BUSINESS PROCESS MODEL

Business Process Model



Business Process Model

Introduction

The discovery of the productivity paradox has lead to major publications concerning business process reengineering. The reengineering projects propose more or less drastic changes to the organization, the business process. Although there exists agreement about the fact that the performance of a Business Process Reengineering project to a business may result in a productivity increase, there is considerably less agreement about the What and How of Business Process Reengineering. The notion Business Process Reengineering (BPR) lacks a commonly accepted definition but the underlying claim that a fundamental re-thinking of business processes is necessary to maintain or regain flexibility and competitiveness of a business and its business processes is clear (Nijssen, 1989, pp. 77).

In this paper two communication centered modeling approaches are examined; SAMPO and DEMO. Both SAMPO (Auramäki et al. 1988) and DEMO (Dietz, 1994a; 1994b) support the idea that their business models form a good starting point for BPR. Both modeling approaches are related in the sense that they both find their major inspiration in the Anglo-Saxon tradition of Speech act theory (Lehtinen, 1986, pp. 299).

The Sampo Modeling Approach

“SAMPO” is an acronym for “Speech-Act-based office Modeling aPprOach” (Lehtinen, Lyytinen, 1986; Auramäki et al. 1988; Auramäki et al. 1991) and studies organizational activities as a series of speech acts creating, maintaining, modifying, reporting, and terminating commitments. It offers a method for modeling organizations as systems of communicative action. The approach uses concepts of the speech act theory and discourse analysis for the information analysis of organizations. The modeling approach entails two domains: the entity domain (ED) and the action domain (AD). The ED comprises of static entities that persist over longer periods of time. The AD includes dynamic entities called acts. Two types of acts are studied: Instrumental acts (IACTS) and Speech acts (SACTS) (Keen, 1991, pp. 31).

The DEMO modeling approach

“DEMO” is an acronym for “Dynamic Essential Modeling of Organizations”. The disciplines on which DEMO draws are the philosophical branches of semantics and scientific ontology (Johnson, 1994, pp. 11), and the social theory grounded in language philosophy (Hammer, 1993, pp. 1199). Next to these it incorporates the discrete dynamic system theory as described in (Dietz, 1994a, pp. 723). A relevant set of fragments describing the theory is constituted by. In DEMO three levels of abstraction are identified.

At the lowest level, called the documental level, an organization is viewed as a system of actors that produce, store, transport and destroy documents. At the informational level, one abstracts from the substance in order to focus on the semantic aspect of information (Habermas, 1981, pp. 51). At the highest level of abstraction, the essential level, the essence of the organization is captured by viewing actors carrying on performative conversations resulting in original new things. These conversations represent the essence of an organization. The core modeling concept of DEMO is the concept of the (essential) transaction (Dietz, 1990, pp. 37).

A transaction is considered to be the basic pattern of organizational ...