A Critical Evaluation and Frameworks of Business Process Improvement Methods

This article critically evaluates and provides frameworks for business process improvement methods. It compares and contrasts the main article with other relevant articles.

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ARTICLE REVIEW
“A Critical Evaluation and Frameworks of Business Process Improvement Methods”
by Rob J.B. Vanwersch, Khurram Shahzad, Irene Vanderfeesten, Kris Vanhaecht, Paul Grefen,
Liliane Pintelon, Jan Mendling, Frits van Merode, Hajo A. Reijers
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Introduction
In recent years, Business Process Management has turned into a vital faculty in the
business management discipline. Despite the high utility of technology in our modern business
environments, business process management requires extra attention. This research paper seeks
to review an article titled "A Critical Evaluation and Framework of Business Process
Improvement Methods" authored by Rob J.B. Vanwersch, Khurram Shahzad, Irene
Vanderfeesten, Kris Vanhaecht, Paul Grefen, Liliane Pintelon, Jan Mendling, Frits van Merode,
Hajo A. Reijers. The article was uploaded on the internet by Khurram Shahzad on 7th August
2017. This research essay’s primary purpose is to thoroughly analyse the discussions and
findings of the aforementioned authors in the article. This essay studies the methodologies
illustrated in Vanwersch and his companies’ article and attempts to draw comparison of the
article with other three articles relevant to the topic of business process improvement methods.
The data collection method used is a case study for the few articles analysed in this research
paper. The paper critically compares and contrasts the main article under study with two other
articles namely: “A State of the Art of Business Process Management Process Management
Research as Published in the BPM Conference”, “Process Improvement Road mapping- How to
Max Your Process” and “A Toolbox for the Development and Implementation of Value Based
Care Pathways”. The essay confirms with the four articles’ bottom lines that it is essential for
businesses to improve and establish proper business process management techniques so as to
achieve efficient and successful business endeavours.
“A Critical Evaluation and Framework of Business Process Improvement Methods”-
(Overview)
Vanwersch, et al., (2016, p. 3) embark on a mission to outline and describe effective and
comprehensive methodologies that would eventually generate business process improvement
ideas. The scholars identify six main areas of concern in business process improvement. The
areas discovered were: input, output, techniques, aim, actors, and tools. The scholars further
develop a catalogue that may be used applied to enhance process improvement. The catalogue
employs existing ideas to help practitioners compose effective strategies for initiating process
improvement ideas. In the article, the researchers had conducted a thorough literature review
covering scholarly evidence covering the idea of business process improvement. The scholars

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further evaluate their applied research methods and give recommendations to help academic
researchers indulge in a deeper exploration regarding the generation of better, effective and
efficient process improvement ideas and techniques. The article is systematically partitioned into
sections such as the introduction, related taxonomies, research methodologies, literature review,
results and the general implication of the results.
The research greatly uses information from two recent BPM taxonomies namely: ‘BPM
use case classification and Innovation thinking style matrix (p. 3). Despite the fact that the study
mainly targets the goals of generating process improvement ideas, it does not completely
distance itself from process modelling as discussed by earlier authors in the discipline. In the
article, it is discovered that these process models are the inputs and outputs of in the act of
initiating sound process improvement skills (p. 4). Among the other key areas discussed in this
paper are human actors and tools. Human actors are the generators of process improvement ideas
while tools enable the process of generating these process improvement ideas. Apart from input,
output, aim, tools, techniques, and actors, the scholars further consider another three fundamental
strategies such as understand yourself, learn from others and design (p. 4).
In their literature review section, the scholars conduct a thorough search from three
electronic databases. The databases included INSPEC, ABI/Inform, and Medline. While INSPEC
and ABI/Inform databases provided coverage on information systems and management domains,
Medline provided the required literature from the health science domain (p. 5). The review also
outlined the use of data extraction method elements on the generation of process improvement
ideas which are the input, tool, output, technique, aim, and human actors (p. 7). Context elements
also used in the research included were label and study design (p. 7). Using a structured
procedure, all data fragment in the research were extracted and coded (p.8).
In the search engine, the study found 3791 matching articles concerned with the topic of
generating business improvement ideas. The 3791 articles were passed through the processes of
elimination of replicas, two-stage relevance screening and quality checking. Only 32 could be
considered for the review. The study further conducted a backward and forwarding tracing where
it identified 21 more sources. However, only 18 of the 21 could be considered in the review. The
advisory committee had suggested 8 other sources but only one passed the threshold to appear in
the study's literature review. The fifty-one articles were later reduced to forty-eight. The second

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part of the search and selection provided only 13 sources. In total, sixty-one sources entered the
data extraction and coding phase (p. 9). 69% of the 61 unique articles were journals while 28%
were conference papers. The remaining 3% was shared equally by a technical report and a book
chapter.
The article observes that for context elements, search engines provide too many labels,
most of them irrelevant to the study's area of concern. The wide variety of labels poses any
researcher with only a narrow availability of labels to a researcher may put him at the
disadvantage of assuming important data and literature (p. 16). To achieve its goal in analysing
relevant resources concerned with redesigning business processes, the study had to employ a
systematic review of the available resources. It is also discovered that many researchers are
inclined to using a few variety of research methodologies (p. 16). The literature review section is
treated to be of more importance by researchers. For method elements, the article reveals that
their choices are very vital in generating process improvement ideas. To make well-constructed
improved ideas concerning business processes, practitioners should consider method elements.
The article asserts that techniques that would promote redesigning have received less attention
(p. 17). Moreover, the article suggests that most of the existing literature is focussed on the
internal-company environment. Most of the process improvement ideas, as the article suggests,
came from the external business environment.
Among the major limitations of the article are time and content restrictions. For instance,
the article only collected studies from 2011 (p. 18). The collected studies were strictly scientific
reports. The article concludes by ascertaining the relevance of its mechanical outline in th
process in the conception of improvement ideas. The authors stress that their catalogue would
serve as a great help to practitioners who are required to provide well-thought business process
ideas.
In “A Toolbox for the Development and Implementation of Value Based Care
Pathways”, A.D Katerberg, under the supervision of Dr. I.T.P. Vanderfeesten, O. Turetken,
R.J.B Vanswersch, A.R.T Van de Ven and E. van Veghel from the Eindhoven University of
Technology, examines the strategies used to re-structure healthcare processes. The scholar’s aim
is to identify effective ideas that could add value to patients and victims by simultaneously the
costs incurred in hospitals. Katerberg, et al., (2016, p. 1) stresses the underutilization of

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technology in the healthcare sector. The scholars also suggest that the re-engineering of health
care processes could improve the ability to handle patient needs and also improve on the quality
of health care. The scholars also recommend the use of the Value-Based Healthcare framework
which functions to lower the rising healthcare costs and improve care.
As evident in "A Critical Evaluation and Framework of Business Process Improvement
Methods", Katerberg, et al., (2016, p. 18) affirm that the key areas for creating practical
healthcare process improvement ideas are technique, input, actors output, and tools. The scholars
describe the six key areas as the six methodological areas. The scholars further suggest that the
six methods should be screened so as to come up with improvement opportunities. Being a
student to Dr. Vanwersch, Katerberg describes the six key areas almost as her professor.
However, Katerberg's paper seems to have a more comprehensive analysis of the six areas. Each
of the goals in Katerburg's document, unlike in Vanwersch, et al.'s, is critically and scrupulously
analysed. As opposed to Vanwersch' et al.,'s document which only mentioned the six key
methodological areas, Katerberg's toolbox examines each of the areas in six phases (Katerberg,
et al., 2016, p. 34). The two academic works, therefore, differ in terms of the content held in
each.
In “Process Improvement Roadmapping- How to Max out Your Process” process re-
designing is termed as the major value-addition process in growing field of business process
management. The paper’s main concern is answering the query: ‘What are the implementations
necessary to improve on the processes involved in business process management activities?
(Linhart, et al., 2015, p. 2). The answer to the question, according to the paper's authors will
define a model that will be instrumental in evaluating process improvement roadmaps to
correspond with a plan’s selection principles and value-oriented administration. In the first
section of their article, the scholars identify process improvement as the key to successful
business process administration. Business Process Management can be perceived to be both an
art and science that oversees the performance of tasks and further ascertain consistent outcomes
to exploit the improvement prospects (Linhart, et al., p. 3). The scholars' assertions are consistent
to Vanwersch, et al.,'s sentiments in his 2016 article. Redesigning business processes increases
the odds of a business premise to diminish costs and boost customer contentment (Vanwersch, et
al., 2016, p. 1). Both the groups’ perceptions about the process improvement seem to be at per.

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"Process Improvement Roadmapping- How to Max out Your Process" seems to employ
many mathematical concepts in analysing process improvement. This forms the major difference
between the article and Vanwersch, et al.,’s (2016). While Vanwersch, et al.,’s article is based on
a pure conceptual and abstract language, Linhart, et al.,’s article widely employs large sets of
mathematics and concrete data. Understanding the latter article demands a considerable
understanding of mathematics. There is wide use of mathematical concepts such as calculus,
statistics and use of graphs (Linhart et al., 2015, p. 10). The article is purely mathematical and
demands a lot of knowledge of mathematical skills on the part of the reader.
Recker and Mendling (2016) article titled “A State of the Art of Business Process
Management Process Management Research as Published in the BPM Conference” provides
necessary insights concerning the development of Business Process Management (BPM) in the
fields of management, information systems, and computers. Similar to Vanwersch and his
companion's assertations, Recker and Mendling stipulated that it was evidence employment of
proper methodological components certainly contributes to advancing of the business process
management field. However, Recker and Mendling's article mainly focuses on the advancement
of business project management as from past conventions and conferences. The pair's article
does not necessarily investigate the concept of process improvement in BPM. While Vanwersch
and his co-authors' article analysed the intrinsic factors that contributed to BPM development,
Recker and Mendling analysed the current growth of the BPM industry in general.
Conclusion
To sum up, there is adequate and sufficient evidence that process improvement is a major
topic of discussion in the growing field of business process management. Companies require
complimenting technological advancement with proper employment of process improvement.
Sufficient research affirms that the art and science of process improvement add value to the
industry by reducing costs and improving on efficiency and quality of service to customers. The
methodological areas of aims, tools, technique, actors, input, and output are the most
fundamental areas of concern in process improvement. Employing the catalogue suggested by
the authors of the primary article is likely to help practitioners make informed decisions
regarding their businesses' process improvement. In all sectors ranging from business, healthcare
and agricultural sectors, proper process improvement strategies need to be employed. In the

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findings of the primary article, it was found that existing literature reviews suffer from numerous
limitations. After a comparison with other articles, the primary article has been found lacking a
comprehensive description of the key methodological areas in generating business process
improvement ideas. The primary article also lacks mathematical and statistical evidence
supporting its primary argument and showing empirical causal relationships between process
improvement and successful business performances.

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Bibliography
Katerberg, D., Vanderfeesten, I.T.P., Türetken, O. and Vanwersch, R.J.B., 2016. A toolbox for
the development and implementation of value-based care pathways. Eindhoven University.
Linhart, A., Manderscheid, J., Röglinger, M., and Schlott, H., 2015. Process improvement
roadmapping–How to max out your process.
Recker, J. and Mendling, J., 2016. The state of the art of business process management research
as published in the BPM conference. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 58(1), pp.55-
72.
Vanwersch, R.J., Shahzad, K., Vanderfeesten, I., Vanhaecht, K., Grefen, P., Pintelon, L.,
Mendling, J., van Merode, G.G. and Reijers, H.A., 2016. A critical evaluation and framework of
business process improvement methods. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 58(1),
pp.43-53.