Towards a Business Process Management Maturity Model

Business Process Management (BPM) has been identified as the number one business priority by a recent Gartner study (Gartner, 2005). However, BPM has a plethora of facets as its origins are in Business Process Reengineering, Process Innovation, Process Modelling, and Workflow Management to name a few. Organisations increasingly recognize the requirement for an increased process orientation and require appropriate comprehensive frameworks, which help to scope and evaluate their BPM initiative. This research project aims toward the development of a holistic and widely accepted BPM maturity model, which facilitates the assessment of BPM capabilities. This paper provides an overview about the current model with a focus on the actual model development utilizing a series of Delphi studies. The development process includes separate studies that focus on further defining and expanding the six core factors within the model, i.e. strategic alignment, governance, method, Information Technology, people and culture.

Robust Controller Design of Networked Control Systems with Nonlinear Uncertainties

We address robust stabilization problem for networked control systems with nonlinear uncertainties and packet losses by modelling such systems as a class of uncertain switched systems. Based on theories on switched Lyapunov functions, we derive the robustly stabilizing conditions for state feedback stabilization and design packet-loss dependent controllers by solving some matrix inequalities. A numerical example and some simulations are worked out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design method.

A balanced scorecard approach to enterprise systems performance measurement

A range of influences, both technical and organisational, has encouraged the wide spread adoption of Enterprise Systems (ES). Nevertheless, there is a growing consensus that Enterprise Systems have in many cases failed to provide expected benefits. The increasing role of, and dependency on ES (and IT in general), and the ‘uncertainty’ of these large investments, have created a strong need to monitor and measure ES performance. This paper reports on a research project aimed at deriving an ‘Enterprise Systems benefits measurement instrument’. The research seeks to identify how Enterprise Systems benefits can be usefully measured, with a ‘balance’ between qualitative and quantitative factors.

Success factors in an alliancing contract : a case study in Australia

Many studies have been carried out in relation to construction procurement methods. Evidence shows that there needs to be a change of culture and attitude in the construction industry, moving away from traditional adversarial relationship into cooperative and collaborative relationship. At the same time there is also an increasing concern and discussion on alternative procurement methods, drifting away from traditional procurement systems. Relational contracting approaches have become more popular in recent years, and have appeared in common forms such as partnering, alliancing and relationship management contracts. This paper reports the findings of a survey undertaken with a private organisation based on an alliance project during its design stage, identifying the critical factors that influence the success of the alliance project. Legal aspects focusing on dispute resolution in alliancing are also highlighted.