Computer-based simulation models of business processes offer a powerful mechanism for modelling organizational structures and arriving at informed recommendations for change and improvement. In this article, the authors review the current status of the business process modelling (BPM) and business process simulation (BPS) domains, discuss some pertinent issues for their successful deployment, and suggest a number of research directions for organizational modelling.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Alter, S. (1996). Information systems: A management perspective. Menlo Park, CA: Benjamin Cummings.
2.
Blyth, A. (1995). Modelling the business process to derive organisational requirements for information technology. SIGOIS Bulletin, 16(1), 25-33.
3.
Bradley, P. , Browne, J., Jackson, S., & Vagdev, H. (1995). Business process re-engineering (BPR): A study of the software tools currently available. Computers in Industry, 25(3), 309-330.
4.
Bruno, G. , Briccarello, P., & Gavazzi, R. (1995, August). REBUS: A dynamic simulator for business process reengineering. In W. A. Hamel (Ed.), Proceedings of the Information Systems Group, 13th Annual International Conference of the Association of Management, 13(1), 237-249.
5.
Brynjolfsson, E. (1993). The productivity paradox of information technology. Communications of the ACM, 36(12), 67-77.
6.
Carley, K. M. (1995). Computational and mathematical organization theory: Perspective and directions. Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, 1(1), 39-56.
7.
Clemons, E. K. (1995). Using scenario analysis to manage the strategic risks of reengineering. Sloan Management Review, 36(4), 61-71.
8.
Compatangelo, E. , & Rumolo, G. (1997). Automated reasoning about enterprise concepts. SIGGROUP Bulletin, 18(2), 56-58.
9.
Curtis, W. , Kellner, M. I., & Over, J. (1992). Process modelling. Communications of the ACM, 35(9), 75-90.
10.
Davenport, T. H. (1993). Process innovation: Reengineering work through information technology. Boston: Harvard University Press.
11.
Davenport, T. H. , & Short, J. E. (1990). The new industrial engineering: Information technology and business process redesign. Sloan Management Review, 31, 11-27.
12.
Doran, J. , & Gilbert, N. (1994). Simulating societies: An introduction. In N. Gilbert & J. Doran (Eds.), Simulating societies: The computer simulation of social phenomena. London: UCL.
13.
Earl, M. J. (1994). The new and the old of business process redesign. Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 3(1), 5-22.
14.
Ferrie, J. (1995). Business process: A natural approach. ESRC Business Processes Resource Centre, University of Warwick. Available: http://bprc.warwick.ac.uk/forum1.html.
15.
Giaglis, G. M. (1996, October). Modelling electronic data interchange through simulation: An industry-wide perspective. Proceedings of the 8th European Simulation Symposium. Genoa, Italy: Society for Computer Simulation.
16.
Giaglis, G. M. , & Paul, R. J. (1996). It's time to engineer re-engineering: Investigating the potential of simulation modelling in business process redesign. In B. Scholz-Reiter & E. Stickel (Eds.), Business process modelling (pp. 313-332). Berling: Springer-Verlag.
17.
Giaglis, G. M. , Paul, R. J., & Doukidis, G. I. (1999). Assessing the impact of electronic commerce on business performance: A simulation experiment. Electronic Markets, 9(1), forthcoming.
18.
Giaglis, G. M. , Paul, R. J., & Hlupic, V. (1999). Integrating simulation in organisational design studies. International Journal of Information Management, forthcoming.
19.
Gladwin, B. , & Tumay, K. (1994, December). Modelling business processes with simulation tools. In J. D. Tew, S. Manivannan, D. A. Sadowski, & A. F. Seila (Eds.), Proceedings of the 1994 Winter Simulation Conference (pp. 114-121). Lake Buena Vista, FL: IEEE Publications.
20.
Gruninger, M. , Schlenoff, C., Knutilla, A., & Ray, S. (1997). Using process requirements as a basis for the creation and evaluation of process ontologies for enterprise modelling. SIGGROUP Bulletin, 18(2), 52-55.
21.
Halpin, B. (1999). Simulation in sociology. American Behavioral Scientist, 42(10), 1488-1508.
22.
Hammer, M. , & Champy, J. (1993). Reengineering the corporation: A manifesto for business revolution. London: N. Brealey.
23.
Harrel, C. R. , & Field, K. C. (1996, December). Integrating process mapping and simulation. In J. M. Charnes, D. J. Morrice, D. T. Brunner, & J. J. Swain (Eds.), Proceedings of the 1996 Winter Simulation Conference (pp. 1292-1296). San Diego, CA: IEEE Publications.
24.
Huber, G. P. , & McDaniel, R. R. (1986). The decision making paradigm of organisation design. Management Science, 32(5), 576-589.
25.
Hunt, K. L. , Hansen, G. A., Madigan, E. F., & Phelps, R. A. (1997, December). Simulation success stories: Business process reengineering. In S. Andradottir, K. J. Healy, D. H. Withers, & B. L. Nelson (Eds.), Proceedings of the 1997 Winter Simulation Conference (pp. 1275-1279). Atlanta, GA: IEEE Publications.
26.
Hyatt, A. , Contractor, N., & Jones, P. (1996). Computational organisational network modelling: Strategies and an example. Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, 2(4), 285-300.
27.
Jablonski, S. (1995). On the complementarity of workflow management and business process modelling. SIGOIS Bulletin, 16(1), 33-38.
28.
Karagiannis, D. (1995). Business process management systems (BPMS). ACM SIGOIS Bulletin, 16(1), 10-13.
29.
Kettinger, W. J. , Teng, J.T.C., & Guha, S. (1997, March). Business process change: A study of methodologies, techniques, and tools. MISQ Quarterly, 55-80.
30.
Lee, J. D. , Dean, D. L., & Vogel, D. R. (1997). Tools and methods for group data modelling: A key enabler of enterprise modelling. SIGGROUP Bulletin, 18(2), 59-63.
31.
Lee, Y. , & Elcan, A. (1996). Simulation modelling for process reengineering in the telecommunications industry. Interfaces, 26(3), 1-9.
32.
Liles, D. H. , & Presley, A. R. (1996, December). Enterprise modelling within an enterprise engineering framework. In J. M. Charnes, D. J. Morrice, D. T. Brunner, & J. J. Swain (Eds.), Proceedings of the 1996 Winter Simulation Conference (pp. 993-999). San Diego, CA: IEEE Publications.
33.
MacArthur, P. J. , Crosslin, R. L., & Warren, J. R. (1994). A strategy for evaluating alternative information system designs for business process reengineering. International Journal of Information Management, 14(4), 237-251.
34.
Meel, J. W. van , & Sol, H. G. (1996). Business engineering: Dynamic instruments for a dynamic world. Simulation & Gaming, 27(4), 440-461.
35.
Mertins, K. , & Jochem, R. (1997). Integrated enterprise modelling: Method and tool. SIGGROUP Bulletin, 18(2), 63-66.
36.
Moore, T. C. , & Whinston, A. B. (1986). A model of decision making with sequential information acquisition. Decision Support Systems, 2(4), 289-308.
37.
Mylonopoulos, N. A. , Doukidis, G. I., & Giaglis, G. M. (1995a). Assessing the expected benefits of electronic data interchange through simulation modelling techniques. Proceedings of the 3rd European Conference on Information Systems (pp. 931-943). Athens, Greece: Greek Computer Society.
38.
Mylonopoulos, N. A. , Doukidis, G. I., & Giaglis, G. M. (1995b). Information systems investments evaluation through simulation: The case of EDI. Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on EDI and Interorganisational Systems (pp. 12-26). Bled, Slovenia: Moderna Organizacija.
39.
Ninios, P. , Vlahos, K., & Bunn, D. W. (1995). Industry simulation: System modelling with an object oriented/DEVS technology. European Journal of Operational Research, 81, 521-534.
40.
Nissen, M. E. (1994a, January). Qualitative simulation of organisational microprocesses. In J. F. Nunamaker & R. H. Sprague (Eds.), Proceedings of the 27th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (Vol. 4, pp. 635-644). Los Alamitos, CA: IEEE Publications.
41.
Nissen, M.E. (1994b, December). Valuing IT through virtual process measurement. In Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Information Systems (pp. 309-323). Vancouver, Canada: ACM Publications.
42.
Nissen, M. E. (1996). Designing qualitative simulation systems for business. Simulation & Gaming, 27(4), 462-483.
43.
Omrani, D. (1994). Business process reengineering: A business revolution?Management Services, 36(10), 12-16.
44.
Orman, L. V. (1995, August). A model management approach to business process reengineering. Proceedings of the American Conference on Information Systems. Pittsburgh, PA: Association for Information Systems.
45.
Ould, M. A. (1995). Business processes: Modelling and analysis for re-engineering and improvement. Chichester, UK: John Wiley.
46.
Painter, M. K. , Fernades, R., Padmanaban, N., & Mayer, R. J. (1996, December). A methodology for integrating business process and information infrastructure models. In J. M. Charnes, D. J. Morrice, D. T. Brunner, & J. J. Swain (Eds.), Proceedings of the 1996 Winter Simulation Conference (pp. 1305-1312). San Diego, CA: IEEE Publications.
47.
Pall, G. A. (1987). Quality press management. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
48.
Paolucci, E. , Bonci, F., & Russi, V. (1997). Redesigning organisations through business process reengineering and object-orientation. In Proceedings of the 5th European Conference on Information Systems (pp. 587-601). Cork, Ireland: Cork Publishing.
49.
Pruett, J. , & Vasudev, V. (1990). MOSES: Manufacturing organisation simulation and evaluation system. Simulation, 54(1), 37-45.
50.
Roach, S. S. (1991, September/October). Services under siege: The restructuring imperative. Harvard Business Review, 83-91.
51.
Saxena, K.B.C. (1996). Reengineering public administration in developing countries. Long Range Planning, 29(5), 703-711.
52.
Schmidt, J. W. , & Taylor, R. E. (1970). Simulation and analysis of industrial systems. Homewood, IL: Irwin.
53.
Srinivasan, K. , & Jayaraman, S. (1997, December). Integration of simulation with enterprise models. In S. Andradottir, K. J. Healy, D. H. Withers, & B. L. Nelson (Eds.), Proceedings of the 1997 Winter Simulation Conference (pp. 1352-1356). Atlanta, GA: IEEE Publications.
54.
Talwar, R. (1993). Business reengineering: A strategy-driven approach. Long Range Planning, 26(6), 22-40.
55.
Teufel, S. , & Teufel, B. (1995). Bridging information technology and business: Some modelling aspects. SIGOIS Bulletin, 16(1), 13-17.
56.
Tsalgatidou, A. , Louridas, P., Fesakis, G., & Schizas, T. (1997). Multilevel petri nets for modelling and simulating organisational dynamic behaviour. Simulation & Gaming, 27(4), 484-506.
57.
Tumay, K. (1995, December). Business process simulation. In C. Alexopoulos, K. Kang, W. R. Lilegdon, & D. Goldsman (Eds.), Proceedings of the 1995 Winter Simulation Conference (pp. 55-60). Arlington, VA: IEEE Publications.
58.
Tushman, M. L. , & Nadler, D. A. (1978). Information processing as an integrating concept in organisation design. Academy of Management Review, 3(3), 613-624.
59.
Warren, J. R. (1996). Guest editorial: Simulation of information systems. Simulation & Gaming, 27(4), 438-439.
60.
Yarden, S. (1997, December). Evaluating the performances of electronic commerce systems. In S. Andradottir, K. J. Healy, D. H. Withers, & B. L. Nelson (Eds.), Proceedings of the 1997 Winter Simulation Conference (pp. 1053-1056). Atlanta, GA: IEEE Publications.
