A formative measurement model of business process model quality

Business process management (BPM) is becoming the dominant management paradigm. Business process modelling is central to BPM, and the resultant business process model the core artefact guiding subsequent process change. Thus, model quality is at the centre, mediating between the modelling effort and related growing investment in ultimate process improvements. Nonetheless, though research interest in the properties that differentiate high quality process models is longstanding, there have been no past reports of a valid, operationalised, holistic measure of business process model quality. In attention to this gap, this paper reports validation of a Business Process Model Quality measurement model, conceptualised as a single-order, formative index. Such a measurement model has value as the dependent variable in rigorously researching the drivers of model quality; as antecedent of ultimate process improvements; and potentially as an economical comparator and diagnostic for practice.

Analysing and improving a recruitment process : a teaching case for developing business process improvement capabilities

The demand for Business Process Management (BPM) is rapidly rising and with that, the need for capable BPM professionals is also rising. Yet, only a very few structured BPM training/ education programs are available, across universities and professional trainers globally. The ‘lack of appropriate teaching resources’ has been identified as a critical issue for BPM educators in prior studies. Case-based teaching can be an effective means of educating future BPM professionals. A main reason is that cases create an authentic learning environment where the complexities and challenges of the ‘real world’ can be presented in a narrative enabling the students to develop crucial skills such as problem solving, analysis and creativity-within-constraints, and to apply the tools and techniques within a richer and real (or proxy to real) context. However, so far well documented BPM teaching cases are scarce. This article aims to contribute to address this gap by providing a comprehensive teaching case and teaching notes that facilitates the education of selected process improvement phases, namely identification, modelling, analysis, and improvement. The article is divided into three main parts: (i) Introductory teaching notes, (ii) The case narrative, and (iii) Student activities from the case and teaching notes.

Study of mechanical deformations on tough skinned vegetables during mechanical peeling process

Peeling is an essential phase of post harvesting and processing industry; however undesirable processing losses are unavoidable and always have been the main concern of food processing sector. There are three methods of peeling fruits and vegetables including mechanical, chemical and thermal, depending on the class and type of fruit. By comparison, the mechanical methods are the most preferred; mechanical peeling methods do not create any harmful effects on the tissue and they keep edible portions of produce fresh. The main disadvantage of mechanical peeling is the rate of material loss and deformations. Obviously reducing material losses and increasing the quality of the process has a direct effect on the whole efficiency of food processing industry, this needs more study on technological aspects of these operations. In order to enhance the effectiveness of food industrial practices it is essential to have a clear understanding of material properties and behaviour of tissues under industrial processes. This paper presents the scheme of research that seeks to examine tissue damage of tough skinned vegetables under mechanical peeling process by developing a novel FE model of the process using explicit dynamic finite element analysis approach. A computer model of mechanical peeling process will be developed in this study to stimulate the energy consumption and stress strain interactions of cutter and tissue. The available Finite Element softwares and methods will be applied to establish the model. Improving the knowledge of interactions and involves variables in food operation particularly in peeling process is the main objectives of the proposed study. Understanding of these interrelationships will help researchers and designer of food processing equipments to develop new and more efficient technologies. Presented work intends to review available literature and previous works has been done in this area of research and identify current gap in modelling and simulation of food processes.