EVALUATION OF STRUCTURAL PROPERTIES FOR BUSINESS

PROCESSES

Vladimír Modrák

Faculty of Manufacturing Technology, Technical University of Košice,Bayerova 1, Prešov , Slovakia

Keywords: Structural properties, Business process, Redesign, Diagram

Abstract: This paper describes the issue of the evaluation of processes designed on the principles of reengineering.

Especially business process structures on high-level modelling are subjected that substantially support the

company’s successful running. Presented analysis and assessment put emphasis on the structural properties

of business processes.

For evaluation such tools as comparing of quantitative indicators of business

processes are used.

1 INTRODUCTION

One of the important roles of BPR is building of

unified logistic concept of organisation, which

should involve co-ordination and management of all

material and information flows. This concept is

based on mapping and classification of processes

that representing the core of Business Process

Reengineering (BPR). In present BPR activities

converge on modelling and processes analysis and as

a result the principal activities are aimed at the

processes, strategy, managerial information systems

and changes in control [Earl, 1993]. In the

following, the contribution outlines the procedure

applied to modelling of business processes, on the

basis of that deals with the set of quantitative

indicators used for analysing and redesigning

structural properties of business processes.

2 PROCESS CLASSIFICATION IN

TERMS OF BUSINESS PROCESS

REDESIGN

From the methodical point of view the process

redesign requires in the first place revision of

existing processes in terms of their effectiveness,

and verifying of their mutual connections. Further

stage involves a draft a new arrangement of

processes, which should be carried out either on the

basis of empiricism, or on a certain systematic basis.

The business process redesign requires also explicit

classification basis by which processes can be

represented by classes.

The classification that will be analyzed further had

come out from these following basic reengineering

principles:

P1: In the overall arrangement of processes it is

suitable to combine elements of decentralization

with elements of centralization;

P2: Specification of the substance of the process

at a certain level has to be as precise as

possible;

P3: In the arrangement of processes the

minimizing of the number of hierarchical levels

is needed take into account.

On the basis of the above, the classification

framework for systematic rebuilding of processes

can be built from three hierarchical levels, which are

(from down to top):

- Elementary process (EP) that is represented by a

set of complex tasks, consisting from smallest

elements-activities;

- Integrated process (IP), which represents a set of

two or more elementary processes with the purpose

to create the autonomic organizational unit of on

second hierarchical level;

- Unified enterprise process (UEP), which consists

of one or several integrated processes at the extent

that is conditioned by its capability to flexibly and

effectively secure customers’ requirements

619

Modrák V. (2004).

EVALUATION OF STRUCTURAL PROPERTIES FOR BUSINESS PROCESSES.

In Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems, pages 619-622

DOI: 10.5220/0002609706190622

 SciTePress

As it is evident processes and their elements by

these classification are clustered in hierarchical

manner into classes and subclasses. Naturally,

process models have to be understood by different

levels of management. Managers of higher level

may not need to know each detail about the process,

but they may want to get an overview about the

overall process landscape [G&W, 1999]. Process

landscaping avoids these problems by identifying

core processes and by describing how process

models are related. These aspects are outlined in the

next section.

3 BUSINESS PROCESS REDESIGN

When specifying the process as an object of

modelling, we also start from the requirement of

monitoring its value-adding function. Then as parts

of commodity flows there are also information

flows. They are realized in the control of processes,

but they are essential for a pricing the commodities

and costs in financial units. Since, by gathering

information, a large number of sizable files are

created, it is not necessary in this stage to reflect

them explicitly into models of the processes in the

conceptual stage. In the proposed procedures, they

can be therefore given the role of a ‘shadow’, which

is unveiled when making a concept of data models.

Tools for their modelling are, for example, data flow

diagrams (built bottom-up), which in the stage of

drafting an information system, they should copy the

hierarchical and content structure of commodity

flow diagrams and extract their information flows

and procedures from them. The application of

classification approach in the modelling of

organisational context of business processes is

further shown on the procedure, which has been

inspired from more methods [C&Y, 1990], [SVD,

1993].

From the carried out analysis of methodologies of

designing information systems, Structured System

Analysis and Design Method (SSADM) [A&G,

1990] and the Object Modelling Technique (OMT)

[RBP, 1991] were most compatible with the

proposed procedure based on the Structured Process

Decomposition (SPD). In contrast with a structured

analysis, in which the cardinal modelling tools are

data flow diagrams and other additional diagrams,

the procedure of SPD consists of a set of tools,

which are:

- system diagram,

- context diagram,

- commodity flow diagrams,

- state transition diagrams.

The sequence of the first three diagrams with the

links between individual modeling levels is shown in

figure 1.

4 STRUCTURAL PROPERTIES

ANALYSIS ON THE

HORIZONTAL LEVEL

Within the outlined models of the business processes

by the help of the SPD method, individual diagrams

were designed based on the principles of the graphs

theory. In order to design such models, a complete

amount of information about the reality that is being

modelled is not required. However, considering

reengineering, we have to take into consideration the

structural properties of the process. They should be

Figure 1: The example of the sequence of diagrams

ICEIS 2004 - INFORMATION SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND SPECIFICATION

620

investigated by means of a topological structure

analysis in terms of which the basic elements of the

process structure – nodes and links are the subject of

investigation. As a rule, the starting point of this

analysis is the linkage matrix of a graph expressed

by notation V = ⏐ v

⏐. According to this matrix,

each node “k” (k = 1, 2,…,n), where “n” is the

number of nodes in the graph, corresponds to a

vector v(k) = (v

, v

) with following components :

∑

kjk

∑

In accordance with the previous relations, symbol

“v

” represents the number of the matrix elements of

the k-th line and “v

” is the number of elements of

the k-th column of the linkage matrix. Then, for the

isolated node, it is valid this precondition: v

= v

= 0.

4.1 Structure binding

Of several possible indicators of the complexity of

the business processes structure, the ‘redundancy”

degree of the structure linkage can also be

considered useful. This is based on the concept of

the graph binding, which means the least possible

number of the linkage graph, the reduction of which

would lead to the graph unbinding which contains

isolated nodes. When the graph consists of “n” links,

then graph binding is possible if

1nL

min

−= (1)

which is valid for both oriented and non-oriented

graphs.

In order to determine the degree of binding

structure “B”, the following indicator expressing a

relative measure of the size of the number of the “L”

links that occur within a given structure can be

applied:

min

−

(2)

With the oriented graphs, each link (i,j) has one

element in the linkage matrix v

= 1. Within the non-

oriented graph, each link has two elements, where it

is valid v

= v

. With the minimum number of links,

the value of this relation equals zero.

In connection to the described processes modelling

techniques, the indicator of the structure binding can

be used with the analysis of the processes structure

of the UEP type that are represented by means of

Commodity flow diagrams of the first degree. For

the purpose of analysis, only internal structure of the

investigated process is relevant, where the relations

of the process to its immediate environment are not

taken into consideration. In order to apply the given

indicator, the process structure UEP

will be taken

into account. The structure, which was obtained

based on the diagram in Figure 1, is shown in Figure

2 a The index value of the structure binding “B” of

the given process, when L = 13 and L

min

= 7 by

formula (2) equals 1,14. The reduction of the

structure linkage can be obtained by the purposeful

integration of the matter in hand joinable processes

either sequentially or parallel arranged. This

integration is in conformity with the principles of

reengineering, according to for instance [H&C,

1993; R&U, 1996]. In this case, the integration of

the processes IP3

all the way to IP 3

will be

applied to the process IP 3

1-4

and similarly

IP 3

and IP 3

will be applied to the process IP 3

7-8

based on which the new process structure seen in

Figure 2b will be obtained. The index value obtained

by this transformation will be reduced to B= 0,66.

4.2 Structure diameter

The Structure diameter is another indicator used to

compare the structural characteristics of the process.

This indicator can be formally expressed under the

following suppositions:

C1: Let “dij” be the length of the minimum path

between the node “i” (from which the linkage was

initiated) and the node “j” ( in which the

performance of the network graph finishes)

expressed by the number of links which the path

consists of.

C2: Let “I” and “J” represent the number of input

and output nodes.

Then the structure diameter can be expressed by the

relation:

,Jj,Ii,dmaxD

∈∈=

( 3)

which characterizes the maximum number of

linkage separating the initial and target structure

elements.

Figure 2: The example of internal process structure

linkage reduction

EVALUATION OF STRUCTURAL PROPERTIES FOR BUSINESS PROCESSES

621

When applying this indicator to the same process as

with the previous case, it is necessary to consider the

structure of the given process that includes the

elements of the environment, which are in a direct

interaction with the elements of the internal structure

of the process.

With the process analysis, using this indicator we

will consider the initial state the original structure of

the UEP

process that is shown in Figure 2a that

contains also the elements with which the given

process is in interaction. The structure defined in

such a way can be seen in Figure 3 (left-hand).

Then for I={2’, 3’, 5’, 6’, 8’} and J={2’’, 3’’, 5’’,

6’’, 8’’} we obtain: max d

= d

2’6’’

= d

3’2’’

= d

3’3’’

3’5’’

= d

5’6’’

=. D

6’6’’

= 5, thus D = 5.

A lower value of this indicator for the given process

can be obtained again by the purposeful integration,

which is represented by the joining of sequentially

arranged processes IP 3

and IP 3

to the process IP

7-8

and the joining of the processes IP3

all the way

to IP 3

to the process IP 3

1-4

. Through such a

modification of the process structure, the process

model presented in Figure 3 (right-hand) can be

obtained. The Diameter of the structure for the

structure of the same process modified by the

integration and extended by the elements with which

the given process is in an interaction (Figure 3b) can

be calculated in the same way. The number of the

graph nodes “I” and “J” does not change.

Based on this, it is obvious that the new value D = 4.

It affirms obtaining the process simplification from

the viewpoint of the number of the one after another

links controlled autonomously.

5 CONCLUSION

Structural business process metrics seems to be also

very helpful especially in choosing a meaningful

target for process improvement during the

reengineering activities. The position of this kind of

metrics is looking for its stable place in the practical

steps of BPR, because the analysis and assessment

of business process structures are critical in

achieving enhanced effectiveness of business

processes.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

"This work was supported (in part) by a grant from

VEGA ME SR and SAS, No. 1/1241/04”.

REFERENCES

Ashworth, C, Goodland, M. (1990). SSADM: A Practical

Approach, McGraw-Hill.

Coad, P., Yourdon, E. (1990). Object-Oriented Analysis,

Englewood Cliffs NJ, Prentice-hall.

Earl, M. J. (1993). Experiences in Strategic Information

Planning, MIS Quarterly, March Vol. 17:1, pp 1-24 .

Gruhn V., Wellen U. (1999). Process Landscaping:

Modelling Complex Business Processes, European

Journal of Engineering for Information Society

Applications, Volume 1, Issue 3, 1999, pp. 1-22.

Hammer, M., Champy, J. (1993). Reengineering the

Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution,

HarpperCollins Publishers, Inc., New York.

Robson, M., Ullah, P. (1996). A practical guide to

business process re-engineering, Gower Publishing

limited, Aldeshort , Hampshire, England.

Rumbaugh, J.E., Blaha, M Premerlani, W.J. Eddy, F.

Lorensen, W. (1991). Object-Oriented Modelling

and Design, Prentice Hall International, Inc..

Sambamurthy, V., Venkataraman, S., Desactis, G.(1993):

The design of Information Technology Planning

Systems for Varying organizational context.

European Journal of Information Systems, Vol. 2

No. 1, 1993, pp. 23-35.

Figure 3: The example of internal and external

process structure linkage integration

ICEIS 2004 - INFORMATION SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND SPECIFICATION

622