Accelerating analysis of organizations and improving process reusability

Abstract

As market demand for Enterprise Resource Planners (ERP) in large organizations slowly becomes saturated, ERP consultancy offices begin to take on larger projects in addition to targeting small to medium sized enterprise markets. This shift in market forces changes of implementation methodology, but more importantly, consultancy tasks. In order to maintain competitive prices, overheads need to be reduced. To do this, consultancy tasks for organizational analysis need to be made more efficient and effective. The research in this thesis presents the development of an organizational analysis and modeling method intended to improve process reusability, ease of use, standardization of process modeling techniques and overall improvement of analysis lead-time during ERP implementation projects, primarily focusing on retail organizations. The proposed method consists of an amalgamation of methods, utilizing the primary modeling method from Architecture of Information Systems (ARIS), Dynamic Enterprise Modeling (DEM) overview structure, as well as Enterprise Architecture Modeling Method (EAM). The method has been evaluated through expert review by experts at an international ERP consultancy firm. Conclusions of the research indicate that the method has potential to reduce overall analysis lead-time by leveraging end-user submitted materials and presents a guide for formalization of these materials for process reusability.