process was found to reduce works durations by 34%; equivalent to 6519 days and saving between £8.3 - £48.3m per annum. This case study highlighted that more considered practices were required by the HA to reduce RWSW. The stakeholder study and the automated WOMS technology found that well-managed business processes tended to lead to better executed highway works on-site. Informed by these experiences, the sponsor was keen to re-engineer its internal business processes. Business process mapping was adopted to identify inefficient practices and improved coordinated working opportunities on three key internal teams involved in the road works process. Findings revealed that silo working was inherent and that processes were built around fragmented and outdated Information Technology (IT) systems, creating inefficiencies. A subsequent validation exercise found that certain practices, such as restricted data access and hierarchal management styles were culturally embedded and also common across other local authorities. Peer reviewed recommendations to improve working practices were made, such as adopting an integrated Highways Management IT system, vertical integration between the customer relationship management IT system and the Highways IT systems, and the provision of regulatory training. In conclusion, based on the finding of this study, a generic logic map was created with potential to transfer the learning to other local authorities and for their use when evaluating road works administrative processes.