Abstract
In recent years there has been considerable focus on business processes which has created a debate on their definition. One school of thought believes that a standard set of business processes can be applied fairly universally to most businesses; others believe that business processes are individual and specific to organizations. Reviews this debate and presents a view based on a technique developed to define business processes using a bottom-up approach. This technique focuses first on the business activities and goes on to quantify the relationships between business activities. The hypothesis behind the work described is that the closely coupled activities could be grouped together to form a natural business process. Describes the technique developed for bottom-up identification of business processes in some detail and presents a case study which has been designed as a controlled experiment.
Deffinition
Main
In recent years there has been considerable focus on business processes which has created a debate on their definition. One school of thought believes that a standard set of business processes can be applied fairly universally to most businesses; others believe that business processes are individual and specific to organizations. Reviews this debate and presents a view based on a technique developed to define business processes using a bottom-up approach. This technique focuses first on the business activities and goes on to quantify the relationships between business activities. The hypothesis behind the work described is that the closely coupled activities could be grouped together to form a natural business process. Describes the technique developed for bottom-up identification of business processes in some detail and presents a case study which has been designed as a controlled experiment.
Deffinition
The primary concern of this paper is the second area of debate, i.e. the definition of business processes. The current debate in this area focuses on whether a generic set of business processes can be developed which will fit any organization. Davenport (1993) describes a business process as a structured set of activities designed to produce a specific output. Others offer variants, but the common thread is that a business processis a collection of various tasks which produce an output.
A more contentious issue is whether a set of generic business processes can be defined with universal applicability. Partridge and Perren (1993) offer Porter's value chain (Porter, 1985) as a possible set of genericbusiness processes. Other views (Childe et al., 1995; Harvey, 1994) regarding the applicability of genericbusiness processes used by companies and consultancies are leading to the conclusion that, at an abstract level, some consensus may be achieved over a generic set of business processes. However, it is also becoming evident that as the level of detail increases, disagreements begin to surface. Since most enterprises are concerned with detailed operational models rather than abstract models, the value of a top-down, i.e. generic, approach to business process definition is becoming increasingly questionable.
Main
Broadly there are two approaches to improving organisational performance. One approach is the Japanese method of Kaizen, associated with the just-in-time and total quality movements, which is based on the principle that many small incremental developments will accumulate into a substantial gain.
In contrast business process re-engineering (Hammer and Champy, 1993; Hammer, 1990) is concerned with fundamental organisational redesign. "Most often, a firm's response to environmental complexity has been to increase organizational complexity. Management layers, procedures, and controls are added, with a concomitant increase in administrative overhead. Reliance on impersonal paper-based communication increases. The result is a host of organizational pathologies" (Keen, 1991). Symptoms of poor organisation design include excessive re-work, checking and control and re-submission of data into a computer (Hammer and Champy, 1993).
There are other reasons for redesigning business process:"the traditional, hierarchical organization is in deep trouble. The reason is that the old enterprise is poorly equipped to respond to the new business needs. The command-and-control hierarchy has its roots in the church and military bureaucracies of a previous time. It separates people into two groups - the governed and the governors. At one end of the chain are the supremely governed. In between there exists a chain of people who alternately act as governor or governed. These middle managers act as transmitters of the communications that come down from the top. Communication the other way is limited, except through formal labor-management relations. Your work goals are determined by your boss, and his or her goals by his or her boss - all the way to the top - where decisions are made.""While this picture may seem stereotypical, especially given the changes occurring in organizations today, this is the traditional model of the enterprise. Today there is a growing acceptance that this structure stifles creativity, self-motivation, commitment, and responsiveness to market demands, not to mention failing to meet human needs for fulfilling work. Fundamental changes - in fact, the transformation of the nature of our organizations and the way business is undertaken - are required.""We are entering the second era of information technology in which the business applications of computers, the nature of technology itself, and the leadership for use of technology are going through profound change. Organizations that cannot understand the new era and navigate a path through the transition are vulnerable and will be bypassed. Today, however, technology has moved to the front line in most organizations. It has become strategic in the sense that it is a necessary component of business strategy (Tapscott and Caston, 1993)."
Systems analysis methodology has evolved from the pioneering methodology (Gane and Sarson, 1977; DeMarco, 1978).
Over the last three decades a well-established procedure for modelling information systems based on two complementary aspects of analysis: data modelling (or entity relationship modelling) and function modelling (or data flow diagramming) has been developed, see, for example, Yourdon (1993). These two techniques may conveniently be referred to as the data view and the function view.
A common aspect of all design methodologies is the use of diagrammatic modelling techniques, a feature which has been facilitated by the everyday availability of graphical user interface software. Although the precise style of the charting symbols varies, the fundamentals are well established.
In order to undertake an activity, enterprises need to refer to the current status described by stored data before determining what action to take. Fundamentally an action involves the movement of data and/or resources such as personnel or material. At a detailed level an organisation's processing rules are referred to as procedures.
Sumber
Harrison, Alan. Business Process Management Journal
4. 2 (1998): 137 (http://e-resources.pnri.go.id:2056/docview/220294845/1396FF0F2D27A1C24EB/23?accountid=25704)
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Bond, T C. Business Process Management Journal5. 2(http://e-resources.pnri.go.id:2056/docview/220304453/1396FF0F2D27A1C24EB/96?accountid=25704)
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Bititci, Umit S; Muir, Daniel. International Journal of Operations & Production Management17. 4 (1997): 365-374.(http://e-resources.pnri.go.id:2056/docview/232355700/1396FF0F2D27A1C24EB/128?accountid=25704)
17. 4 (1997): 365-374.(http://e-resources.pnri.go.id:2056/docview/232355700/1396FF0F2D27A1C24EB/128?accountid=25704)
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