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across numerous fields to provide a logical way for
analysis and management. An organisation can be
seen as a system that has inputs, processes, and
outputs and also contains various parts integrated to
accomplish the shared goal (Senge, 1990). The
system view enables management to view the
organisation in flows, processes and relationships, to
achieve optimal results (Seddon, 2008). The flows,
processes and relationships in a system are usually
defined by the sequence of activities and tasks.
Hammer and Champy (1993) defined business
process as a collection of activities with a goal that
takes one or more types of input to create a valuable
output to the customer. Eriksson and Penker (2000)
argued that business process focuses on addressing
how work is performed rather than describing the
output of a process. This process/task-centric
approach does not necessarily consider the artefacts
processed and modified in the system.
Artefacts, however, can also be seen as the
linkages in a system, as artefacts within a system can
normally be defined at the input and output of the
sub-systems inside the system. The sub-systems pass
artefacts from one sub-system to another; with the
output of one sub-system acting as the input of its
succeeding sub-system. By focusing on the input
and outputs between sub-systems, a more artefact-
centric perspective for examining organisations
emerges. In order to understand organisations from
an artefact-centric perspective, it is necessary to
define artefacts within an organisation, as well as the
relationships between those artefacts.
2.2 Outputs and Components
The output of a system is the desired artefact of the
system’s customer. The outputs include both the
products of routine works and those from projects.
An organisation, as a system that has input and
output, could have various sub-systems that perform
part of the sum of tasks required for the production
process. Materials and parts are therefore modified
and passed from one sub-system to another, which
ultimately defines the total supply chain of the
organisation. By viewing the supply chain of a
product as an analysis unit, an organisation can be
conceptually structured into segments based on the
parts that each supply chain produces. The output
requires various parts and components to be
processed and modified, along the chain. Outputs
must therefore be broken down into components.
Each component is formed by sub-components,
which can also be seen as components on a smaller
scale. The term ‘component’ refers to any type of
raw materials (or services) or parts that are required
in order to deliver a output that is desired by the end
customer of a system. The breakdown of the output
into components should reflect the interaction of
suppliers in the supply chain, and should stop at the
level where the component is still meaningful to the
system.
There is an interdependent relationship between
the output and its components. Components are
needed to produce an output and the component
would not be produced if there were no demand for
it. A component, however, can be used within the
production of more than one output. The more
outputs a component contributes to, the less
dependent a component is on a specific output. On
the other hand, the completion of an output depends
on the availability of its components. When a
component becomes unavailable, potentially the
production of the product would also have to stop,
unless an alternative equivalent component could be
found. The alternative component might already
exist in the system supply chain, yet it is possible
that this will have to be sought from a supplier
currently outside the system. If there is no
alternative for a specific component, then output
production is highly dependent on supplier securing
future component production.
2.3 Stakeholders and Components
A component is made-up of its sub-components,
which in turn requires processors to transform those
sub-components into the component. The activities
within an organisation can be classified into
substantive activities, communication activities and
control activities (Liu, 2000). All activities are
processed, or are managed, by human beings. Hence,
there are people who conduct substantive,
communication and control activities for each
component. Substantive actionees are those who
make the component and supply it to another sub-
system; control actionees control the production
activities; and communication actionees
communicate on behalf of the component with
related sub-systems during the production process.
Apart from those people, there are a group of people
who benefit from the component, and they are the
beneficiaries. Beneficiaries include those who
benefit economically from the component and those
who receive the component.
Due to the direct linkage between a component
and its stakeholders, the stakeholders of the output
are naturally identified. Hence, an output to
components structure diagram inevitably reveals the
AComponent-basedMethodforStakeholderAnalysis
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