A structured evaluation of business process improvement approaches

Abstract

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).

A Dynamic Capability-Based Framework for Business Process Management: Theorizing and Empirical Application

“…The term business process refers to a complete and cross-functional sequence of timely and logically-related activities which are required to achieve a defined business outcome, i.e., generally to deliver value to customers [5,11,13]. Organizations are required to adapt their business processes to constantly changing business environments, streamline their operations, and integrate their business processes across functional silos in order to stay competitive, retain customers and to achieve a high level of efficiency while still remaining flexible and innovative [11,14].…”

“…On the one hand, BPR is considered an approach that requires fundamental organizational change in terms of organizational structure, culture, and management processes [15,16] and has often been closely linked to large-scale IT projects like the introduction of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems [16]. Hence, BPR rather implies a project-character of radical and revolutionary process innovation [2,3,14,17]. On the other hand, incremental change is best represented by the concepts of continuous improvement or TQM.…”

Towards Process Maturity – Triggers of Change

“…The maturity level is the "degree of process improvement across a predefined set of process areas in which all goals in the set are attained" (van Looy et al 2011;Zellner 2011). Maturity evolution of on organization is supported by various organisational and process maturity models.…”

A framework for socialisation of work practice for improving business process performance

“…Due to prevailing competitiveness in today's business environment, process improvement continues to be named as the first priority for many organisations when implementing technology such as a business process management system (BPMS) (Sinur and Hill, 2010;Zellner, 2011). There are two main approaches to business process improvement, namely, process-driven improvement and people-driven improvement (Shtub and Karni, 2010).…”

“…Both concepts focus on the structure of the business process by redesigning the business process model, introducing improvement stages, process mapping and benchmarking. While those concepts provide a sound structural overview, according to Zellner (2011), both lack focus on the act of…”