Standards-based model repository support for business process re-engineering.

Abstract

Business Process Re-Engineering is a challenging, complex task requiring a carefully orchestrated environment of visionary leadership, skillful management and facilitation techniques which are supported by powerful enabling technologies. Taken together, these constitute a Business Process Re-Engineering Environment (BPRE). This dissertation explores a case of the development of a standards-based prototype repository (Pro Rep ) to support a Business Process Reengineering Environment (BPRE). It is a case study of the part standards-based repository technologies play In the on-going evolution of a BPRE at the University of Arizona. Standards-based repositories are juxtaposed to proprietary technologies or other defacto repository paradigms such as Object Oriented Data Bases (OODBs) and Relational Data Base Management Systems (RDBMSs). Repositories are the integration framework which supports various BPRE tools used in a Business Process Reengineering methodology which is evolving in parallel at the University. The research approach is an amalgam of case study and systems development research methodologies. Data sources for the case study are the Pro Rep development, questionnaires and interviews from key informants in the repository community. The questionnaires and interview data help explain the technical and business context for ProRep. These three data sources are analyzed to help answer the research question, "how do standards-based repository frameworks support the creation, function, and maintenance of Business Process Re-Engineering Environments (BPREs)?" The two repository standards explored during this case are the Information Resources Dictionary (lRDS) and the Portable Common Tool Environment (PCTE). The former is the U.S. Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 156 while the later is an International Standards Organization (ISO) 13719. Repository-based integration represents only one approach to integration. It assumes that there will be a central concern for data sharing and compatibility among tools and users. There is very little published on the business implications of standards-based repository technologies compared to other integration technologies. Even the term "repository" has become a confusing and overloaded term in MIS. This case study shows how a PCTE-based model repository offers some unique advantages over proprietary and other defacto repository standards. Because of its unique architecture, PCTE provides tool messaging features, data integration, and security features that rival technologies are not designed to address. While cost and complexity are the potential downside of PCTE, the robustness and completeness of its approach make it the most full-featured of repository technologies currently available. Its value and success will be largely dependent on the support and diffusion that the technology experiences within the CASE and Business Process Re-Engineering Community.