Challenges Faced By University And Business Process Modelling: A Case Study

Objectives of Business Process Modelling

What are the challenges faced by the university?

Uncertainty- the users of the system may have poor understandability of the business process model is a challenge to the developed business processes.  Also, the business process that is to be implemented may not be complete this give a strong challenge upon the implementation of this project. (Osterle, 2012)

What were their objective?

The main objectives of the business process model of the birkeck school is that they wanted to reduce the complexity and the duplication of errors, increase the speed and the quality of data to enforce the business users to established their small-scale process advancement and to explain the high volume processes to be automated and developed them quickly. However, building a cross functional processes that will help the university units to work as expected and to established the operational excellence programme through the business process modelling (Holt, 2009).

What was done to meet the objective?

In order for the university to meet the objective of the business process model being developed, they had to define the methodology being used to develop the process model. Also, the project team had to identify the problem and then collect all the data concerning the process model and then analyze them accordingly so that they can come up with the best solutions.

Discuss how they went about discovering the processes?

They identify and found out that the school has a problem in storing the large volume of data using paper. This deserves the school to procure a software solution that will help to manage and run the processes with ease. (Mohapatra, 2013) This will lead to a faster way in which the issues posted by the students are addressed faster and timely.

What improvement were achieved?

Through the use of the developed system, there are a lot of things which were achieved by the process model developers including the following: the status and amendments of the students are now addressed faster, the processes implemented and put in place are three within 12 months, the operational and large number of students up to 18000 are able to access the portal and so many cases are closed per year. More so, students can make requests online and the operational system for the staff is able allow them to fix their task faster. (Tennent & Friend, 2011)

Write a reflective summary for the rationale behind business process modelling. This should be generic in nature without considering the above project.

The way in which an organization is improved through collaborating business with IT is called business process modelling (BBM). In business process modelling, technology is implemented to provide an information system through which the work can be made easier and to maximize the profitability of the company. (Tennent & Friend, 2011) During business processing model development, the project team has to choose a methodology which is to be followed so as to allow timely completion of the information system implementation.

Some of the challenges which may be faced during the business process modelling includes the uncertainty where the users of the information system are not able to easily understand and adapt the new system. Also, the new system may lack completeness and this may cause a misunderstanding between the programmers and the owners of the company.

How the Objectives were Met

In this process, the retailer book orders a through the internet and the products are approved and shipped to reach the client within the specified timelines.

In the diagram it show case how the customer orders the pizza and the supplier will be able to see it and approve for delivery to the clients. It is a real-time system which offer great notifications details.

The above figure execute the functional parts of the whole system and generate reports of all the processes that are taking place.

This diagram show how the customer request for a service from the company manager and the system will prompt through a message

The figure below indicates a full information system through which the information circulates. It comprises of the different categories of customers such as VIP and normal customers.

This is the incident report management where the information system can allow customers and all the system users to report any incident happening.

This diagram indicates how we respond to the challenges within the information system.

This is a digram to show how cases are being solved within the system. The case is taken by opening a ticket and the admin will review the case and open or reject it.

In this diagram the customer offers it quatation so that the supplier will check and award the order to the winner

The order after the quote is given by the customer, it is reviewed and can either be rejected or approved by the supplier

How EA is applied to the case study example

Enterprise architecture gives us a structured design on how the business processes are flowing. This will enable us to show case how the data will be organized in such a manner that it is consisted of a hierarchical order. The enterprise architecture is used so that managers of the organization can use to make decision concerning the company’s day to day activities. These decisions are being made in the strategic level, tactical, and operational level in the management information system

It has a methodology which defines how the architecture is build and managed so that it can facilitate decision making in the information system.

How BPM is applied to the case study example

Business process model does not show how to do the job but provide an efficient methods on how you can efficiently use the information system to manage the whole process and will ensure that the right thing is done every time. BPM consists of tools which help to optimize and automate the information system. Therefore the benefits which are brought about by BPM includes the following:

• There are no redundancies
• Limited errors
• Work is processed faster
• The decision can be made easier
• There is no use of paper or limited use.

How EA and BPM is linked

Enterprise architecture is the way in which the business is designed, EA shows a clear overview on how the data is flowing through the organization’s information system. The relationships between various departments within the organizations are clearly explained in the EA information system. EA is a very complex system and if it is managed very well, it becomes not valuable to the system. Therefore EA is a software which shows the design view of the organization and the relationships between various entities within the organization.

Improvements Achieved

BPM, on the other hand, explains the fact that a solution is provided so that we can easily manage the processes which are running in our companies. These are basically the software solutions which will help us to reduce the complexity of the process model. In BPM data about the current system are analyzed and a solution or the idea is implemented so that it will be able to manage the business so easily. However, the EA and BPM can be linked together in the information system because they perform a similar task. (Tennent & Friend, 2011)

How an incremental change to the EA blueprints impacts the portfolio of BPM processes

A change in the EA will enable the business organization to meet its target goals and overcome constraints which are affecting the organization. It allow the managers to make wise decisions about the business by redesigning the system so that they can maximize profits. (Solaimani & Bouwman, 2012) The EA is purposely done so that it can help in the scenarios below;

• To increase the process portfolio objectives and the challenges
• To discover the process portfolio effects and established the changed projects.
• To provide monitoring guide to the architectural compliance of the changes to the process portfolio.

How a BPM activity may affect the enterprise architecture

Business process is the grouping of activities together to achieve a common goal in business. The end results of a business process modelling includes; the completion of its objectives, to increase the generation of income, to reduce the cost of production, advancing the compliancy and to ensure that the best customer services are provided within the organizations.

Therefore a business process should be able to focus on the EA because the work is affected directly by those processes and may established new processes for the business. Getting better understanding about the business process in the organization is crucial because you are in a different position to impact, assist and implement those processes.

How an exception request needs to be processed when a BPM project cannot comply with defined EA targets

Every software is executable and at some point leads us to failure. During execution, the business process model software may encounter a failure due to unexpected conditions. This failure is referred to as exception in any business industry. If this is a service taken to be part of the work flow, then it will be propagated up and the entire system may fail to work which leads to the delay in the delivery of services within the process model. (Tennent & Friend, 2011)  To overcome this a backup must be set up and it will avoid the system failure by just immediately troubleshooting the model without fear of the data getting lost.

What process segments are identified in the BPM?

In the BPM the identified segments includes the following; mapping the process for the business model and analyzing its data, an implementation of the new system according to the data analysis is done and the newly developed information system is now monitored and maintain to ensure the durability and sustainability of the software. These software segments are very important to ensure that the business process model has successfully meets the requirements by the customers. (Lau, Nakandala & Shum, 2018)

Rationale behind Business Process Modelling

What business entities are identified in the BPM?

In the BPM the business entities which were identified includes that the students should be able to access and address their issues and cases through online platforms and can be able to solve them online. Other entities implies that the staff within the school should be able to fix their duties through the portal and address their concern to the students. Therefore, the relationship between various entities in the system must be considered before the business process development is started.

When does the status of each entity change?

The status of the entity normally change when it is considered to contain a problem. When a problem is identified, the project team has to come up with new ideas and put it on the discussion board to allow room for the improvement on the new system

What are some of the attributes of each entity?

Entities are the datasets which describes the objects that are entered into the business model. The entities are the staff and the students and some of the student’s resources in the Birkeck University of London. These entities contains its attributes through it gives more detail information about the details of the student such as the admission number and the staff id numbers as well. (Polpinij, Ghose & Dam, 2015)

Estimate the size of BPM

BPM support both small scale companies and large scale organization. Therefore the size of the BPM is infinitesimal.

 What was the rational for the change?

The rationale for the change of the BPM information is because of the challenges which were incurred in the old business system as the main goal of the new system is to implement an improved system through which it will ensure that the delivery of services are faster and accurate.

How is the credit issuance process change?

Since the issuance was found to be consuming too much time to be issued in the old system, a new idea on how new changes will be implemented was analyzed. A process model was redesign to establish how the data will be redirected in the flow layout. Various UML diagrams were employed to ensure that the correct way in which the new system is going to look like is achieved.

The old system was relying on the paper work which is outdated. The company managers and the subordinate staff decided to implement an automated software which will help to improve the delivery of services within the information system. The system contain a database system where all the individual details are stored and auto- generated during the retrieval.

Therefore when one is to be issued a credit, the admin will just access the customer details and check whether he or she is qualified to be issued a credit. The new system will then generate a report and a receipt concerning the transaction which was carried out.

This reports are then auto-redirected to the database to be stored and a backup is also generated to avoid future issues if the data get lost through fire outbreak, flooding or any physical damage to the organizational servers. (Polpinij, Ghose & Dam, 2015)

In the new system, it is a computerized system where the customer request for a credit on the computer connected to the network or internet. Upon his request, the manager will be able to see the order request and check for the status of the customer whether it qualifies for the credit. The system will prompt the customer that the message has already been delivered and he or she has to wait for its approval within a certain duration of time.

The managers now will go through the order and if accepted will send back the approved order through the internet allowing the customer to do the transactions concerning the credit which was issued.

In conclusion, the automated system which was developed saves a lot of time from being wasted and it also quickens the delivery of services. Therefore the company can maximize the profit by fully implementing and maintaining the new information system.

References

Osterle, H. (2012). Business process modelling. [Place of publication not identified]: Springer.

Holt, J. (2009). A pragmatic guide to business process modelling. Swindon, UK: British Computer Society.

Mohapatra, S. (2013). Business process reengineering. New York: Springer.

Tennent, J., & Friend, G. (2011). Guide to business modelling. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley.

Solaimani, S., & Bouwman, H. (2012). A framework for the alignment of business model and business processes. Business Process Management Journal, 18(4), 655-679. doi: 10.1108/14637151211253783

Polpinij, J., Ghose, A., & Dam, H. (2015). Mining business rules from business process model repositories. Business Process Management Journal, 21(4), 820-836. doi: 10.1108/bpmj-01-2014-0004

Lau, H., Nakandala, D., & Shum, P. (2018). A business process decision model for fresh-food supplier evaluation. Business Process Management Journal, 24(3), 716-744. doi: 10.1108/bpmj-01-2016-0015.