M.Phil. (Engineering Management) / “Business Process Engineering has now become the most important trend in modern businesses. It is often dressed up as many other things, but in the end, how the business delivers value is dependent on the operational effectiveness of its processes” [8]. It is important to understand the benefits that business process engineering will provide in allowing business to be effective through its processes. The benefit needs to be quite evident for a long period of time, while business displays the signs of sustainable growth. I conduct this research to see how the two concepts, which are business process engineering, align in ensuring that business carries on offering the relevant offering to the customer. The approach I used in this research was firstly through understanding what the literature on business process engineering and sustainability entail in order to establish alignment. I therefore formulated a research question based on the variables that were derived from the literature review. These variables are both from business process engineering and sustainability. I further on conducted surveys, interviews with the relevant subject matter experts as well as other business owners. What emanated from the research was that there is a close correlation between the two concepts. It was also learned from the survey and interviews that organisations are so much in favour of sustainable solutions, however the challenge is always on what tools to use, how to use the tools effectively as well as benefit measurement of process engineering interventions. The survey results and the interviews showed that even though organisations think of sustainable solutions, it still seems that there is always an opportunity to implement quick wins that in most cases do not align to the long term goal of creating a sustainable growth of business. This research is important, as it tries to indicate the importance of aligning business process engineering projects to the vision and strategy of the organisation. This approach will ensure that the time and cost invested in executing the strategic and business as usual projects will produce good returns in terms of company performance.

Cílem této práce je navrhnout řešení business intelligence pro Úřad městské části Praha10. Práce úzce souvisí s projektem PARMA který je realizován na Katedře informačních technologií FIS VŠE v rámci kurzu Business Process Engineering a jehož cílem je sestavení jednotného referenčního procesního modelu veřejné správy. Práce se zabývá nalezením vhodných strategických ukazatelů na základě aplikace metody Balanced Scorecard.

The goal of this paper is to describe process management and a possibility of its implementation in the real medical organization. The first part is devoted to a description of the basic concepts, principles, definitions and procedures of process management, which form the paradigm. The second part deals with the application of process management in the real dental clinic and presents an analysis of the current state and its improvement recommendations, conceptual and process modeling, description of basic levels of medical information systems and recommends criteria for information system selection. Diagrams are created in programs PowerDesigner and Cacoo.com are also included in this paper.

Submitted by Silvana Teresinha Dornelles Studzinski (sstudzinski) on 2015-07-06T15:59:26Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Tatiane Pereira Librelato.pdf: 2585503 bytes, checksum: 9509f7ee1b36ce26fb6551c0ea946ef5 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-07-06T15:59:26Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tatiane Pereira Librelato.pdf: 2585503 bytes, checksum: 9509f7ee1b36ce26fb6551c0ea946ef5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / Nenhuma / Sob a perspectiva dos processos de negócios, as empresas investem em inovações e melhorias, onde usualmente são aplicadas abordagens já estabelecidas. Esta dinâmica inicia por um diagnóstico modelando, ou não, os processos de negócios para entendimento da situação atual. Entretanto, tais abordagens usualmente não consideram a circularidade das inter-relações subjacentes dos sistemas da organização e como estas conexões afetam os sistemas entre si. Sob o paradigma da melhoria dos processos de negócios, pensar em mudanças sem pensar nos elementos inerentes a percepção humana pode favorecer a tomada de decisões no presente que possivelmente originam problemas inesperados no futuro, interferindo nos processos de negócios como um todo. Assim, esta pesquisa tem por objetivo propor uma abordagem para entender sistemicamente os processos de negócios através da integração entre a Engenharia de Processos de Negócios (EPN) e o Pensamento Sistêmico (PS). Para tal foram combinados os conceitos de tais áreas relativos aos objetivos da pesquisa com o Método Sistêmico. Uma abordagem inicial foi estruturada e aplicada em estudo de caso exploratório com única unidade de análise. A partir da avaliação empírica a abordagem foi refinada, tratando-se, portanto de uma pesquisa de natureza aplicada e com abordagem qualitativa. Os resultados da pesquisa apontam evidências de que a combinação entre PS e EPN pode contribuir para melhor entendimento dos processos de negócios. / From the perspective of business processes, the companies invest in innovations and improvements, where usually established approaches are applied. This dynamic starts by a diagnostic modeling, or not, the business processes for understanding the current situation. However, such approaches usually do not consider the circularity of the interrelationships of the systems of the organization and how these connections affect the systems between systems. Regarding the paradigm of Business Process Improvement, think of changes without thinking in the elements inherent to human perception can facilitate the decision-making in these possibly present to unexpected problems in the future, interfering in business processes as a whole. Thus, this research aims to propose an approach to systemically understand business processes through the integration between the Business Process Engineering (BPE) and Systems Thinking. Then were combined the concepts of such areas concerning the aims of research with the Systems Method. An initial approach was structured and applied in exploratory case study with single unit of analysis. From the empirical evaluation approach was refined in the case, so a search of applied nature and qualitative approach. The search results are evidence that the combination between BPE and ST can contribute to better understanding of business processes.

Much research has been undertaken to gain insight into business alignment of IT. This alignment basically aims to improve a firm’s performance by an improved harmonization of the business function and the IT function within a firm. The thesis discusses previous approaches and constructs an overall framework, which a potential approach needs to fit in. Being in a highly regulated industry, for airports there is little space left to increase revenues. However, the retailing business has proven to be an area that may contribute towards higher income for airport operators. Consequently, airport management should focus on supporting this business segment. Nevertheless, it needs to be taken into account that smooth airport operations are a precondition for successful retailing business at an airport. Applying the concept of information intensity, the processes of gate allocation and airport retailing have been determined to appraise the potential that may be realized upon (improved) synchronization of the two. It has been found that the lever is largest in the planning phase (i.e. prior to operations), and thus support by means of information technology (for information distribution and improved planning) may help to enable an improved overall retail performance. In order to determine potential variables, which might influence the output, a process decomposition has been conducted along with the development of an appropriate information model. The derived research model has been tested in different scenarios. For this purpose an adequate gate allocation algorithm has been developed and implemented in a purposewritten piece of software. To calibrate the model, actual data (several hundred thousand data items from Frankfurt Airport) from two flight plan seasons has been used. Key findings: The results show that under the conditions described it seems feasible to increase retail sales in the magnitude of 9% to 21%. The most influential factors (besides the constraining rule set and a retail area’s specific performance) proved to be a flight’s minimum and maximum time at a gate as well as its buffer time at gate. However, as some of the preconditions may not be accepted by airport management or national regulators, the results may be taken as an indication for cost incurred, in case the suggested approach is not considered. The transferability to other airport business models and limitations of the research approach are discussed at the end along with suggestions for future areas of research.

Much research has been undertaken to gain insight into business alignment of IT. This alignment basically aims to improve a firm’s performance by an improved harmonization of the business function and the IT function within a firm. The thesis discusses previous approaches and constructs an overall framework, which a potential approach needs to fit in. Being in a highly regulated industry, for airports there is little space left to increase revenues. However, the retailing business has proven to be an area that may contribute towards higher income for airport operators. Consequently, airport management should focus on supporting this business segment. Nevertheless, it needs to be taken into account that smooth airport operations are a precondition for successful retailing business at an airport. Applying the concept of information intensity, the processes of gate allocation and airport retailing have been determined to appraise the potential that may be realized upon (improved) synchronization of the two. It has been found that the lever is largest in the planning phase (i.e. prior to operations), and thus support by means of information technology (for information distribution and improved planning) may help to enable an improved overall retail performance. In order to determine potential variables, which might influence the output, a process decomposition has been conducted along with the development of an appropriate information model. The derived research model has been tested in different scenarios. For this purpose an adequate gate allocation algorithm has been developed and implemented in a purposewritten piece of software. To calibrate the model, actual data (several hundred thousand data items from Frankfurt Airport) from two flight plan seasons has been used. Key findings: The results show that under the conditions described it seems feasible to increase retail sales in the magnitude of 9% to 21%. The most influential factors (besides the constraining rule set and a retail area’s specific performance) proved to be a flight’s minimum and maximum time at a gate as well as its buffer time at gate. However, as some of the preconditions may not be accepted by airport management or national regulators, the results may be taken as an indication for cost incurred, in case the suggested approach is not considered. The transferability to other airport business models and limitations of the research approach are discussed at the end along with suggestions for future areas of research.

[pt] As doenças do rim e trato urinário contribuem com cerca de 850 mil mortes a cada ano, sendo a décima segunda causa de morte do mundo. No Brasil, a diálise ainda é o procedimento mais utilizado, apesar de o transplante ser a modalidade mais recomendada, por oferecer melhor qualidade de vida ao paciente, uma possível redução do risco de mortalidade e menor custo que a diálise. Uma vez na fila, o paciente ainda se depara um conjunto de ineficiências do Sistema Nacional de Transplante. A presente pesquisa identifica que uma delas é o desalinhamento entre os atores do transplante (doador, receptor e unidade transplantadora) e que há um gap no que tange às atividades do ator unidades transplantadoras. Dessa forma, o objetivo da presente pesquisa é investigar, à luz da gestão de operações, o modelo de uma unidade transplantadora de referência, inserida na rede de transplante renal do estado do Rio de Janeiro. A partir do levantamento da literatura e de campo, são realizadas modelagens do processo de transplante renal, descrição e diagnóstico do modelo de operação da unidade transplantadora e proposições acerca do projeto de operação da unidade estudada / [en] Diseases of the kidney and urinary tract contribute about 850,000 deaths each year, being the 12th leading cause of death in the world. In Brazil, dialysis is still the most used procedure, although transplantation is the most recommended modality, because it offers a better quality of life for the patient, a possible reduction of mortality risk and lower cost than dialysis. Once in the queue, the patient still faces a set of inefficiencies of the National Transplant System. The present research identifies that one of them is the misalignment between the actors of the transplant (donor, receiver and transplantation unit) and that there is a gap with respect to the activities of the transplantation unit actors. Thus, the objective of this research is to investigate, in the light of operations management, the model of a reference transplantation unit, inserted in the kidney transplant network of the state of Rio de Janeiro. From the literature and field survey, modeling of the renal transplantation process, description and diagnosis of the operation model of the transplantation unit and propositions about the operation project of the studied unit are performed.