The thesis deals with the subject of process performance measurement in a financial accounting department in the context of outsourcing these processes or their parts. The aim of the thesis is to propose a set of indicators for measuring the performance of financial accounting department in the context of processes in an international telecommunications company with respect to effective measurement, integrity with corporate business processes and meaningful and correct values of these metrics. Firstly, in the theoretical part, the reader is informed about the core processes in a finance accounting department. The reader is informed about the basic terms related to performance measurement, in particular KPI's (definition, implementation, evaluation, meaning ...). Finally, basic concepts associated with outsourcing are explained and the importance of performance indicators in the relationship between the supplier of the accounting services and the customer is outlined. The practical part deals with the design of performance indicators for a finance accounting department of an international telecommunications company. The indicators are designed to reflect the processes in the company. An emphasis is on those processes (or parts thereof) that are provided externally - by a third party provider of accounting services. Each indicator is defined by its description, meaning and method of measurement. If any adjustments to the processes are necessary, these process changes are described. The weaknesses and risks of implementation are indicated in the following section. The results of the individual measurements are presented for a minimum of 6 consecutive months (where it was possible to obtain data retrospectively, the values are calculated for the minimum of 12 months).

Diploma thesis oriented on processes and business process management (BPM) is tightly related to the ability of organizations to adapt to the reality of today's world, reality of continuous and accelerating change. The objective for theoretical part is to summarize main terms, approaches, methods and other information about business process management, reasons for its evolution, business process modeling, execution by personal and other sources and its efficiency, process performance evaluation, to be able to use and apply them in commercial practice on the example of a small business company. Practical part includes results of theory application and knowledge acquired throughout studies application on the example of iFirma company. The thesis brings up process approaches application example in a business company and an intention to proof positive impact on its performance and continuous process improvement. What influence will IS/IT support of processes and process changes have? Several approaches to business management and even more applications bring up a need to evaluate and pick the right approach.

There is a growing interest and research on improvement of business processes as an essential part of effective quality management. Process improvement is possible with measurement and analysis of the process performance. Process performance measurement has been studied to a certain extend in the literature, and many different approaches have been developed such as Sink-Tuttle Model, Performance Measurement Matrix, SMART Pyramid, Balanced Scorecard Approach, Critical Few Method, and Performance Prism Framework. These approaches require that process owners and analysts define appropriate measures based on general guidelines for each process separately. Recently, with the advancement of information technologies, modeling and simulation of processes on a computer aided platform has become possible / standards and software support regarding such applications have been developed. Even though increasingly many organizations have been building their process models on computers, only a few manages effective use of such models for process improvement. This is partly due to difficulties in defining appropriate performance measures for the processes. The purpose of this study is to propose a method that can be used for defining performance measures of business processes easily and effectively according to specific nature of these processes. The proposed performance measure definition system is based on the idea of using generic process performance measures published by trusted business process frameworks for high level processes and adapting them for lower level ones. The system, using a search mechanism available on a computer, allows users to easily find and define appropriate performance measures for their processes. The proposed system is used for a research project management process and a creating research opportunities process of a public university and the results are discussed.

Theoretical part: measurement of process performance in quality management system according to ISO 9001 Applied part: description of agency, processes, current BSC methodology, suggested new BSC methodology according to new strategy

Firstly, we deal with the verification of normality and other necessary prerequisites needed in this thesis. We also introduce transformations to converse non-normally distributed data to normal and continue with capability analysis. We describe the design of control charts, useful tools to assess process stability. They help us to eliminate assignable causes and leave only chance causes in process. We obtain process in control state. Finally, we introduce both capability and performance ratios for both normal and non-normal data, and analyse some of their properties. At the end of the thesis, we prove acquired knowledge by performing capability analysis of real process.

Diese Studie präsentiert die Ergebnisse einer Befragung zur Verbreitung von Business Intelligence-Technologien (BI) in der Call Center-Branche. Neben der Erfassung struktureller Daten der Call Center umfasst dies die detaillierte Untersuchung der Bereiche Datenspeicherung, Umgang mit Kundendaten, Einsatz von BI-Technologien sowie die Analyse der Gesprächsqualität.:1 Zur Studie 1.1 Forschungshintergrund der Studie 1.2 Untersuchungsgebiet – BI-unterstützte Prozesse in Call Centern 1.3 Ablauf der Studie 1.4 Aufbau des Fragebogens 1.5 Aufbau der Umfrageauswertung 2 Kommentierte Ergebnisse der Studie 2.1 Strukturdaten 2.2 Datenspeicherung 2.3 Umgang mit Kundendaten 2.4 Einsatz von Business Intelligence-Technologien 2.4.1 Internes Reporting 2.4.2 Monitoring 2.4.3 Data Mining 2.5 Analyse der Gesprächsqualität 2.6 Zusammenfassung der Studienergebnisse 3 Fazit Anhang A – Ergebnisse der Studie im Detail

Coupling of material, process, and performance models is an important step towards a fully integrated material-process-performance design of structural components. In this research, alternative approaches for introducing the effects of manufacturing and material microstructure in plasticity constitutive models are studied, and a cyberinfrastructure framework is developed for coupled process-performance simulation and optimization of energy absorbing components made of magnesium alloys. The resulting mixed boundary/initial value problem is solved using nonlinear finite element analysis whereas the optimization problem is decomposed into a hierarchical multilevel system and solved using the analytical target cascading methodology. The developed framework is demonstrated on process-performance optimization of a sheetormed, energy-absorbing component using both classical and microstructure-based plasticity models. Sheetorming responses such as springback, thinning, and rupture are modeled and used as manufacturing process attributes whereas weight, mean crush force, and maximum crush force are used as performance attributes. The simulation and optimization results show that the manufacturing effects can have a considerable impact on design of energy absorbing components as well as the optimum values of process and product design variables.

This thesis is focused on the example of process approach used as the tool for quality management in a real company. The aim of this paper is to get readers acquaint with quality control management eight principles from the ISO/IEC 9001 perspective. The thesis then elaborates the practical site of process management approach. The paper describes process management evolution stages, its benefits, there are introduced specific types of modelling methods and ways for process performance measurement. The implementation of process approach is then shown on practical example. The thesis's practical part provides process charts for key organization processes drafted according to the one selected modelling method, descriptions for such processes, suggestions for change aiming to process optimisation and finally also proposes measurable process performance indicators.

The goal of this master thesis is to supply management at Saab Aeronautics with information and tools that allow for fast and effective insight into the manufacturing process. Additionally it aims to suggest improvements concerning measurements and the use of data for the internal workshops. The method of creating good performance indicators will also be part of the deliverables to Saab for future use. The master thesis is based on Analytics for Management by Tanima Chowhury and Louise Sandén, an earlier master thesis which describes a method for generating KPI:s. Furthermore the master thesis intends to answer some research questions, these questions are based around how well Analytics for Management can be adapted to a large organization like Saab and an evaluation of their previously used KPI:s. The main changes to the method as described in Analytics for Management are regarding differences in the data collection and the addition of a fourth phase. The new fourth phase uses the output from the previous three phases that are described in Analytics for Management, to assess which KPI:s are most suitable for top managerial use. The first phase utilizesthe company vision and strategy, to create suitable tactical goals. In this project, this translates to the company strategy getting linked to goals set up for the internal workshops at Saab Aeronautics. After this, in the second phase, the goals are used to produce KPI:s for the workshops. The output of phase two is therefore the chosen KPI:s that have been confirmed with management. The third phase uses the KPI:s and aims to evaluate the measurement system to either improve it or create it, if nonexistent. This part has been intentionally reduced in this report due to complexity. The fourth phase, evaluates out which KPI:s should be selected and how they should be visualized to create a good overview for management. The main result or output of the master thesis report consists of two parts, the method of generating KPI:s and the actual generated KPI:s. The KPI:s created during the master thesis are very similar to the KPI:s previously used, but improved. This indicates that the previous KPI:s is use at Saab were up to standard. However, the underlying data and traceability was not. These results generate good value for the future and the findings underline an important area. However, according to the authors, the main value should consist of highlighting the defective underlying data and solutions created to solve the problem / Med denna rapport vill man tillgodose ledningen på Saab Aeronautics med information och verktyg som effektivt ger en inblick kring verksamhetens produktionsenheter. Man ämnar också ge förslag till taktiska ledningen angående mätetal och datahantering. Utöver konkreta förslag tar man även fram metodiken för framtida bruk på Saab. För att genomföra detta appliceras en anpassning av metodiken beskriven i Analytics for Management av Tanima Chowdhury och Louise Sandén. I Analytics for Management presenteras en metodik för att ta fram och utvärdera KPI:er. I samband med metodiken ställs också forskningsfrågor upp angående anpassning av Analytics for Management mot verksamheten och en utvärdering av dagens mätetal hos Saab. Som nämnt är rapporten baserad på anpassning och tillämpning av Analytics for Management. Efter analys av metodiken och en genomförd litteraturstudie infördes bl.a. en fjärde fas samt förändringar kring datainsamling. Den fjärde fasen behandlar främst aggregering gentemot ledning och nyttjar resultatet ur fas ett till tre för att lyfta fram KPI:er som passar bra på många olika nivåer i organisationen. Den första av faserna behandlar företagets vision och strategi för att kunna koppla den mot mål på taktisk nivå. I fallet på Saab handlar det om att koppla företagsstrategi mot mål på verkstadsnivå. Sedan genereras KPI:er i fas två, där dessa också valideras mot intressenter och ansvariga i produktionen. Den tredje fasen konkretiserar mätningar och visualisering för de valda KPI:erna. Här får man alltså ut färdiga KPI:er för taktiska nivån. Fjärde fasen aggregerar samman genererade KPI:er för ledningen, på så sätt får man en överblicksbild över en större del av organisationen. Resultatet från examensarbetet består av två delar: dels metoden för framtagning av lämpliga KPI:er, men också de KPI:erna som arbetsgången lett fram till. Gällande KPI:erna som utvecklats under examensarbetet, så finns det stora likheter med de KPI:er som redan används på Saab. Skillnaden ligger i spårbarheten samt hur underliggande data hanteras. Genom metodiken och med de framtagna KPI:erna finns därför värde som kan nyttjas på flera verksamheter i organisationen. Vad författarna dock vill lyfta fram är att det kanske största värdet ligger i upptäckten kring brister i underliggande data, som idag många av mätetalen bygger på.

The rapid advancement and penetration of information technology (IT), amid continued questions over its benefits, has resulted in research efforts to understand the extent to which IT resources contribute to organisational performance. There is little question that the presence of IT contributes to organisational performance. Our understanding of how and where IT contributes to value in organisations, however, is limited. Current IT business value research advances the notion that firm’s IT-related capabilities ability to leverage their IT resources explains the IT-related performance differences across firms. Understanding the nature of the IT-related capabilities, and their relationship with IT resources can provide a better understanding of how organisations can make better use of their IT resources. IT resources are dynamic and change at a rapid pace. Current IT business value research suggests the firm’s IT-related capabilities at a point in time can source value from the IT resources. However, firms IT-related capabilities must demonstrate parallel dynamics to maximise their influence on their IT resources. In this dynamic resource relationship environment, firm’s ability to sustain a level of influence on their IT resources will determine the extent of IT resources’ value-creating ability. Using the resource-based view of the firm that suggest an organisation is a bundle of resources, and using a complementary theoretical lens, this study introduces a higher-level resource, co-created by combining two or more complementary resources. This higher-level resource is capable of contributing to business value on its own, and importantly, can help organisations sustain their existing IT-related capabilities. The sustainable IT-related capabilities will have a better influence on the IT resources and will source better IT-related business value. This higher-level resource can also help with the timing of IT investments, and can provide an environment where a firm’s technical IT skills can better integrate the IT resources into the business processes. On measurement of organisational performance, this study suggests that a unique combination of organisational resources creates an efficient and effective internal environment that then becomes a powerful tool to enhance the key external process of customer service. Such enhancements in process-level efficiency and effectiveness will carry forward to be recognised in overall firm-level performance. This study develops and tests a model that assesses the association between the two generic IT resources (IT investment and technical IT skills), three IT-related capabilities (top management commitment, shared organisational knowledge, and flexible IT infrastructure), and internal process-level performance. It also assesses whether the IT-Usage Platform, a higher-level co-created resource, on its own associates with, and enhances the generic IT resources’ and IT-related capabilities’ association with internal process-level performance. The study also proposes that improvement in internal process-level performance will be positively associated with external process-level performance of customer service. Firms that improve their internal and external process performance should also improve their firm-level performance. The results, as hypothesised, failed to reject the non-association between the generic IT resources and the internal process-level performance. The study, as predicted, found a positive association between the three IT-related capabilities, IT-Usage Platform, and the internal process-level performance. The IT-Usage Platform indeed enhances the association between the IT-related capabilities and internal process-level performance. The results also suggest that the association between the technical IT skills and internal process-level performance improves in the presence of the IT-Usage Platform. Firms’ improved internal process-level performance also relates to improvement in external process-level performance. Improvement in the internal-external process performance also contributes to performance at the firm level. For research, this study demonstrates that the complementarity and the resource-based view theories allow inclusion of a greater variety of resources in a bundle of capable resources that could be a source of IT-related business value. The complementary theoretical lens also enables one to consider firms’ higher-level resources, co-created from complementary resources. The result is a robust model with the flexibility to consider other forms of resource interactions that sustain firms existing IT-related capabilities. The model also enables comparison of IT and other organisational resources on a level-platform and allows for a deeper understanding of how organisations can better leverage their IT resources. The study also presents the internal-external coordination path of IT-related value creation. For decision makers this study reinforces the importance of the concept of a coordinated IT-related change to secure value from their IT investments. It also presents decision makers with a visual IT business value path from internal process benefits to external process benefits, and finally to firm-level benefits. This study suggests all organisational resources, through various combinations, could be a source of IT-related business value. Future research can consider resources that are at the boundary of capable/non-capable resources to evaluate whether firms various resource arrangements can make these resources more valuable in sourcing IT-related business value. This research also provides strong theoretical arguments to consider other higher-level factors that may have the potential to sustain firms existing IT-related capabilities.