We considered selected business processes such as the review of product requirements or the identification of system specifications in the first case study. Participants stemmed from electric/electronic engineering departments, but also from the departments respon- sible for project management and safety planning. These departments were selected because of the knowledge-intensive business processes they are involved in.
RQ1. The business processes from the involved departments were mainly available in a documented form, specifically, in PowerPoint files. They can be characterized as knowledge-intensive; i.e., their execution requires a large amount of process information. However, business processes were documented from a high-level perspective solely. In order to reach POIL goals, business processes and their elements (e.g., tasks, roles) should be defined in a uniform way (e.g., using a modeling notation such as business process model and notation (BPMN) [164] or event-driven process chain (EPC) [165]).
Regarding business processes, we must distinguish between process schemas and enacted process instances. Reason is that specific instances require different process information. Although responsibilities are defined, there are still ambiguities. For example, roles are often unknown or not adequately documented. As another difficulty, processes may cross departmental borders. In this context, a specific challenge is the collaboration between the departments (e.g., each department only looks at its own tasks and usually has no knowledge of the entire business process). Hence, defined business processes can be performed in many different ways. To avoid this issue, responsibilities of roles must be defined and a detailed description of tasks and the entire process must be given.
Based on this, we derive the first requirement from the viewpoint of business processes.
Requirement 1 (R1). POIL should be able to gather business processes from process repositories, transform business processes into uniform structured process objects (on the process element level), and integrate them into a comprehensive approach.
This requirement ensures that business processes are available in POIL and enables process-awareness. To answer RQ2, we take a closer look at the location, format and quality of process information and how to deal with these issues.
RQ2. Yin states that research questions are usually too abstract and broad [160]. Therefore, we divide our second research question RQ2 “What different kinds of process information are used?” into three sub-research questions as depicted in Table 3.3.
# Sub-Research Questions
SRQ1 Where is process information located?
SRQ2 What are important file formats/applications during daily work? SRQ3 How is the quality of available process information?
Table 3.3: Sub-research questions of research question RQ2.
To answer SRQ1, we considered the IT application landscape of the involved de- partments. In the automotive industry this landscape is extremely complex. There are numerous applications in use that provide the needed process information. In addition to standard applications (e.g., Lotus Notes, Rational DOORS3), there exists a large number of individual applications (e.g., enterprise portals, visual basic for applications (VBA) macros). Furthermore, process information is available on shared drives, local drives, and the Internet. As a consequence, process information should be easily accessible for process participants from a centered point of access. Finally, not all process information is available in digital form; i.e., some information is only available in paper-based form (e.g., technical drawings, circuit diagrams).
Participants confirmed that most process information is available in databases, in applications, on the Internet, or on shared drives (cf. Figure 3.2A). Due to the extensive use of shared drives, a revision control system is used by the participants. The file explorer and the Intranet are the most common ways to access process information. However, access to process information is not always possible since not all employees may have the licenses required for using a specific application. Further, errors occur, as information is often printed, manually processed, re-entered, and further processed.
89% 100% 56% 22% 78% 44% 56% 11% 0% 50% 100% Databases/applications Shared drives Local drives Optical storage media Internet Digital archives In non-electronic form Others
Question: Where is process
information located? 25 22 16 5 5 0 14 28 XLS PDF PPT DOORS DOC
Question: What are the most three
important file formats/applications during daily work?
A B
Figure 3.2: Location of process information and important file formats/applications.
To answer SRQ2, we examined used file formats and applications (e.g., Lotus Notes, Rational DOORS). All participants stated that they use Excel, PowerPoint and portable document format (PDF) files. Seven out of nine participants stated that paper-based files (e.g., technical drawings) are relevant as well. To establish a list of priority, we asked for the three most important file formats during daily work. Thereby, Excel, PDF and PowerPoint are considered being most important (cf. Figure 3.2B). Therefore, POIL must be able to deal with a large number of file formats and applications.
To answer SRQ3, we took a closer look at the quality of process information. Since the structure and quantity of process information affect its quality [166], we investigated these factors as well. Most process information is available in unstructured form. How- ever, as unstructured process information is difficult to handle, users often try to store process information in a structured way (e.g., in folders). In seven of the eight interviews, it was stated that the existence of process information is more important than its quality. Reason is that employees are only able to perform processes in an effective manner if process information exists (regardless of quality). However, the interviews showed that users often have no overview on available process information due to its large amount; i.e., they often cannot say whether or not they have access to all necessary process in- formation. In turn, this leads to decreased process quality. Moreover, the amount of process information is classified by the participants as too much (cf. Figure 3.3A).
By contrast, the quality of process information was rated differently (cf. Figure 3.3B). Some process information is rated as “excellent” (e.g., records in databases, own doc- uments, information about own tasks), whereas other information is rated as “below average” (e.g., process documentation, information about third-party tasks).
1 2 3 4 5 1
Question: How is the quality of the
available process information?
a
1: excellent, 2: good, 3: average, 4: below average, 5: unsatisfactory
lower quartile minimum median maximum upper quartile 1 2 3 4 5 1
Question: How big is the amount of
process information?
a
1: far too few, 2: too few, 3: the right amount, 4: too much, 5: far too much
lower quartile minimum median maximum upper quartile A B
Figure 3.3: Amount and quality of process information.
Hence, we derive the second requirement from the viewpoint of process information.
Requirement 2 (R2). POIL should be able to gather process information from large, distributed and heterogeneous data sources, transform different process information into uniform structured information objects (on different granularity and quality levels), and integrate them into a comprehensive approach.
RQ3. To investigate the employees’ process context we asked for factors that can be used to identify a specific context. The participants confirmed that process context is determined based on the progress of a process, e.g., using milestones or quality gates. Some interviewees stated that some documents have metadata comprising the relation to process tasks. Another possibility is the information progress (e.g., customer data available to 80%) from which the process progress can be derived. Moreover, the partic- ipants stated that a work context can be determined by folder names, which are often labeled with the name of a respective milestone. Other useful information to determine a specific work context are, for example, user names, roles, departments, project mem- berships, date, location, and time. In summary, the more information is considered, the more accurately a work context can be determined. Thus, context information should be used in POIL to determine the process context of process participants.
Hence, we derive the following requirement from the viewpoint of context information.
Requirement 3 (R3). POIL should be able to gather context information from sen- sors, transform context information into uniform structured context objects (on different granularity and quality levels), and integrate them into a comprehensive approach.