Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to provide a structured overview of so-called business process improvement (BPI) approaches and their contribution to the actual act of improving. Even though a lot is said about BPI, there is still a lack of supporting the act of improving the process. Most approaches concentrate on what needs to be done before and after the improvement act, but the act of improving itself still seems to be a black box. Design/methodology/approach -This paper is mainly based on a review of literature that deals with the term "Business Process Improvement". The analysis of the literature is supported by qualitative content analysis. The structure of the evaluation follows the mandatory elements of a method (MEM). Findings -A lot of literature and consulting approaches deal with the restructuring and improvement of business processes. The author finds that even so-called BPI approaches do not describe the act of improvement itself. And if they do, they lack a methodological structure that can be reused.Research limitations/implications -To constrain the complexity of this research at this first stage of investigation only the search criterion "business process improvement" was used in the database search (EBSCO and Emerald). Originality/value -The paper is valuable for academics and practitioners because the impact of BPI on organizational performance is high. Its originality is in the structured evaluation of so-called BPI approaches according to the MEM, which so far no one has investigated. BPMJ 17,2 204 Downloaded by University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa At 11:48 29 March 2015 (PT)[. . .] an approach to perform a systems development project, based on a specific way of thinking, consisting of directions and rules, structured in a systematic way in development activities with corresponding development products (Brinkkemper, 1996).

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The standardization of processes and the identification of shared business services in a service-oriented architecture (SOA) are currently widely discussed. Above all in practice, however, there still is a lack of appropriate instruments to support these tasks. In this paper an approach for a process map is introduced which allows for a systematic presentation -as complete as possible -of the processes in an enterprise (division). After a consistent refinement of the process has taken place by means of aggregation/disaggregation resp. generalization/specialization relations, it is possible to identify primarily functional similarities of the detailed sub-processes. The application of the process map at a financial service provider (FSP) highlights how these similarities can be taken as a basis to standardize processes and to identify shared services.

PurposeBusiness process redesign (BPR) is still a big issue in improving organizations and a lot of methods and techniques exist to support this undertaking. Referring to this, the purpose of this paper is to derive a framework for identifying patterns in BPR that help in discovering new mechanisms which are indispensable to redesign and improve business processes.Design/methodology/approachThe first part of this research process follows the principles of design science research by deriving the framework as an artifact. The second part focuses on the justification (“Justify/Evaluate”) of the framework using a literature review and a laboratory experiment.FindingsA framework for identifying BPR pattern is derived and in parts validated by literature that helps to support the act of improving business processes. The advantages of this approach lie in the integrity of deriving possible patterns and the fact that it is not limited (as attempts in related work suffered from). The practical implications and added value of the (selected) patterns could be validated by conducting a laboratory experiment.Research limitations/implicationsThe justification of the framework is based on a narrow literature review, just to show that this framework is applicable. For a more detailed evaluation a broader literature review is needed. The laboratory experiment was conducted for four patterns only. This also needs to be expanded in further research.Practical implicationsThe paper is valuable for academics and practitioners because the impact of BPR on organizational performance is high. Using the identified BPR pattern facilitates the redesign of business processes, as shown in the experiment.Originality/valueThe originality of the paper lies in the possibility to easily identify BPR pattern to support the redesign of existing business processes.

Apart from being applied in production, Six Sigma has grown considerably in importance as a business process management (BPM) method in services. The transfer of the method from production to service applications does, however, pose problems which affect the success of implementing Six Sigma as a BPM method in services. For a successful application of the Six Sigma method in services it is helpful to know these possible problems in order to be able to avoid them and to achieve the goals of Six Sigma improvement projects. In addition from a theoretical view knowing the problems is a first step for further development of the Six Sigma method. Therefore, the present article deals with the following questions: which key problems regarding the application of Six Sigma in services are mentioned in the literature and which phases of the Six Sigma cycle can they be assigned to? The existing literature on this subject is reviewed and a qualitative content analysis of its contents is presented. Additionally, a survey based on the problems found in the literature is conducted to compare theory and practice. The evaluation of the results shows, on the one hand, that to date the problems of the application of Six Sigma in services have little been dealt with. On the other hand the evaluation provides a survey of the problems structured in accordance to the phases of the Six Sigma cycle. Thus, the present paper offers new findings as regards the state-of-the-art of the Six Sigma method.