A business process activity model and performance measurement using a time series ARIMA intervention analysis

The degree of performance excellence that an enterprise can achieve greatly depends on the business process flow that the enterprise adopts, where the more efficient and effective the business process flow, the greater the degree of performance excellence the enterprise can achieve. Most conventional business process analyses focus on qualitative methodologies, but these lack solid measurement for supporting the business process improvement. Therefore, a quantitative methodology using an activity model that is described in this paper is proposed. This model involves the use of an adjacent matrix to empirically identify inefficient and ineffective activity looping, after which the business process flow can then be improved. With the proposed quantitative methodology, a time series intervention ARIMA model is used to measure the intervention effects and the asymptotic change in the simulation results of the business process reengineering that is based on the activity model analysis. The approach is illustrated by a case study of a purchasing process of a household appliance manufacturing enterprise that involves 20 purchasing activities. The results indicate that the changes can be explicitly quantified and the effects of BPR can be measured. 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.