Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Reengineering'

Cílem této diplomové práce je představit teoretická východiska procesního managementu a měření klíčových ukazatelů výkonnosti, která budou aplikována na postup vypracování konkrétního projektu z logistické praxe. Práce se zabývá skladovými procesy, metodami jejich mapování a měření pomocí klíčových ukazatelů. Čtenář se zde tedy seznámí jak s teoretickou stránkou řízení procesů, tak praktickým příkladem operačních procesů ve skladech dílů pro automobilový průmysl.

The goal of my dissertation is to make a businessman re-considering to work with the asssistence of IS for achievement of higher effectiveness of running processes.The main point of the businessman assistence is having their own IS. My dissertation is divided into two main parts. The first part describes the theoretical point of view of reengineering the processes of companies. At first I define the meaning of companie's process according to its categorization from its importance and usefulness point of view. According to this I have a proper look out to improving companie's processes and to development of processes in organization. The first part ends up with the methodical advance of modelling companie's processes and the description of notation used in the practical part. The second part of my dissertation is fixed on the solution of a factual problem. After identification of the problem I define and specify processes of a businessman which are more detailed simulated for their final analysis. At the end I propose a new usage of IS as the solution of found inefficiency and its impact on the changes of businessman's processes.

Thesis (M.S. in Information Technology Management) Naval Postgraduate School, September 1995.
Thesis advisor(s): Magdi Kamel, James C. Emery. "September 1995." Bibliography: p. 187-191. Also available online.

As organizations face stiff competition and changing environments their structure and systems can become less effective to a point at which they require radical change. It is becoming clear that change is often inevitable. However, radical change is difficult. The popular term "reengineering" is used to describe a process by which organizations undergo the challenging radical process change that is critical to remaining competitive. Although the processes of reengineering appears to have more potential than other change methods that merely tweak a poor system or apply outdated principles, it can often fail. A critical step in the reengineering process is the design of the "to-be" model, however no research has been done on how this should be achieved. It appears that improving this step can have a dramatic impact on the success of the reengineering effort as a whole. This study developed a method for creating "to-be" models and tested it with an organization undergoing reengineering. The method used the latest computer support including both group support systems and animated simulation. The design of the "to-be" models was framed as a group problem solving process and therefore the focus theory of group productivity was used to guide the design of the process, including selection of computer support tools. Because so little is known about the process of creating "to-be" models, this study used an exploratory action science approach. What is known about organizational change is that it takes place in a politically charged arena where individuals have strong vested interests in its outcomes. This environment is difficult to create in the laboratory and therefore the research was conducted using a real organization undergoing reengineering. Results suggest that the combined use of collaborative technology and process animation gives organization members a better understanding of current processes and problems associated with them and helps to generate significant ideas for process improvement. Because groups viewing a process animation have sometimes been observed to focus on incremental improvement at the expense of radical change, special attention must be given to facilitation methods and idea generation techniques that are designed to elicit radical change ideas.

Purpose and aims of the thesis: This thesis critically reviews the current BPR literature through the perspective of the systemic/holistic management thinking, in such a way as to bring the study of BPR into a new era. Central to this holistic type of thinking are the concepts of Processes, Radicality, IT/IS, Culture and Human Element awareness: these concepts are used to explore core publications in reengineering literature. More specifically the aims of the thesis are to (i) explain why BPR needs redefining, (ii) redefine it as a holistic activity, (iii) provide guidelines to do that and also (iv) show the feasibility of this approach. Research Method: For the achievement of the above aims, a combination of research methodology strategies and techniquesw as used.T hesei nclude a documentary review approach and a comparative analysis for gathering and disseminating the data. These were complemented by case study material, which is used to assess the plausibility of the suggestions made in this particular thesis. Findings: While exploring the notion of BPR it was identified that (i) the notion has no universally accepted definition, (ii) largely the definitions and numerous core reengineering readings (Davenport 1993, Johansson et al.1993, etc.) give emphasis to different extreme orientations (e.g., IT oriented, processes oriented) and thereby attract negative criticism (Jones 1996, Case 1999), (iii) there is no code of practice (no formal guidelines) when practising reengineering, and largely (iv) there is a great amount of inconsistency between what the examined BPR authors say they do, and what they actually do in practice (e. g., Hammer and Champy 1993). Recommendations: Recognising the novel link between a number of major fields of activity (Processes, Radicality, IT/IS, Culture and Human Element), enabled a new holistic definition and a new form of guidelines to emerge, and be operationalised; that is, for this author to present a set of theoretical and practical ways of improving the BPR managerial tool. Such guidance, though, is not intended to be sterile and staid. Indeed, this guidance will itself incorporate critical thinking around the issues involved in an intervention like BPR, by the further enhancement of multi disciplinary discourse about organisational learning and awareness. It is concluded that this set of recommended guidelines could provide a framework for an enriched, holistic and successful BPR initiative.

This thesis examines the possibilities for improving and reengineering of processes within the chosen company, with focus on providing guidelines on improving the processes and business performance in general and suggesting metrics for measuring. This topic is examined in two parts. First part is giving an introduction to main theoretical concepts for Business process management, Process modeling, Business process reengineering and Process metrics measurement. The second part presents a practical application of theoretical concepts, providing an analysis of current processes, identifying any problems that occur in these processes, and suggesting the necessary means for suppressing the problems identified. The practical part also provides guidelines for reengineering of processes, leading to a lean management of sources that will bring improvements in business performance in total. Another important aspect dealt with in this part lies in process metrics analysis, which can be either executed on a single business process or on a selected business unit as a whole, and which is an important key for identifying any threats, bottlenecks or any problems that could lead to disruptions in business performance of the whole organization.

La tesi si occupa del Business Process Reengineering per una piccola media impresa. Il lavoro parte analizzando la situazione dei processi di business e dei sistemi informativi e informatici dell’impresa. Per giungere ad una soluzione è gestito con particolare attenzione il procurement in ogni sua fase, le analisi di mercato, le valutazioni delle offerte pervenute ed infine la collaborazione con il fornitore scelto per svolgere il trasferimento dei dati dal vecchio al nuovo sistema informativo. Inoltre è stato sviluppato un prototipo di applicativo per il soddisfacimento di uno dei requisiti del progetto riguardante la fornitura di un calendario per la pianificazione degli interventi.

The purpose of this project is to help a growing company reform their static information system to a dynamic system compatible with growth. The solution consists of migrating the legacy system that they have in FileMaker to an open technology platform. To solve this specific problem “patterns” have been used and this project explains these general solution “patterns”. We understand patterns like a generic solution to persistent design problems. General solutions will not only be useful in this specific problem, but they will be useful in all kind of similar migration projects as well. This thesis gives a detailed explanation of how to apply these patterns into the AEMI specific problem and how they can be useful in the migration process. The solution of the problem then, is following the advice of “patterns” to achieve our goals; these goals are the requirements that are given from the company supervisor. After the migration process a redesign process must be done in order to organize the information. This redesign consists of organizing the migrated information as well as adding the new information in the correct place. This thesis focuses on the process of migrating from a legacy system to a MySQL system through the use of the generic solution called “patterns”.  The final result is a MySQL database with all the old and new information together in a more adaptable platform for the company’s scalability.

A large organization that has many projects to manage may want to build a model that gives an overview of the common and variable parts of its projects' processes. This action is process model generalisation. The McGill Software Engineering Laboratory has developed a technique and a tool to achieve that. The work described in this thesis consisted of reengineering the tool to give it a longer life expectancy and to make it part of a future client-server architecture suitable for developing a suite of process management tools. The tool was effectively reengineered and this helped the laboratory define the architecture better. Also, some lessons about software maintenance were learned.

With no significant changes in the design of rifle ranges in more than 100 years, the current range systems are not keeping pace with technological advancements. The Marine Corps rifle ranges are manpower and material intensive, requiring unit commanders to lose personnel to the training evolution for extended periods of non-productive time. Manual target operation, excessive transition time, and extra duties all contribute to eight to ten hours per day to accomplish one hour of live-fire training per individual Marine. Marines must remain at the range to act as scorekeepers, target makers, and/or target operators when not assigned to shoot. The design and implementation of an automated range system with capabilities specifically designed to operate, score, mark, and maintain targets would reduce the non-productive time a Marine spends on the rifle range. Results from this comparative analysis indicate that the automated range would reduce man-hours by seventy-five percent. Furthermore, the implementation of computer technology will enable instructors and shooters to better analyze each training evolution.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 22-25, 2001 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada
Deutsche Telekom is operating various communication satellites since 1989. The SCC (spacecraft control center) is located near Frankfurt / Germany. The entire system is based on antenna/RF equipment, baseband and computer software packages running on a computer network of different machines. Due to increased maintenance effort the old baseband system needed to be replaced. This also had effects to the computer system, especially to the M&C. The aim was to design the entire system in a way that the operation effort in costs aspects and human intervention are minimized. This paper shows the successful real world project of reengineering a traditional spacecraft control center (SCC). It is shown how a fifteen year old hardware (baseband system) and software design was replaced by a modern concept during normal operations. The new software packages execute all necessary tasks for spacecraft- and ground station control. The Monitor and Control System (M&C) is a database driven design (FRAMTEC, from CAM Germany).

Goal of this thesis is to analyze processes in company’s warehouse, optimize it and create backend of warehouse’s information system. Application aim to evidence income goods, stock and expedition. System allows comunicate with web services of delivery companies. It was implemented in PHP with use of Nete, Slim and Doctrine. Application was successfuly implemented and tested.

A Digital Library (DL) is an electronic information storage system focused on meeting the information seeking needs of its constituents.

As modern DLs often stay in synchronization with the latest progress of technologies in all fields, interoperability among DLs is often hard to achieve. With the advent of the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) and Open Digital Libraries (ODL), lightweight protocols show a promising future in promoting DL interoperability. Furthermore, DL is envisaged as a network of independent components working collaboratively through simple standardized protocols. Prior work with ODL shows the feasibility of building componentized DLs with techniques that are a precursor to web services designs.

In our study, we elaborate the feasibility to apply web services to DL design. DL services are modeled as a set of web services offering information dissemination through the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). Additionally, a flexible DL user interface assembly framework is offered in order to build DLs with customizations and personalizations. Our hypothesis is proven and demonstrated in the PhysNet reengineering project.
Master of Science

The main goal of this work is to create some kind of simple methodology that can help to improve effectiveness of public organizations. There're a lot of theories and methodologies focused on this topic and there is a good chance many new ones will be presented in the future. These came mainly from management field and sometimes from other fields as well. This work focuses mainly on Business Process Reengineering and combines it with other methodologies hoping, it will help in a process improvements in the public sector. Focus is on Czech Republic but this work should be useful to other countries as well, if necessary changes are made in order to shape things that are different between the countries. In this work, a whole project cycle of the public organization processes improvement project can be found, but some project phases will be explained in more detail then the other. Focus is on the analytic parts of the project (strategy creation, use of UML, BSC and other models and methodologies like that) rather than the project management parts of the project. All the practical examples are from public sector organization -- namely the administrative office of one of the city districts of Prague. After reading this work, reader should have moderate understanding of the application of a BPR methodology in the public sector and how it can be supported by other methodologies. There is also big portion of models and diagrams in this work showing pieces of reality from chosen public organization. Their meaning is to show what is usually done in this kind of project and how to understand the models. This works goal isn't creation of a guideline to UML or any other modeling principles.

This thesis deals with business process management phenomena and its concept of business process reengineering in particular. Furthemore, the principles, chosen methods and critical success factors of business process reengineering implementation are discussed. This thesis also concerns itself with holistic conception of business process management which incorporates both hard factors (e.g. process modeling) and soft factors dealing with rather social aspects of any organizational change. All theoretical findings are applied in specific organization where the business processes are rethought.

This diploma thesis deals with the issue of packaging management. Using methods employed in logistics and modeling tool ARIS, the analysis will examine the current situation and its related problem areas. Subsequently, there will be designed such a management concept that would eliminate these areas in order to make the management process streamline, automate and to lead to overall reduction in logistics costs.

Utvecklingen inom IT-området har under de senaste åren varit explosionsartad. Allt fler branscher har börjat att leta efter nya sätt att tillämpa de olika framsteg som skett inom området

Detta arbete behandlar en kombinerad litteraturstudie och intervjuundersökning kring objektorientering och Business Process Reengineering. Problemställningen för detta arbete har varit:

- På vilka sätt kan objektorientering tillämpas för att utveckla de synsätt och de metoder som används inom Business Process Reengineering

Syftet med arbetet var att hitta ett antal generella tillämpningsområden utifrån problemställningen, samt att hitta ett antal fördelar, som dessa generella tillämpningar skulle kunna medföra.

Resultatet av detta arbete visar att det finns områden inom Business Process Reengineering, där en objektorienterad tillämpning skulle kunna medför stora fördelar. Som exempel på detta kan nämnas förbättrade möjligheter att skapa och anpassa de informationssystem som skall stötta verksamhetsprocesserna. Även möjligheterna att skapa dynamiska metoder, där varje metodsteg utgörs av färdiga moduler som sedan kombineras, bör nämnas som en fördel.

Manufacturing companies find themselves, whether they like it or not, in a more global and changing reality. Fiercer competition, dynamic markets, new consumer habits, stronger environmental regulations, and new technological possibilities, are forcing manufacturing companies to change. The practical effects for European manufacturers are 1) new and innovative products, 2) global value chains, 3) automation, and, 4) a shift from products to solutions. This research is addressing the changes needed for operations in a single enterprise (a group of departments, a plant, or a group of closely located plants), to take advantage of the competitive situation.

For such “internal” operations, the new challenges require changes both in technology and practices. The main concern of this research is the practices, and how a reengineering of manufacturing and office operations can improve performance. The choice of scope is based on the assumption that operations activities are a major source for competitiveness. To reengineer operations activities in processes rather than functions, and to implement best practices wherever appropriate, can therefore provide dramatic competitive improvements.

The overall objective of this research is to:

• establish enterprise reengineering as an approach that enables manufacturing enterprises to achieve fit between market requirements and operations capabilities.

Enterprise reengineering is viewed as model-based and strategy driven approach that enables manufacturers to realise the “soft” or infrastructural aspects of an operations strategy. To support such reengineering efforts, enterprises are viewed not only from a process perspective but also from a resource, materials, information, organisations, and control perspective. Modelling and analysing enterprises from these perspectives can support their effort to implement best practices, and ensure that the practices are combined in a way that supports the overall business strategy.

The overall objective is divided into more specific objectives:

• To develop a strategic framework for enterprise reengineering

• To develop a consistent and practical enterprise reengineering methodology to support the formulation and realisation of operations strategies

• To develop architecture for conceptual enterprise modelling that ensures a coherent, decomposed, and holistic picture of enterprise operations

• To establish “flow manufacturing” as a (optional) best practice programme for enterprise reengineering

Together, the strategic framework, the methodology, and the modelling architecture should enable enterprises to achieve their performance objectives through an enterprise reengineering effort. In cases where an enterprise mapping and analysis concludes that improvements in manufacturing planning and control, order management, layout and flow, or inventory, should be performed, the flow manufacturing programme should provide practical guidance and a set of principles to support reengineering.

In order to achieve these objectives, the following issues are reviewed in this thesis:

1) operations strategy, 2) enterprise reengineering, 3) flow manufacturing, 4) enterprise modelling, and, 5) change management. Based on these literature studies, a strategic framework, a methodology, a modelling architecture for enterprise reengineering and a flow manufacturing programme are proposed.

The major outcome of this research is an enterprise reengineering methodology, which includes strategic planning, and operations mapping, analysis, design, and implementation. The methodology consists of the following models, principles, and tools:

• A operations strategy checklist

• Four flow manufacturing design principles

• An architecture for conceptual enterprise modelling

• Seven change management principles

• A procedural guide for enterprise reengineering

• An operations performance audit sheet

• A five-step approach to flow manufacturing reengineering

The research is based on a case study of HÅG Fast, a very successful enterprise reengineering project carried out in 1991-1992. The case study demonstrates the usefulness of the methodology to analyse and understand enterprises, and the dramatic improvements in performance that can be achieved by implementing flow manufacturing practices. In addition, the enterprise reengineering methodology has been proved useful in several field studies.

Bicycle leader brands have shift production overseas to reduce the cost of labor and to implement new technologies at lower cost. Bike manufacturer both in Asia and Europe employ a traditional way of production  based on economics of scale that aims cost per unit reduction. Where MRP systems and forecasting are part of their day basis operations. This traditional way of operation offers room for innovation that must be seen as a business opportunity. Thus, alternative management approaches can strengthen strategic goals and improve responsiveness and flexibility. Bicycle brands producing locally should implement alternative management systems to remain competitive, to take the maximum advantage of their location, to improve customer service and to cut operational cost. The course of action followed was a market analys is to understand the nature of the bicyclemarket within European Union. Similarly, a Business Process Reengineering was conducted to identify with the current operational processes and opportunities within the bicycle industry. Based on the Business Process Engineering, an alternative business model was presented. The main proposed solution to improve the current operational processes:  (a) Implementation of Just-­‐in-­‐time management system and relocation of assembly facilities.  (b) Benchmark IKEA core methods, designing products for supply chain and that customer assemble  the future themselves. (c) Benchmark Dell Computer business model of customization and supply chain. Finally, the fundaments for an alternative business concept were established regarding bicycle design concept, strategy planning and production system design.

The purpose of this thesis is to introduce a new broad approach to computing - Empirical Modelling (EM) - and to propose a way of applying this approach for system development so as to avoid the limitations of conventional approaches and integrate system development with business process reengineering (BPR). Based on the concepts of agency, observable and dependency, EM is an experiencebased approach to modelling with computers in which the modeller interacts with an artefact through continuous observations and experiments. It is a natural way of working for business process modelling because the modeller is involved in, and takes account of, the real world context. It is also adaptable to a rapidly changing environment as the computer-based models serve as creative artefacts with which the modeller can interact in a situated and open-ended manner. This thesis motivates and illustrates the EM approach to new concepts of participative BPR and participative process modelling. That is, different groups of people, with different perceptions, competencies and requirements, can be involved during the process of system development and BPR, rather than just being involved at an early stage. This concept aims to address the well-known high failure rate of BPR. A framework SPORE (situated process of requirements engineering), which has been proposed to guide the process of cultivating requirements in a situated manner, is extended to participative BPR (i.e. to support many users in a distributed environment). Two levels of modelling are proposed for the integration of contextual understanding and system development. A comparison between EM and object-orientation is also provided to give insight into how EM differs from current methodologies and to point out the potential of EM in system development and BPR. The ISMs (interactive situation models), built using the principles and tools of EM, are used to form artefacts during the modelling process. A warehouse and logistics management system is taken as an illustrative case study for applying this framework.

PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO
COORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DO PESSOAL DE ENSINO SUPERIOR
PROGRAMA DE EXCELENCIA ACADEMICA
A aplicação de técnicas de workflows na área de computação científica é bastante explorada para a condução de experimentos e construção de modelos in silico. Ao analisarmos alguns desafios enfrentados por uma aplicação científica na área de geociências, percebemos que workflows podem ser usados para representar os modelos gerados na aplicação e facilitar o desenvolvimento de funcionalidades que supram as necessidades identificadas. A maioria dos trabalhos e ferramentas na área de workflows científicos, porém, são voltados para uso em ambientes de computação distribuída, como serviços web e computação em grade, sendo de difícil uso ou integração dentro de aplicações científicas mais simples. Nesta dissertação, discutimos como viabilizar a composição e representação de workflows dentro de uma aplicação científica existente. Descrevemos uma arquitetura conceitual de motor de workflows voltado para o uso dentro de uma aplicação stand-alone. Descrevemos também um modelo de implantação em uma aplicação C plus plus usando redes de Petri para modelar um workflow e funções C plus plus para representar as tarefas. Como prova de conceito, implantamos esse modelo de workflows em uma aplicação existente e analisamos o impacto do seu uso na aplicação.
The use of workflow techniques in scientific computing is widely adopted in the execution of experiments and building in silico models. By analysing some challenges faced by a scientific application in the geosciences domain, we noticed that workflows could be used to represent the geological models created using the application so as to ease the development of features to meet those challenges. Most works and tools on the scientific workflows domain, however, are designed for use in distributed computing contexts like web services and grid computing, which makes them unsuitable for integration or use within simpler scientific applications. In this dissertation, we discuss how to make viable the composition and representation of workflows within an existing scientific application. We describe a conceptual architecture of a workflow engine designed to be used within a stand-alone application. We also describe an implementation model of this architecture in a C plus plus application using Petri nets to model a workflow and C plus plus functions to represent tasks. As proof of concept, we implement this workflow model in an existing application and studied its impact on the application.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management; and, Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 1998.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 88).
by John F. Fiske.
M.S.
M.B.A.

Introduction: Cancer registries collect tumor-related data to monitor incident rates and support population-based research. A common concern with using population-based registry data for research is reporting timeliness. Data timeliness have been recognized as an important data characteristic by both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM). Yet, few recent studies in the United States (U.S.) have systemically measured timeliness.

The goal of this research is to evaluate the quality of cancer data and examine methods by which the reporting process can be improved. The study aims are: 1- evaluate the timeliness of cancer cases at the Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) Cancer Registry, 2- identify the perceived barriers and facilitators to timely reporting, and 3-reengineer the current reporting process to improve turnaround time.

Method: For Aim 1: Using the ISDH dataset from 2000 to 2009, we evaluated the reporting timeliness and subtask within the process cycle. For Aim 2: Certified cancer registrars reporting for ISDH were invited to a semi-structured interview. The interviews were recorded and qualitatively analyzed. For Aim 3: We designed a reengineered workflow to minimize the reporting timeliness and tested it using simulation.

Result: The results show variation in the mean reporting time, which ranged from 426 days in 2003 to 252 days in 2009. The barriers identified were categorized into six themes and the most common barrier was accessing medical records at external facilities.

We also found that cases reside for a few months in the local hospital database while waiting for treatment data to become available. The recommended workflow focused on leveraging a health information exchange for data access and adding a notification system to inform registrars when new treatments are available.

The re-design and controlled self-assembly of natural systems into non-natural functional products is a quickly developing area of Synthetic Biology. Specifically, the manipulation of existing, and the introduction of new protein-protein interactions will allow great advances in bionanotechnology. In nature, protein-protein assemblies mediate many cellular processes and exhibit complex and efficient functions. It is thus rational to assume human-guided biomolecular assemblies could embody equally complex functionality designed to address current human needs. Here we present the design and preparation of a Virus-Like Particle (VLP) engineered from the cholera toxin B-subunit (CTB). This was achieved via the de novo design of a protein-protein interface between CTB subunits consisting of coiled-coil C-terminal extensions and modification to the CTB surface. A combination of computational methods was used to suggest mutations which should reduce the ΔΔG of interaction across the interface. CTB is a natural homopentamer with inbuilt cell targeting and endocytic triggering mechanism. Future applications for the VLP could include use as a drug delivery vehicle to transport protected therapeutic agents to targeted cell types. Through our investigations it became apparent that the CTB-VLP structures behaved in a similar manner to naturally occurring virus coat proteins, which suggests the successful biomimicry of these complex systems. This study provides a basis for the development of further VLPs from other homomultimeric proteins, especially further classes of homopentameric bacterial toxins.

The role of the engineer in the late capitalist society of the last half century has been misunderstood at best. The lack of a consistent job description for engineers in various fields, a lack of job security, and a lack of respect from both industry and society have spawned severe angst in the engineering community. A classic remedy for this situation has been the rallying of engineering practitioners under a banner of increased professionalism. If engineers could make themselves more like doctors and lawyers â the respected members of professional society â they would gain similar respect and job satisfaction.

This project analyzes current state of engineering practice as revealed in the self-image of the individual engineer. A survey of popular engineering literature is employed in order to develop a composite self-image of the engineer: the technical hired hand of industry. â Professionalizationâ is then demonstrated to be useless in the improvement of this situation and furthermore, undesirable in the late capitalist social and economic climate of the late twentieth century.

Late professionalism â an alternative to a understanding of professionalism â is offered as a means by which to improve the job satisfaction of engineers in contemporary society. Suggesting that each engineer is free to negotiate the terms, conditions, and length of his/her own employment based on a personal understanding of the job requirements, late professionalism empowers the engineer to adopt a comfortable position in the late capitalist economy. A new metaphor â the commissioned engineer â is employed in support of the late professional understanding of the engineerâ s occupation.
Master of Science

Business Process Reengineering (BPR) has only recently been added to the management theory vocabulary. It was first introduced in the late 1980s with the release of works by Michael Hammer and Thomas Davenport. The term was received enthusiastically by a receptive and eager management consultancy movement and packaged as a new "breakthrough" concept enabling dramatic improvements in business performance. Since its first introduction, there have been many reported failures of BPR projects, with many commentators reporting failures as high as seventy five per cent. The dynamic systems that shape and influence markets are complex and include, "inter alia" government policy, technology, world economies and their changing interrelationships. It is this richness and complexity that shapes the rules of competition. Set against a back cloth of increased competition emanating in part from emerging economies of South East Asia, Australian secondary manufacturers, (as distinct from primary industries) are faced with the need to maintain or improve their competitive positioning. As a consequence, many will be faced with a requirement to realign their internal organisational structure and strategies, with the demands of their markets, Business Process Reengineering has been offered as a complete and cogent theory that if implemented correctly will deliver stepped improvements in business performance. This thesis explores the historical context within which BPR is seen as a natural and unavoidable consequence of world events. The paper goes on to describe and define BPR, and examines the nature of "strategy" and how BPR and strategy fit together. To complete the description of BPR, the paper explores the literature on "process" . Having described the historical context and defined the meaning of BPR, the paper goes on to offer reasons, based on research, why there is such a high rate of BPR failure as reported. The research design involves the use of a self administered questionnaire, employing Likert scaling and designed to test for the level of understanding that exists within the sample, of Business Process Reengineering concepts. The questionnaire also probes for the existence of common success factors and relationships between changing competitive environments and the choice of BPR as a competitive repositioning process. The sample has been restricted to manufacturing companies who are members of the Queensland branch of the Metal Trades Industry Association, and who are located in South East Queensland. This decision is defended on the following grounds: 1. The sample is rich in information 2. It is accessible 3. The sample represents a segment important to the economy As the purpose of the research is primarily to gain a deeper understanding of BPR and faced with the limitations of finance and time, the sample was purposive. The primary hypothesis is: BPR has been unsuccessful because it is poorly understood and has been confused with other techniques, such as TQM, which delivers incremental improvements, or simple down sizing. The secondary hypothesis is: BPR is most likely to succeed in a stable and mature competitive environment, where, whilst competition may be intense, the competitive rules are well established and understood by the players. In general, the first hypothesis was supported by the research findings, the second hypothisis could not be substantiated and requires further research using a much wider sample frame and modified instrument. Preliminary findings, and anecdotal evidence suggest that the second hypothisis will be supported. The paper not only offers reasons why BPR is loosing credibility, but also indicates the necessary prerequisites for successful implementation.

Avui en dia, els sistemes d'informació són un actiu clau en les organitzacions i sovint els proporcionen un avantatges competitiu. Per a que això segueixi així, han de ser mantinguts i evolucionats d'acord amb els objectius estratègics de la organització. Aquesta evolució inclou els requeriments del sistema d'informació, la tecnologia emprada i els processos suportats. L'impacte dels canvis pot anar des de petites modificacions al desenvolupament d'un nou sistema d'informació i, per aquest motiu, l'evolució dels sistemes d'informació s'analitza durant la fase de requeriments, on es possible avaluar-ne la magnitud utilitzant menys recursos. Des d'aquest punt de vista, els mètodes de l'enginyeria de requeriments i els de la reenginyeria de processos sovint comparteixen els mateixos objectius i es pot considerar que la reenginyeria de processos es adequada tant per al desenvolupament com per al manteniment dels sistemes d'informació.

El llenguatge i* està orientat a objectius i permet modelar els sistemes d'informació en termes d'actors i dependencies entre ells. El llenguatge i* s'utilitza en l'enginyeria de requeriments i en la reenginyeria de processos de negoci, però no existeixen gaires propostes comunes a ambdues disciplines. Amb l'objectiu d'utilitzar el llenguatge i* en la reenginyeria de processos, s'ha definit PRiM, un mètode basat en i* per a la reenginyeria de processos (Proces Reenginieering i*-based Method). PRiM assumeix que ja existeix un procés que s'utilitzarà com a punt de partida per l'especificació o l'evolució del nou sistema d'informació. El mètode PRiM consta de sis fases: 1) l'anàlisi dels processos i dels sistemes d'informació actuals, 2) la construcció del model i*, 3) la reenginyeria dels processos actuals, 4) la generació de models i* representant les diferents alternatives, 5) l'avaluació de les alternatives utilitzant mètriques estructurals i 6) l'especificació del nou sistema d'informació a partir del model i* escollit.

En les sis fases de PRiM, s'utilitzen diferents mètodes i tècniques algunes creades expressament pel mètode i d'altres provinents de l'enginyeria de requeriments i la reenginyeria de processos. Tot i això, hi ha altres mètodes i tècniques que poden ser utilitzades enlloc d'aquestes i que poden ser mes convenients quan les condicions d'aplicació del mètode canvien. Per tal de permetre la selecció i inclusió d'altres tècniques, es proposa l'aplicació de l'enginyeria de mètodes (Method Engineering). Aquesta disciplina permet construir nous mètodes a partir de parts de mètodes ja existents, i s'ha utilitzat per definir un mètode marc per a la reenginyeria anomenat ReeF (Reengineering Framework). A ReeF, les sis fases de PRiM es presenten de forma genèrica per tal de permetre la selecció de la tècnica més apropiada per cada una de les fases, a partir de l'experiència de l'usuari com dels seus coneixements de l'aplicació. Com a exemple d'aplicació de ReeF, s'ha definit el mètode SARiM.

Les contribucions principals de la tesis son dues. En primer lloc, els dos mètodes basats en i* definits (PRiM per a la reenginyeria de processos, i SARiM, per a la reenginyeria d'arquitectures software). En segon lloc, les diferents tècniques i* definides en PRiM i que poden ser utilitzades per construir models i*, generar alternatives i avaluar-les amb mètriques estructurals. Aquestes tècniques i mètodes s'han obtingut a partir de l'estudi de l'estat de l'art i s'han validat en diferents casos d'estudi formatius i en un cas d'estudi industrial. Com a suport, s'han desenvolupat dues eines: 1) REDEPEND-REACT, que permet la modelització gràfica de models i*, la generació d'alternatives i la definició de mètriques estructurals, i 2) J-PRiM, que dóna suport a les fases de PRiM mitjançant el tractament textual dels models i*.
Information Systems are a crucial asset of the organizations and can provide competitive advantages to them. However, once the Information System is built, it has to be maintained and evolved, which includes changes on the requirements, the technology used, or the business processes supported. All these changes are diverse in nature and may require different treatments according to their impact, ranging from small improvements to the deployment of a new Information System. In both situations, changes are addressed at the requirements level, where decisions are analysed involving less resources. Because Requirements Engineering and Business Process Reengineering methods share common activities, and the design of the Information System with the business strategy has to be maintained during its evolution, a Business Process Reengineering approach is adequate for addressing Information Systems Development when there is an existing Information System to be used as starting point.
The i* framework is a well-consolidated goal-oriented approach that allows to model Information Systems in a graphical way, in terms of actors and dependencies among them. The i* framework addresses Requirements Engineering and Business Process Reengineering but none of the i*-based existing approaches provides a complete framework for reengineering. In order to explore the applicability of i* for a reengineering framework, we have defined PRiM: a Process Reengineering i* Method, which assumes that there is an existing process that is the basis for the specification of the new Information System. PRiM is a six-phase method that combines techniques from the fields of Business Process Reengineering and Requirements Engineering and defines new techniques when needed. As a result PRiM addresses: 1) the analysis of the current process using socio-technical analysis techniques; 2) the construction of the i* model by differentiating the operationalization of the process form the strategic intentionality behind it; 3) the reengineering of the current process based on its analysis for improvements using goal acquisition techniques; 4) the generation of alternatives based on heuristics and patterns; 5) the evaluation of alternatives by defining structural metrics; and, 6) the specification of the new Information System from the selected i* model.
There are several techniques from the Requirements Engineering and Business Process Reengineering fields, that can be used instead the ones selected in PRiM. Therefore, in order to not enforce the application of a certain technique we propose a more generic framework where to use and combine them. Method Engineering is the discipline that constructs new methods from parts of existing ones and, so, it is the approach adopted to define ReeF: a Reengineering Framework. In ReeF the six phases of PRiM are abstracted and generalized in order to allow selecting the most appropriate techniques for each of the phases, depending on the user expertise and the domain of application. As an example of the applicability of ReeF, the new method SARiM is defined.
The main contributions of this work are twofold. On the one hand, two i*-based methods are defined: the PRiM method, which addresses process reengineering, and SARiM, which addresses software architecture reengineering. On the other hand, we provide several i*-based techniques to be used for constructing i* models, generating alternatives, and evaluating them using Structural Metrics. These methods and techniques are based on exhaustive review of existing work and their validation is done by means of several formative case studies and an industrial case study. Tool support has been developed for the approach: REDEPEND-REACT supporting the graphical modelling of i*, the generation of alternatives and the definition of Structural Metrics; and J-PRiM supporting all the phases of the PRiM method using a textual visualization of the i* models.

Thesis (M.S. in Management) Naval Postgraduate School, December 1996.
Thesis advisor(s): Larry R. Jones, Jerry L. McCaffery. "December 1996." Includes bibliographical references (p. 103-106). Also available online.