Business Process Quality Computation: Computing Non-Functional Requirements to Improve Business Processes

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Farideh Heidari

Technische Universiteit Delft

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Proefschrift

ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Technische Universiteit Delft,

op gezag van de Rector Magnificus Prof.ir. K.Ch.A.M. Luyben voorzitter van het College voor Promoties,

in het openbaar te verdedigen op woensdag 4 maart 2015 om 10:00 uur door

Farideh Heidari

Master of Science in Industrial Engineering Sharif University of Technology

(3)

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Proefschrift

ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Technische Universiteit Delft,

op gezag van de Rector Magnificus Prof.ir. K.Ch.A.M. Luyben voorzitter van het College voor Promoties,

in het openbaar te verdedigen op woensdag 4 maart 2015 om 10:00 uur door

Farideh Heidari

Master of Science in Industrial Engineering Sharif University of Technology

(4)

Dit proefschrift is goedgekeurd door de promotor: Prof. dr. F.M.T. Brazier

Copromotor: Dr. P.H.G. van Langen Samenstelling promotiecommissie:

Rector Magnificus Voorzitter

Prof.dr. F.M.T. Brazier Technische Universiteit Delft, promotor Dr. P.H.G. van Langen Technische Universiteit Delft, copromotor Prof.dr.ir. A. Verbraeck Technische Universiteit Delft

Prof.dr.ir. W.M.P. van der Aalst Technische Universiteit Eindhoven Prof.dr.ir. H.A. Reijers Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Prof.dr. P. Loucopoulos The University of Manchester

Prof.dr. J. Sanz National University of Singapore / IBM Business Analytics Center Prof.mr.dr. J.A. de Bruijn Technische Universiteit Delft, reservelid

Dissertation

Business Process Quality Computation Farideh Heidari

Cover design by: Moritz Bergmann Photography by: André Thielen Layout by: Farideh Heidari

E-mail: promotie.farideh@gmail.com Website: www.farideh.eu

SIKS Dissertation Series No. 2015-06

The research reported in this thesis has been carried out under the auspices of SIKS, the Dutch Research School for Information and Knowledge Systems.

All rights reserved. No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-94-6295-097-9

To Moritz

Whose presence brings me to heaven.

To Haleh

Who is an angel.

To My Parents

Who are pure love.

(5)

Dit proefschrift is goedgekeurd door de promotor: Prof. dr. F.M.T. Brazier

Copromotor: Dr. P.H.G. van Langen Samenstelling promotiecommissie:

Rector Magnificus Voorzitter

Prof.dr. F.M.T. Brazier Technische Universiteit Delft, promotor Dr. P.H.G. van Langen Technische Universiteit Delft, copromotor Prof.dr.ir. A. Verbraeck Technische Universiteit Delft

Prof.dr.ir. W.M.P. van der Aalst Technische Universiteit Eindhoven Prof.dr.ir. H.A. Reijers Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Prof.dr. P. Loucopoulos The University of Manchester

Prof.dr. J. Sanz National University of Singapore / IBM Business Analytics Center Prof.mr.dr. J.A. de Bruijn Technische Universiteit Delft, reservelid

Dissertation

Business Process Quality Computation Farideh Heidari

Cover design by: Moritz Bergmann Photography by: André Thielen Layout by: Farideh Heidari

E-mail: promotie.farideh@gmail.com Website: www.farideh.eu

SIKS Dissertation Series No. 2015-06

The research reported in this thesis has been carried out under the auspices of SIKS, the Dutch Research School for Information and Knowledge Systems.

All rights reserved. No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-94-6295-097-9

To Moritz

Whose presence brings me to heaven.

To Haleh

Who is an angel.

To My Parents

Who are pure love.

(6)

!"#$%&'()*+($,-If you treat an individual as she is, she will remain how she is. But if you treat her as if she were what she ought to be and could be, she will become what she ought to be and could be.

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It's not where you are in life, it's who you have by your side that matters. In my journey to pursue a PhD degree, I was privileged to work with, and enjoy the support of knowledgeable and indulgent colleagues and warm-hearted and caring friends and family. First and foremost, my deep gratitude goes to Professor Frances Brazier, my promotor, for her continuous scientific guidance and wholehearted support. You trusted me, supported me, gave me confidence, and raised me up. I am deeply grateful for providing me with the opportunity to learn. Thanks for teaching me how to have a holistic view toward research and how to strengthen my line of reasoning. My research and my writing improved considerably under your guidance. Second, I would like to express my gratitude toward Dr. Pieter van Langen, my co-promotor, for his constructive criticism. Pieter, your comments and attention to detail contributed a great deal in my research. Your understanding and your guidance style are inspirations for my career. I would like to take this opportunity to thanks Dr. Carmen Santana for her big heart and understanding.

I would like to express my gratitude toward Professor Alexander Verbraeck for his enormous support for the case studies and his incredibly valuable comments on my thesis. Alexander, thanks for being so positive and encouraging in many ways. Professor Pericles Loucopoulos, my heartfelt gratitude goes to you, not only for offering me the opportunity to start my PhD but also being an immeasurable source of inspiration and motivation for me. I have been lucky to start my PhD under your supervision and continue my learning journey by collaborating with you in writing papers.

My decision to move to the Netherlands and TUDelft was one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life and this would not have been possible without the incredible support of Dr. Joseph Barjis. I cannot put into words how grateful I am. Thanks for all the help and support at the beginning of my journey to the Netherlands.

At TUDelft, I was provided great facilities and guidance to focus on my research, add to that my pleasant colleagues who welcomed me and provided me with enormous amount of support. First, I would like to thank Martijn, a real colleague, a good listener and a fair judge. “Ideal” and “Idol”, both words are the perfect prefixes to the word Colleague when it comes to you. The door of your office was always open to me and your incredible support kept me going. Thanks for reviewing the interviews’ reports. Thanks to Sander for his cheering up and understanding attitude and all the fun brainstorming on my research. Michel, thanks for your support and advice during my PhD time. It was SLIM working

(7)

!"#$%&'()*+($,-If you treat an individual as she is, she will remain how she is. But if you treat her as if she were what she ought to be and could be, she will become what she ought to be and could be.

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It's not where you are in life, it's who you have by your side that matters. In my journey to pursue a PhD degree, I was privileged to work with, and enjoy the support of knowledgeable and indulgent colleagues and warm-hearted and caring friends and family. First and foremost, my deep gratitude goes to Professor Frances Brazier, my promotor, for her continuous scientific guidance and wholehearted support. You trusted me, supported me, gave me confidence, and raised me up. I am deeply grateful for providing me with the opportunity to learn. Thanks for teaching me how to have a holistic view toward research and how to strengthen my line of reasoning. My research and my writing improved considerably under your guidance. Second, I would like to express my gratitude toward Dr. Pieter van Langen, my co-promotor, for his constructive criticism. Pieter, your comments and attention to detail contributed a great deal in my research. Your understanding and your guidance style are inspirations for my career. I would like to take this opportunity to thanks Dr. Carmen Santana for her big heart and understanding.

I would like to express my gratitude toward Professor Alexander Verbraeck for his enormous support for the case studies and his incredibly valuable comments on my thesis. Alexander, thanks for being so positive and encouraging in many ways. Professor Pericles Loucopoulos, my heartfelt gratitude goes to you, not only for offering me the opportunity to start my PhD but also being an immeasurable source of inspiration and motivation for me. I have been lucky to start my PhD under your supervision and continue my learning journey by collaborating with you in writing papers.

My decision to move to the Netherlands and TUDelft was one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life and this would not have been possible without the incredible support of Dr. Joseph Barjis. I cannot put into words how grateful I am. Thanks for all the help and support at the beginning of my journey to the Netherlands.

At TUDelft, I was provided great facilities and guidance to focus on my research, add to that my pleasant colleagues who welcomed me and provided me with enormous amount of support. First, I would like to thank Martijn, a real colleague, a good listener and a fair judge. “Ideal” and “Idol”, both words are the perfect prefixes to the word Colleague when it comes to you. The door of your office was always open to me and your incredible support kept me going. Thanks for reviewing the interviews’ reports. Thanks to Sander for his cheering up and understanding attitude and all the fun brainstorming on my research. Michel, thanks for your support and advice during my PhD time. It was SLIM working

(8)

BUSINESS PROCESS QUALITY COMPUTATION II

with you, Sander and Zulkuf on the SlimVerbinden project. My special thanks to Maartje who’s support made my expatriate life so much easier. Thanks for translating the summary of the thesis in Dutch and giving me advice on the qualitative part of my research. Thanks to Mamadou and his calming presence. Nothing could compete with your famous sentence “It is going to be all right” accompanied by your genuine smile. My sincere gratitude also goes to our loving secretaries, Diones, Everdine and Sabrina for always being supportive. Thanks to Everdine for welcoming me at my arrival and inviting me to fun Flamenco events. Thanks to Diones and Sabrina for being such an irreplaceable support in dealing with my residence permits’ issues. I am also grateful to the individuals who brightened my PhD days at TUDelft: Dragos, Deniz, (cheerful) Pieter, Caroline, Marina, Xu, Stephan, Stefan, (fun) Mingxin, Tanja, Heide, Amir, Yacup, (extremely helpful) Mohammad, Jos, Rens, Zulkuf, (welcoming) Cagri, Jordan, Shalini, Yilin, Nina, Filip and last but not least (understanding) Evangelos. Thanks to Thieme and Zuzana for bringing fun to my office. I would like to thank all members of my PhD committee for their fruitful comments and discussions. Your works have been an inspiration for me and it is my honour having you in my committee. I could not be happier having Professor Jaco Fokkema as the chairman of my defence. Thanks for your incredible support and your big heart. I am grateful towards Elta and Nina for accepting to be my paranymphs and accompanying me on the stage. Elta, I can just say thank you for your true friendship, positive attitude and dedication.

During my PhD studies, I have been so lucky to discuss my research with many bright academics. I would like to thanks Professor Maria Wimmer (University of Koblenz-Laudau) for providing me with the opportunity to discuss my research in her research group. It was a pleasure to attend courses by Professor Ulrich Frank (University of Essen-Duisburg) who is a great inspiration in research and teaching. I am grateful for providing me with the opportunity to present my work at your chair. Thanks for the generous supports and feedback during all these years. Thanks to Dr. Zoubida Kedad (Université de Versailles) for the great learning experience of writing the first paper of my PhD research. I am grateful toward Professor Dimitris Karagiannis (University of Vinnea) for his inspiring work and providing me with the opportunity to discuss my research in his research group. I would like to thank Professor Jan Hoogervorst (Antwerp Management School) for his valuable time and support and feedback on my research.

I am thankful toward many bright people who shared their time and expertise with me: Kees Aarts, Rob Bakker, Peter de Bruijn, Cecile Crobach, Arjan van der Hulst, Marco Hagendijk, Wendell Kuling, Tim Markensteijn, Rob Peters, Fred Rens,Theo Reymer, Gea van Rooijen, Bernard van Veelen, Robbert Weijers, and Specifically, Benito Minnella and Frank van Geffen for sharing their knowledge and their extensive support.

Special thanks to Professor Jan vom Brocke, Dr. Theresa Schmiedel and Nadine Reuter (Liechtenstein University) for their trust and providing me with the opportunity to be part of the panel in the 2nd_{European BPM Roundtable. I am grateful towards Elena-Teodora} Miron and Niksa Visic (University of Vienna) for their big heart and support.

III Acknowledgment

I cherish all the fun memories in Loughborough: the nights-out, gaming nights, lunches and coffee breaks. First and foremost, I would like to thank Tracey Preston for her incredible support and her big heart. Thanks to Dr. Teresa Roca for being such a caring friend. See Teresa, no worries were necessary. My heartfelt gratitude goes to Dr. Keith Pond and Dr. Dave Coates for their trust and their inspiration in teaching. My special thanks goes to Professor Amon Chizema and Dr. Alper Kara and their incredible support.

Thanks to my dear friends whose friendships are my assets: Regina, Fatemeh, Rouzbeh, Meysam, Maryam, Sarah, Amarjeet, Pawan, Salil, Emad, Sabeeh, Sonja, Amir, Hamidreza, Katya, Peter, Teresa, Meng, Asma, Bahareh, Elta, Somi and Mohi Thanks to my lovely flatmates Marta and Sana and our time together. Thanks to Laima for the crazy fun time. On a personal note, I would like to especially thank my family back in Iran. My sincere gratitude towards my aunt for being an inspiration for me from the time I was a kid. It would be hard to overstate how much I learned from you. I am grateful toward the tenderness of the greatest grandma in the whole universe who has been an inspiration for me to be strong. Special thanks to my angel Haleh and her big heart, to her devotion and support. You are the greatest sister in the world who does not need words to understand the feelings of her sister miles away. Thanks to the bright (and naughty) Hesam and Shahab for cheering me up with their achievements and their funny text messages. Your auntie expects a great deal from you two and Amir. I am deeply indebted to my loving parents for encouraging me to continue my education. Thanks to my mother for her unconditional love and support. Sorry that I added to your worries by moving abroad. Thanks for my father for his support and his love. Thanks for travelling such a long distance to support me during my PhD defence. Thanks to my fun brothers for their support and understanding.

Ich bin dankbar für die großartige Gastfreundschaft durch Gabriele und Ulrich. Eure unschätzbare Unterstützung während meiner Doktorarbeit hat mich am laufen gehalten. Vielen Dank auch an André für die Unterstützung und die Fotografie

.

Meine Liebe, mein Leben, mein Fels, mein Moritz, danke für deine positive Einstellung, danke für deine Gelassenheit, danke dafür das du immer für mich da bist und dafür das du mich in meinen schwierigsten Zeiten aufgemuntert hast. Du hast mich zu einem besseren Menschen gemacht. Du hast an mich geglaubt und hast mich an mich selbst glauben lassen. Mit dir ist mein Leben erfüllt mit Freude. Worte können nicht beschreiben welch große Dankbarkeit ich für deine unersetzbare Hilfe und Hingabe empfinde.

Last but not least, thanks to whoever contributed to the invention and enhancement of ice-cream, pasta, pizza and the rice cooker. You kept me alive during my PhD.

Farideh Heidari January 2015

(9)

BUSINESS PROCESS QUALITY COMPUTATION II

with you, Sander and Zulkuf on the SlimVerbinden project. My special thanks to Maartje who’s support made my expatriate life so much easier. Thanks for translating the summary of the thesis in Dutch and giving me advice on the qualitative part of my research. Thanks to Mamadou and his calming presence. Nothing could compete with your famous sentence “It is going to be all right” accompanied by your genuine smile. My sincere gratitude also goes to our loving secretaries, Diones, Everdine and Sabrina for always being supportive. Thanks to Everdine for welcoming me at my arrival and inviting me to fun Flamenco events. Thanks to Diones and Sabrina for being such an irreplaceable support in dealing with my residence permits’ issues. I am also grateful to the individuals who brightened my PhD days at TUDelft: Dragos, Deniz, (cheerful) Pieter, Caroline, Marina, Xu, Stephan, Stefan, (fun) Mingxin, Tanja, Heide, Amir, Yacup, (extremely helpful) Mohammad, Jos, Rens, Zulkuf, (welcoming) Cagri, Jordan, Shalini, Yilin, Nina, Filip and last but not least (understanding) Evangelos. Thanks to Thieme and Zuzana for bringing fun to my office. I would like to thank all members of my PhD committee for their fruitful comments and discussions. Your works have been an inspiration for me and it is my honour having you in my committee. I could not be happier having Professor Jaco Fokkema as the chairman of my defence. Thanks for your incredible support and your big heart. I am grateful towards Elta and Nina for accepting to be my paranymphs and accompanying me on the stage. Elta, I can just say thank you for your true friendship, positive attitude and dedication.

During my PhD studies, I have been so lucky to discuss my research with many bright academics. I would like to thanks Professor Maria Wimmer (University of Koblenz-Laudau) for providing me with the opportunity to discuss my research in her research group. It was a pleasure to attend courses by Professor Ulrich Frank (University of Essen-Duisburg) who is a great inspiration in research and teaching. I am grateful for providing me with the opportunity to present my work at your chair. Thanks for the generous supports and feedback during all these years. Thanks to Dr. Zoubida Kedad (Université de Versailles) for the great learning experience of writing the first paper of my PhD research. I am grateful toward Professor Dimitris Karagiannis (University of Vinnea) for his inspiring work and providing me with the opportunity to discuss my research in his research group. I would like to thank Professor Jan Hoogervorst (Antwerp Management School) for his valuable time and support and feedback on my research.

I am thankful toward many bright people who shared their time and expertise with me: Kees Aarts, Rob Bakker, Peter de Bruijn, Cecile Crobach, Arjan van der Hulst, Marco Hagendijk, Wendell Kuling, Tim Markensteijn, Rob Peters, Fred Rens,Theo Reymer, Gea van Rooijen, Bernard van Veelen, Robbert Weijers, and Specifically, Benito Minnella and Frank van Geffen for sharing their knowledge and their extensive support.

Special thanks to Professor Jan vom Brocke, Dr. Theresa Schmiedel and Nadine Reuter (Liechtenstein University) for their trust and providing me with the opportunity to be part of the panel in the 2nd_{European BPM Roundtable. I am grateful towards Elena-Teodora} Miron and Niksa Visic (University of Vienna) for their big heart and support.

III Acknowledgment

I cherish all the fun memories in Loughborough: the nights-out, gaming nights, lunches and coffee breaks. First and foremost, I would like to thank Tracey Preston for her incredible support and her big heart. Thanks to Dr. Teresa Roca for being such a caring friend. See Teresa, no worries were necessary. My heartfelt gratitude goes to Dr. Keith Pond and Dr. Dave Coates for their trust and their inspiration in teaching. My special thanks goes to Professor Amon Chizema and Dr. Alper Kara and their incredible support.

Thanks to my dear friends whose friendships are my assets: Regina, Fatemeh, Rouzbeh, Meysam, Maryam, Sarah, Amarjeet, Pawan, Salil, Emad, Sabeeh, Sonja, Amir, Hamidreza, Katya, Peter, Teresa, Meng, Asma, Bahareh, Elta, Somi and Mohi Thanks to my lovely flatmates Marta and Sana and our time together. Thanks to Laima for the crazy fun time. On a personal note, I would like to especially thank my family back in Iran. My sincere gratitude towards my aunt for being an inspiration for me from the time I was a kid. It would be hard to overstate how much I learned from you. I am grateful toward the tenderness of the greatest grandma in the whole universe who has been an inspiration for me to be strong. Special thanks to my angel Haleh and her big heart, to her devotion and support. You are the greatest sister in the world who does not need words to understand the feelings of her sister miles away. Thanks to the bright (and naughty) Hesam and Shahab for cheering me up with their achievements and their funny text messages. Your auntie expects a great deal from you two and Amir. I am deeply indebted to my loving parents for encouraging me to continue my education. Thanks to my mother for her unconditional love and support. Sorry that I added to your worries by moving abroad. Thanks for my father for his support and his love. Thanks for travelling such a long distance to support me during my PhD defence. Thanks to my fun brothers for their support and understanding.

Ich bin dankbar für die großartige Gastfreundschaft durch Gabriele und Ulrich. Eure unschätzbare Unterstützung während meiner Doktorarbeit hat mich am laufen gehalten. Vielen Dank auch an André für die Unterstützung und die Fotografie

.

Meine Liebe, mein Leben, mein Fels, mein Moritz, danke für deine positive Einstellung, danke für deine Gelassenheit, danke dafür das du immer für mich da bist und dafür das du mich in meinen schwierigsten Zeiten aufgemuntert hast. Du hast mich zu einem besseren Menschen gemacht. Du hast an mich geglaubt und hast mich an mich selbst glauben lassen. Mit dir ist mein Leben erfüllt mit Freude. Worte können nicht beschreiben welch große Dankbarkeit ich für deine unersetzbare Hilfe und Hingabe empfinde.

Last but not least, thanks to whoever contributed to the invention and enhancement of ice-cream, pasta, pizza and the rice cooker. You kept me alive during my PhD.

Farideh Heidari January 2015

(10)

!"##$%&'

Business process modelling is an important part of system design. When designing or redesigning a business process, stakeholders specify, negotiate, and agree on business requirements to be satisfied, including non-functional requirements that concern the quality of the business process. This thesis addresses the question of how to specify and compute the quality of a business process, given the model that stakeholders use.

The motivation for this thesis is the increasing importance of the quality of business processes. Knowing the quality of specific business processes enables stakeholders to judge if these processes need improvement. Knowing the quality of the constructs of those processes (viz., events, inputs, activities, and outputs) and the way they are structured enables a more detailed analysis of their shortcomings and provides a basis for the design of improvements.

The research challenge of this thesis is grounded in the assumption that: “Organisations need an appropriate means to effectively compute achievement of their goals and objectives by their business processes.” Given this challenge, the main research question on which this thesis focuses is: “Can the quality of a business process be computed quantitatively at different levels of granularity?” The research objective is: “To develop frameworks,

factors, and metrics for computing non-functional requirements (quality) of business processes quantitatively at different levels of granularity.”

The outcomes of this thesis are:

1) BPIMM, a language-independent business process integrating meta-model, based on the concepts of seven mainstream business process modelling languages: BPMN, EPC, RAD, UML AD, SADT, IDEF0, and IDEF3.

2) BPC-QC (Business Process Concept - Quality Computation), an approach to quality computation at the lowest level of granularity of a business process. The approach consists of:

i. BPC-QEF (Business Process Concept - Quality Evaluation Framework), a language-independent generic framework and algorithm to compute the quality of the constructs of a business process: event, input, activity, and output.

ii. A set of business process quality dimensions and factors. The following quality dimensions are distinguished: performance, efficiency, reliability, recoverability, permissibility, and availability. Each dimension

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!"##$%&'

Business process modelling is an important part of system design. When designing or redesigning a business process, stakeholders specify, negotiate, and agree on business requirements to be satisfied, including non-functional requirements that concern the quality of the business process. This thesis addresses the question of how to specify and compute the quality of a business process, given the model that stakeholders use.

The motivation for this thesis is the increasing importance of the quality of business processes. Knowing the quality of specific business processes enables stakeholders to judge if these processes need improvement. Knowing the quality of the constructs of those processes (viz., events, inputs, activities, and outputs) and the way they are structured enables a more detailed analysis of their shortcomings and provides a basis for the design of improvements.

The research challenge of this thesis is grounded in the assumption that: “Organisations need an appropriate means to effectively compute achievement of their goals and objectives by their business processes.” Given this challenge, the main research question on which this thesis focuses is: “Can the quality of a business process be computed quantitatively at different levels of granularity?” The research objective is: “To develop frameworks,

factors, and metrics for computing non-functional requirements (quality) of business processes quantitatively at different levels of granularity.”

The outcomes of this thesis are:

1) BPIMM, a language-independent business process integrating meta-model, based on the concepts of seven mainstream business process modelling languages: BPMN, EPC, RAD, UML AD, SADT, IDEF0, and IDEF3.

2) BPC-QC (Business Process Concept - Quality Computation), an approach to quality computation at the lowest level of granularity of a business process. The approach consists of:

i. BPC-QEF (Business Process Concept - Quality Evaluation Framework), a language-independent generic framework and algorithm to compute the quality of the constructs of a business process: event, input, activity, and output.

ii. A set of business process quality dimensions and factors. The following quality dimensions are distinguished: performance, efficiency, reliability, recoverability, permissibility, and availability. Each dimension

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BUSINESS PROCESS QUALITY COMPUTATION VI

categorises different quality aspects in terms of factors. A non-exhaustive set of sixteen quantitative factors is provided.

iii. Quality metrics for each of the quality factors, to facilitate a quantitative computation of the quality of a specific construct of a business process. 3) BP-QC (Business Process - Quality Computation), an approach to compute the

quality at the highest level of granularity of a business process. The approach consists of:

i. BP-CQCF (Business Process - Compositional Quality Computation Framework), a language-independent generic framework and algorithm to compute the quality of a business process as a whole, given the quality of its constructs.

ii. A set of generic business process modelling patterns to decompose a business process into more succinct parts, namely: sequential, parallel with synchronisation, exclusive, inclusive, simple loop, and complex loop.

iii. A set of over one hundred computational formulae. For each combination of modelling pattern and a quality factor, there is a formula to compute the quality.

4) AAV (Approach to Application and Validation), an evaluation plan to evaluate BPIMM, BPC-QC and BP-QC in practice, together with expert stakeholders. The plan consists of the units of measure, a measurement model, and a case study procedure.

To evaluate the applicability of the contributions of this thesis to real world business needs, four case studies have been conducted in different environments: a Dutch educational institution, a global financial institution, an international financial service provider, and a Dutch research project on crisis management. Each of these case studies concerns a different, single business process.

This thesis shows that:

1) A quality computation approach can be adopted independent of a business process modelling language.

2) Quantitative quality factors can be introduced specifically for the constructs of a business process.

3) Quantitative metrics and computational formulae can be developed for specific quality factors, allowing the computation of different aspects of the quality of a business process quantitatively at different levels of granularity.

VII Summary

4) An evaluation plan can be developed to evaluate the applicability of the contributions of this thesis (viz., BPIMM, BPC-QC, and BP-QC).

The contributions of this thesis are designed to be beneficial to the areas of business and management, requirements engineering, software engineering, and business process modelling. In the areas of requirements engineering and software engineering, these contributions are intended to help practitioners to consider non-functional requirements at the earliest stage. In the area of business process modelling, information systems, service computing, and cloud computing, the contributions can be used for quality-driven modelling, design, and redesign. To conclude, knowing the quality value of a business process at different levels of granularity provides a basis for its improvement.

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