Information Systems in Banks - Coursework Example

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The project report is based on the impact of information system in financial s like bank. It outlines the various issuesof industries and the reasons for failing most of the projects in an organization. Kluver gave an idea that informatization can be applied to society in order to reduce the social barrier and form an effective relationship between society and technology. Back and Moreau depicted that potential benefits of information management can be maximized to increase the overall growth by removing all the boundaries within or among the enterprises. Price Systems reported IT is not getting used in the way as they were expected which resulted into incurring huge loss. The failure of the projects is only due to mismanagement of information systems. They recommended revising the system for companies' betterment. This research has been carried out as a project management task that mostly concentrates on information systems primarily focusing on banks. After going through the literature it has been noticed out that, though whole process is getting segmented in some of the approach for making the project more efficient but, due to inadequate flow between the sections and improper mapping total outcome is not coming satisfactory. Here, one business process model is proposed that can be implemented in finance companies for transactions easiness, efficient account handling and providing a common framework worldwide. One flow chart is also provided stating how simple transaction can take place with the proposed model. Finally, it is concluded with the theme, let information system can be maximally utilized into industries and we are in a position to cross another milestone. The future scope of this research can be developing another model which will incorporate many other constraints that have not been used here only due to tool unavailability. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE NUMBER I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1 II. TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 1. INTRODUCTION 3 2. PART A: PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN 4 2. BACKGROUND 2.1 Introduction 5 2.2 General Statement of Problem 5 2.3 Research Purpose 7 2.4 Research Problem 7 2.5 Significance of Study 8 2.6 Theoretical Perspective 8 2.7 Research Questions and Hypothesis 11 2.8 Methodology 11 2.9 Work Plan 12 Appendix A 14 3. PART B: THEORATICAL ANALYSIS OF PROJECT PLAN 3.0 Introduction 16 3.1 Project Background 16 3.2 Structure of Project 20 3.2 Project Plan 21 4.0 Conclusion 27 5.0 Recommendation 27 References 26 Appendix B 28 1. INTRODUCTION The main purpose of this research is to seek for the barriers that usage of Information System (IS) in industry like bank, construction etc are facing and analyze the applicability of project management approach to them. Land (2004) defined information system as system which aims to store and manage information. Informatization is a process of minimizing cultural and economic barriers by information and communication technology after proper transforming its economic and social relationships (Kluver, 2000). Informatization of a company results into reduction of total cost and this key knowledge has increased the possibility of organizations to use IT. Back and Moreau (2000) showed that the potential benefits of information management only can be fully maximized by making possible the information exchange throughout the organization and also across all its boundaries if it has any. For this reason, integration and preservation of project information is a vital thing. Due to the rapid change in business to make the company more flexible, a methodology is needed which can permit planning, analysis and redesign of a process after taking into account of the available technology and resources. In this report, role of IT in industry and their effectiveness in the growth of an organization are described. As Price System noticed that 46% of industry projects are getting failed due to mismanagement of IT and with IT revolution annual revenue of 5.5 billion can be incurred in US, a business model has been proposed. The proposed model clearly defines the flow between the sections of an enterprise or within enterprises. To avoid loss of information, proper mapping between the sections were laid down. It has been observed that, current existing IT in company are facing lot of problems which need to be refined. Number of customers in a bank is increasing rapidly and employee as well. Information system must be adequate enough to tackle this issue without hampering the revenue. PART A: PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN 2. BACKGROUND Information system is an essential tool for an industry in this twenty first century but, it is not getting the exact cope of application adequately as it was expected. Reasons include general unawareness, lack of knowledgeable manpower and risk factors etc. Only due to mismanagement of project is leading to huge losses of company. Price system recommended that, using IT effectively in industries can compensate that lose. Below is the chart showing the increase in customers in bank from 1993 to 2004 in Poland. Figure 2.1: Customer account profile in Poland. (source: Audyt Bankowsci Detalicznej 2003) From figure 2.1 it is clear that number of saving account is increasing at a drastic rate than others. Hence, it is becoming difficult for the bank officials to handle bank services efficiently. Implementing IT in financial services can make it effective in overall. Statistical Indicators Benchmarking the Information Society (SIBIS) studied the reasons of people for not using the bank services. It has been reported that a good amount of people are still not using bank services for having the probability of failure of the computer system. This research is intended to draw the risks in bank and then rectifying them using information system. 2.1 Introduction According to the research conducted by Ray et al. (2004), there are at least four resources and capabilities that can influence the effectiveness of customer service in a firm like bank. They are: service climate, managerial information technology knowledge, technology resources and investments. Among them, service climate and managerial information technology are intangible in nature and resources and investments are tangible. Managerial information technology is playing the key role in today's information era. But it has been observed that a large portion of projects have got unsuccessful due to miscalculation of budget or not utilizing the information adequately within bank. It gives the urgent need of some methodology which can be implemented to avoid such crucial situations. 2.2 General Statement of Problem As depicted, information system plays a major role in an industry. Main job is distributed among all the sections and departments in an enterprise and efficient process flow is established in order to keep information lose less and valuable. Later on after processing of these signals the distributed components are joined together. The thesis focuses on the lack of a common model to be used for an effective integration of information systems in the financial institution like bank. Though information systems are an important part of an organization, but the pace to integrate information systems in Table 2.1.1 bank has been slow compared to other industries. The reasons behind this include first general awareness, people don't know well how exactly this can be applied in financial field; absence of proper business model which will be more application oriented. With a small amount of time to prepare and keep record of all the transaction, track customer with their ID and estimate the interest in case customer has taken loan, a revised integrated information system model is needed in the current work environment. Other than the time constraint, accuracy and process parallelism are also the matter of advantages while using computer. Apart from that, now with the introduction of ATM, worldwide transaction has made possible with a common network. But, the actual difficulties with that single frame are huge. One example can be put regarding this. Suppose Mr 'X' is doing the transaction and he gave an amount of $XXXX. Normal sequence of this program is that as soon as someone enters amount, server updates his account after deducting the given one and directs the machine to provide the money. If somehow, after updating the record book network link fails then the situation we can expect! Reverse also can happen; customer got the money but record updating could not possible. In either of the cases, someone is bearing lose. So, efficient information system is necessary. 2.3 Research Purpose The usage of IT in engineering and science field has increased to the extreme that without it our daily life will become a body without soul. Financial industries need to do many processing works like preparing account, estimating total interest payable etc. The purpose is to understand how information systems are used by bank executives, and to find the underlying model in current practice by which business processes are performed. This thesis aims to identify problems in the application of existing integrated information systems, and to propose a model that can be used to solve issues arising from the integration of their information systems. By the analysis of current relevant information from diverse financial companies, a more realistic model will be developed intended to solve the main problem discussed. 2.4 Research Problem Research problem is the fundamental step that needs to do before conducting any project work. A specific and adequate research problem can help the investigator to set direction of his work. Integrated information systems for banks have not been extensively researched till date. Information systems are an important part of an organization and provide the tools to make business processes more efficient. There is not a clear implementation of integrated information systems or an extensively used model by employees in financial companies. Monetary costs and time spent on the document preparation, estimating, accounting and the exchange of information between different parties involved in a project are an issue that affects business and needs to be dealt with in order to create more processes that satisfy the objectives of the organization. Though individually estimating, accounting and cost tracking are being processed in a well manner but, integration of those tasks has not been completely developed within the financial sector. Also, developing business process model and defining the flow between them is a matter need to be considered. 2.5 Significance of Study This study is significant because it will demonstrate the improved performance that a business process model will bring to an integrated information system for the construction industry. It defines and develops a structured set of functions, business rules, and business processes for the particular case of bank's information systems integration. Furthermore, the investigation will extend the research not only to bank but to different trades of the financial industry. Thus, this study can become an important evaluation method to improve the overall performance of the industry. 2.6 Theoretical Perspective Informatization of business processes, such as the process of preparing a bid for a job, or keeping track of all costs incurred has been one of the goals of most companies since computers entered the workplace. Informatization was defined by Kluver (2000) as "a process whereby information and communication technologies have transformed economic and social relationships so that cultural and economic barriers are minimized" (para. 7). Economic barrier in the sense that computer has reduced the processing cost as well as provided the platform of making right information available to all the corners of the enterprise. Hannah et al. (1995) defined the level of informatization as "the percentage of workflow supported by IT," comparing the amount of work that is supported by information technology to the total workflow and corroborating the importance of information technology (IT) for a business. Not all the workflow is supported by IT, rather flow which is compatible with the end points technologies and is meeting the criteria to serve actual purpose is supposed to be the effective process flow. The main job of informatization in an industry is to follow two basic rules: parallelism and pipelining. Parallelism is the method by which one specific task is split into several small jobs and then process them altogether so that all are made available simultaneously or with little amount delay. Whereas, pipelining is a process through which tasks are fragmented into different non-overlapping phases so that if phase x of task 1 is under process then phase y of task 2 can be executed simultaneously. It is mandatory that phase x and phase y must be two non-dependent processes. Informatization helps to define these flows between different primitives in order to get faithful mapping and communication. Assessing the value of an information system is not an easy job. Information systems remain integrated into organization's business process which is very difficult to assess externally. Problem becomes severe when assessing parameter is an intangible benefits like accuracy improvement, gain in competitive advantage and increase in effectiveness etc. (Jung et al., 2004). Conventional information system assessment mostly concentrates on cost/ benefit analysis but, it does not incorporate technical and operational considerations (Ginzberg and Zmud, 1986). As technical evaluation without social dimensions can distort the process of decision making hence, objective and rationale techniques must be combined with an interpretive (Hirscheeim & Smithson, 1986). Due to these varieties of issues researchers think that ISA must be focused more on business and social-environmental issues; leaving the subjectivity ones. ISA which are in operation use various measures for assessing information but, still there is a gap. Till today, any such systematic attempt is missing in order to identify informatization characteristics concerned to construction industry. According to Jung et al. (2004), "researchers and practitioners in the construction industry have repeatedly asserted that utilization of information systems has not flourished for them as it has in other sectors of industry. Nevertheless, there has been no systematic effort at the industry level to evaluate the current state of informatization and plan for the future" (p. 275). Some efforts have been made at the general contractor level but not at the subcontractor level. These studies show evidence of the underdeveloped level of information systems in construction and the need of an evaluation of current information systems models. The idea of Computer Integrated Construction (CIC) was introduced when complexity of projects became so high, and paperwork so difficult to manage, that a solution needed to be researched. Miyatake and Kangari (1993) defined CIC as "a strategy for linking existing and emerging technologies and people in order to optimize marketing, sales, accounting, planning, management, engineering, design, procurement and contracting, construction, operation and maintenance, and support functions" (p. 308). CIC involves various phases; the main focus of their study falls on one of those phases known as an integrated information flow. As construction may be started before the overall design for following phases start, so the concurrent design must allow overlapping of few phases. The main benefit of CIC system is that it supports all the phases of design. Apart from that, a constant review of conceptual design is required at the time of development to ensure the design perfection; it results into the need of acceptable linkage between the different levels of abstraction maintaining data consistency. Now-a-days as per the state of art, each phase is being handled by different computer and information in between them is shared by file exporting/importing. Being the missing of logical link, designers need to use precautions for ensuring compatibility and suitability by using plotted drawings. It becomes the dominating factor if the designers are placed at a distant and finally result comes out as source of error. Computer integrated construction (CIC) can be defined as a business process that links the project participants in a facility project into a collaborative team through all phases of a project. Each team member should be able to share data with other team members on a frequent (perhaps real-time) basis. The use of technology to facilitate and share data and knowledge is an integral part of CIC (Teicholz & Fischer, 1994). Information systems are composed by smaller systems known as business processes. These processes define how the company manages the information within specific departments, by representing all steps from beginning to end for a given activity. The successful merging of information systems and their corresponding business processes in construction is still an issue, particularly in the subcontracting companies. Love and Irani (2001) addressed the void in IT research in the construction industry, by suggesting to the industry to "move towards designing and implementing information systems that are incrementally developed over time so that they are able to better cope with advances in IT" (p. 656). Among the barriers of implementing new technology, decision making process dominates most. Reasons for this to happen are: resource limitation, considerable project failure due to manual processing and rising of IT expenditure (Farbey et al., 1993). These problems with IT are sharper in construction industry than others. Hence, it became necessary to consider costs, technical issues, risk assessment and likely benefits for IT investment evaluation particularly in construction (Construct IT Centre for Excellence, 1997). Sometimes existing companies who are individually using the information system in their own business process, upon merging them into a bigger company don't give guarantee that the same previously used algorithm be working comfortably. Merging is complicated as well as cost effective. As it is explained by Hwang and Rine (2006), a broker approach to integrating information systems "focuses on the data communication between different existing systems [taking] care of forwarding relevant data to other systems" (p. 879). This approach focused on data communication, which will benefit the efficacy and efficiency of the different information systems in use. 2.7 Research Questions and Hypothesis Question: Is there a limited number of data flow patterns for a particular type of information flow in financial companies with respect to different company sizes Hypothesis: There is a significant correlation between a particular pattern of information flow and the size/annual volume of a financial company like bank. 2.8 Methodology Design and Instrumentation Previously collected data from an ongoing research will be used to analyze current practice methods and problems observed in the bibliographic research. The data were found from previous studies directed to a wide variety of companies of all sizes in the financial banking sector. These studies were aimed at investigating the underlying business processes within specific areas of the different companies. Data Analysis The process that data follows, including estimating information, cost analysis and forecasting will be reviewed to understand how the information is used by different factors involved in the cost management process. Also, how this data are used and flow from one department to another within the companies with available data will be analyzed. A structured analysis methodology will be used to translate problems with the integration of information systems into a logical representation, which can be used in future studies to develop information systems as required by the company. Studying the current business environment to determine the true necessity of new information systems and their integration will be done. Data flow diagrams will be drawn with the purpose of representing a system's boundaries and processes mainly. In addition, entity relationship diagrams will be created to help plan and design useful databases in future research. A statistical analysis will be performed in order to find the patterns of operation of the companies under research and confirming or not the initial hypothesis. 2.9 Work Plan As it's a financial related work hence, population is all the banking authorities. Initially, a literature review needs to be done. Review will help the researcher to sort out the institutions that are undergoing severe losses for last few years or facing trouble to handle their large market. These sorted industries will form the sample size. Based on their risks they will be classified and information system model process flow will be defined in accordance with that. The risks can be identified through questionnaire or direct interview to the customers and managers where it is needed. Data collection is the major step which will let the researcher to know about the actual deficiencies. Hence, instead of closed questions most of the time open type questions are preferred. Literature Survey------4 weeks Planning ------3 week Field Survey ------10 weeks Data Analysis ------3 weeks Figure 2.9.1: Work Schedule. Appendix A Workflow Patterns: There are complex ways of flow splitting and joining of a business process. They are described below: Multiple choice: In multiple choice pattern flow is possible from one to all of the alternative paths simultaneously. It may allow zero paths chosen. Figure A.1: Multiple choice. Multiple Merge: It is the location where multiple paths merge together. It does not need any control of flow tokens. If there are multiple paths converging on an activity without any token control, it is possible that the activity will be instantiated one time for each of the paths that are merged (White et al.). Figure A.2: Multiple Merge. Discriminator: This type of pattern was generated from a parallel split pattern. It basically differs from synchronization; here the process will continue pass the discriminator location once the first token arrives. Figure A.3: Discriminator N out of M join: N out of M join pattern lies in between synchronization and discriminator. Instead of one or all of the incoming parallel tokens this type of pattern allows to define how many of the incoming tokens are required to continue. Figure A.4: N out of M joins. PART B: THEORATICAL ANALYSIS OF PROJECT PLAN 3.0 Introduction This report has been prepared to identify the deficiencies of current existing financial institutions and risks. It mostly focuses on banks that have undergone severe losses and tried to list out the barriers from IT point of view. Research has been carried out by collecting data from stressed banks and then based on them new business model is proposed. In the model, flow between the various sections also has been defined. This report outlines first background of project. It describes the project, organization type and its activity. Then, structure of project plan and then actual project steps are described. Finally, it is concluded with the applicability and scope of this work. 3.1 Project Background Hansen and Wernerfelt (1989) pointed out that organizational climate matters a lot for the growth of a company. It influences the overall performance and hence total revenue. Schneider et al. (1992) referred organizational climate as service climate. Employee awareness, procedure and behaviors that are expected, from customer service point of view are termed as service climate. Being an intangible resource, service climate is a group personified socially complex organizational resource. It has an impact on the customer service process performance. Thus first hypothesis which is regarding service climate is that, it is positively related to the performance of customer service process in customer service unit. Managerial IT is another intangible source that governs the processes of a company. Hypothesis 2: Managerial IT knowledge has direct relationship on the performance of that company's customer service process. Resource and manpower are two vital components of a business. Technology resources which are nothing but set of well known computing technologies and supposed to have a positive effect on performance of specific process should be compatible with the business process flow. In customer service network with agents, computer-telephony integration and web-enabled customer interaction are the technology resources which are used to support the customer service business model. Hence, they are recognized as valuable physical capital resources which are helpful for improving customer service performance. Based on the various studies reported another hypothesis can also be drawn like: Hypothesis 3: In the customer service process, technology resources will not be related to the performance of that process. One rule of thumb in business is, higher the investment, more is the profit as well as expected quality. Te above is not a universal statement, there are case failures. Two such incidents will be placed to verify the inconsistency of general rule of thumb. There may be the case of a worst performing Customer Service Company requiring additional investment. It means that here, investment and quality outcome are negatively correlated. Again, investment being tangible in customer service, they generate value and ultimately those investments will be found not to be a source of competitive advantage. Fourth and final hypothesis is as follows: Total investment in customer service business process will not be related to the industry process performance. Price Systems noticed the causes of project failures in industries. According to their study, poor management and usage of information are solely responsible for this degradation. The System took a group of professionals as a sample and tried to assess whether IT programs are budget realistic or not. Response is shown as chart in figure 3.1.1. Figure 3.1.1 (source: Price Systems) Only 18% of them were confident about the efficiency of IT, others were either no or in dilemma. It shows that there are some factors that are solely responsible for this under development. It includes Poor program management (61%), scope creep (54%), lack of proper baseline (43%) and late understanding of risk (37%). The suggested ways are Training, Defined risk management, fully coordinated initial baseline and program management tool etc. All these are directly or indirectly meaning to adoption of Information System in financial industries. Program managers are supposed to coordinate properly throughout the project execution. But, it is not going like this. The reasons for program managers failing to establish effective baseline are like, lack of training, lacking of ability or potential to perform function effectively, Unavailability of tools or data and, short project timelines. Upon studying qualitatively which of them are dominating hardly and to what extend figure 3.1.2 has been entertained. Figure 3.1.2 (source: Price Systems) Schedule management is supposed to be the most dominating one. Their study also includes the survey for the reasons lying behind the failure of project in financial industries. Figure 3.1.3 depicts this. Figure 3.1.3 (source: Price Systems) Though factors are enormous but, among the main issues lacking of personnel and proper technology dominates. Based on these findings Price Systems recommended some strategies to the agencies. They are: Provide effective training and also certification programs. For program affordability management assign adequate responsibility. Methodology for integrating project control, cost estimation and knowledge management into one single thread. Methodology for regularly scheduled, independent baseline reviews and, Use of reusable and knowledge based framework should be established. This project is restricted to only banking organizations. It has been seen that banking services are not being capable of utilizing the IT resources and as a result they are encountering loss either by project over-budget or project cancellation. So, one approach is made to assess this loss and refine the drawbacks by revolutionizing information system. 3.2 Structure of Project Plan Project is a work either theoretical or practical that starts from a research question or hypothesis and aimed to draw conclusion on this hypothesis based on the result(s) outcome. For one project to be completed efficiently researcher must think of the ways by which he should proceed and it is known as plan. Planning is the stage in between of setting research question and project execution. The main purpose of it is to set the direction of the work. It's the planning that decides whether project will be on right track or will go out of this. In this project planning is to determine the type of the financial institutions who will be taken under consideration for study and to set the steps of execution. Plan must be stable enough to give required outcome. From the sample size according to the institutions' risk factors they will be classified. After that, each of them will be tried to handle with the proposed model. 3.3 Project Plan Implementing IT in construction industry requires some means of measurement. Mcrea, 1970 demonstrated the difficulties of IT investment. Though advances in IT has made job of construction industry easier but, lot of difficulties are lying behind its implementation. Even some researchers' think that uses of evaluation technique using IT is more costly than the amount of return it generally gives (Andreson, 1999b). In an overall, a number of reasons were outlined by Farbey et al., 1992 like; making comparison of different projects effective and efficient, enabling learning process, making available a tool for research and proper justification of existing system. Table 4.1 depicts process based benefits that may arise from IT investment. From the purpose point of view they are basically divided into three classes: typical efficiency benefit, typical effectiveness benefits and typical performance benefits. Table 3.3.1: IT benefits Based on this benefits revealed from table, an evaluation framework has been proposed by Andreson et al., 2000. Figure 3.3.1: Framework of IT benefits measurement process. Before getting into detail identification of business case is necessary. It plays the main role for IT innovation and successful business exploitation. As revealed it is a closed loop with a feedback flow hence, it gives more stable output. The fit between the proposed model and actual business and information strategies are verified by second block. Issues regarding business strategies are being evaluated. The strategies defined and the flow between the working blocks is needed to be monitored by one responsible person or a group of persons which can overcome the barriers that might come into the picture during its execution. Model then envisions applying proper appraisal technique in order to calculate the predicted benefits. To make succeeding benefits available and measurement easy a documented benchmark is required which has been incorporated in fourth stage. Post innovation benefits evaluation must be undertaken into consideration and to allow learning within the organization feedback is employed. In an effective project total job is distributed among various departments and then they are joined by correct mapping method. By doing so, employees tasks like account tracking and interest forecasting can become easier and user friendly. As organizations vary in sizes and technological capabilities hence, it becomes difficult to manage project related information especially data about transactions Our proposed business process model is shown in figure 3.3.2. Flow starts with look up table selection. The main purpose of this block is to ascertain the knowledge about the type of bank- its size or volume, number of employees, existing technology that it uses etc. Main task will be given as input to this block. Depending upon the design criteria and company profile, look up table will select particular block among the various ones. Design will severely depend upon the number of items in the look up table. It is recommended to keep size of table very high for better result. Output of look up table is feed to bank processing unit where the actual processing will be done. High performance processor should be used for faster and accurate calculation. Application of information system into financial institutions has made the job of this block efficient. Finally, estimation is done with the help of ISA and IS. In order to make this approach user friendly, graphical user interface should be implemented and processed. Model must ensure that the design is robust to the environmental variation, meaning to say it should constantly update itself with the stock market and its value. If there is any certain change of inflation or deflation rate then IS should be able to track it. Of course model must be location specific. Different places have different market value. Market value is the total market price of a given quantity of goods. Feedback path is introduced to make the system more robust and stable. It will decide some special condition. Suppose one person has $1 million in his account but mistakenly customer is asking for $1.5 million; in that case account analyzer will check and communicate to the external world as invalid amount. To ensure the correctness of the business model that has been proposed, flow between the blocks should be defined properly. Accurate mapping is essential otherwise system incompatibility may come into the picture. The flowchart of the process flow is shown in figure 3.3.3. It is showing one particular case of transaction. In bank, other than direct transaction there are many such activities which need to be refined with information systems. The above is an example of transaction activity. Account analyzer will check the feasibility of the transaction and if it's possible then, it will be processed or otherwise, a message about the status of customer's account will be given. Through this IS time of work and their accuracy can be improved altogether. 4.0 Conclusion Price's investigation leads the researcher to think about the rectification in existing technology in most of the financial sectors. Increased customer excessively forced the banking system to go for automation. But, unless and until information is adequately resourced, all the effort may turn to flaw. Literature survey depicted that information is not getting utilized in the way it was actually expected during this information era. One business process model has been proposed that can be implemented in banking system. Model takes into account the size/volume of the company and design input. Size is also considered in the sense that process varies from bank to bank in accordance to their capacity. One example of transaction has been presented in flow diagrammatically. It checks whether customer is allowed to the required transaction or not. If, he does possess less than the amount he deserves then transaction will not be done and error report will be given to the concerned person. Hence, our proposed model can be utilized in industry information systems. 5.0 Recommendations In this research only limited number of constraints was undertaken. But, in order to make it a perfect and robust more number of factors need to be considered which can be treated as the future scope of this project. Also, IT should not only be limited to financial sectors. Other than that, construction industry, hospital and other engineering related fields also must be considered. References Andresen, J.L. (1999b). Evaluation of IT in the Danish Construction Industry. 3, Technical University of Denmark. Audyt Bankowsci Detalicznej 2003. Audit of retail banking 2003. Pentor Institute for Opinion and Market Research, Warsaw. Back, W.E., & Moreau, K.A. (2000). Cost and schedule impacts of information management on EPC process. Journal of Management in Engineering, 16(2), 59-70. Construct IT Centre for Excellence, (1997). A Health Check of the Strategic Exploitation of IT. Construct IT Centre of Excellence. University of Salford, Salford. UK. Farbey, B., Land, F., Targett, D. (1993). IT Investment: A Study of Methods and Practices. Published with Management Today and Butterworth-Heinemann, UK. Ginzberg, M.J., and Zmud, R.W. (1986). "Evolving Criteria for Information Systems Assessment." Proc., IFIP WG 8.2 Working Conf. on Information Systems Assessment, pp. 41-55. Hannah, N., Guy, K., & Arnold, E. (1995). The diffusion of information technology: experience of industrial countries and lessons for developing countries. World Bank Discussion Paper No. 281, Washington, D.C. Hansen, G. and, Wernerfelt, B. (1989). Determinants of Firm Performance: the Relative Importance of Economic and Organizational Factors. Strategic Management Journal. Winter Special Issue. 15: 63-84. Hirschheim, R., and Smithson, S. (1986). "A Critical Analysis of Information Systems Evaluation." Proc., IFIP WG 8.2 Working Conf. on in formation Systems Assessment, pp. 17-37. Hwang, Y., & Rine, D. (2006). Verification framework and algorithms for integrating information distribution systems. Information and Software Technology, 48, 876-889. Jung, Y., Chin, S., & Kim, K. (2004). Informatization index for the construction industry. Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering, 18(3), 267-276. Kluver, R. (2000). Globalization, informatization, and intercultural communication. American Communication Journal, 3(3). Retrieved January 19, 2007 from http://www.acjournal.org. Land, R. (2004). Understanding evolution of information systems by applying the general definition of information. 26th International Conference in Information Technology Interfaces ITI June 7-10, 2004, Cavtat, Croatia. Love, P.E.D., & Irani, Z. (2003). A project management quality cost information system for the construction industry. Information & Management, 40, 649-661. Love, P.E.D., & Irani, Z. (2001). Evaluation of IT costs in construction. Automation in Construction, 10, 649-658. Mcrea, T.W. (1970). The Evaluation of Investment in Computers, Abacus 6, 56-70 Miyatake, Y., & Kangari, R. (1993). Experiencing computer integrated construction. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 119(2), 307-322. Price Systems. A Cracked Foundation. A Critical Look at the Role of Baselining in Government IT Project Management. Ray, G., Barney, J. and, Muhanna, W. (2004). Capabilities, Business Processes, and competitive Advantage: Choosing the Dependent Variable in Empirical Tests of the Resource-Based View. Strategic Management Journal. 25. pp 23-37. Schneider, B., Wheeler, J., and Cox, J. (1992). A Passion for Service: Using Content Analysis to Explicate Service Climate Themes. Journal of Applied Psychology. 77(5). 705-716. Statistical Indicators Benchmarking the Information Society (SIBIS) data (2003). http://www.sibis-eu.org/ Teicholz, P., Fischer, M. (1994). Strategy for Computer Integrated Construction Technology. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management. Vol. 120. No.1. pp. 117-131. White, S. Process Modeling Notations and Workflow Patterns. IBM Corporation. US. Appendix B Significance of Flow Diagrams: This section describes the significance of the graphical objects used in different flows and the way of process flow. There are two ways of connecting objects: a flow, either sequence or message, and an association. Flow represents orthogonal aspects of the business processes depicted in a model. One particular feature of sequence flow is that it flows only in a single direction. Direction may be either in right or left whereas Message Flow flows at 90 from the Sequence Flow. Sequence flow and message flow can only be distinguished minutely after going through one example of business process. But, keeping the direction point in mind, their relationship for a diagram can be easily clarified. It's the designer who decides about the connection but, there is no such binding or constraint. Attributes generally associated with flows and association are Name, Source and Target. Name is the text description of the connecting object. It is optional that means usage of it depends on designer. Attribute source recognizes the source of connection. Its main purpose is to determine the flow object that the connecting object is connected from. The last attribute is target one which tells about the destination. Unlike source, it identifies which flow object the connecting object is connected to. It should be mentioned that source and target have no constraint regarding what objects sequence flow and message flow can connect. A short view of connecting objects: their representation and usage is given below: Sequence Flow: In a process the order or sequence is shown by this flow. By this sequence the activities are supposed to be performed. This is represented by a straight line with arrow head which is to be drawn with solid single line as shown in figure B.1. Figure B.1 There are certain rules for color, text and size in a diagram. Additional information is displayed by text annotation objects. Text is used for giving name to the flow as an identifier. Flow and flow objects have labels or identification by name which can be placed inside the box, above or below the shape. Graphical elements use white color or clear for representation. Flexibility is kept for the notations to have any color that suits most to the purpose of modeler. Likewise color, size of the flow objects and markers also has suppleness that fits most with the goal of modeler or modeling tool. Lines used in graphical work are preferably kept black in order to ensure correct visibility. Business process model does not the term control flow independently. The start of an activity is controlled by both sequence flow as well as message flow. Sequence flow is the order of activities and message flow is nothing but message arriving. Activity starting is also controlled by scheduled resources. As, sequence flow may consist of conditional expression attribute. This is the reason that condition is evaluated before the generation of token. Usually decision gateways incorporate the conditions. Mini diamond is sued when the sequence flow is an activity instead of gateway. Diamond is placed at the beginning of flow. Figure B.2 shows the form of mini diamond. Figure B.2 Its job is to communicate the behavior with gateway that can be used to control the flow in a process. Figure B.3 Figure B.3 is a default sequence flow. It is represented by a backslash near the beginning of the line. Message Flow: Whenever two entities are in a state of sending and receiving messages then the flow becomes message flow. There must be two entities as because single one does not need any sharing of ideas as well communication. It connects two pools, either to the pools themselves or to flow objects within the pools. It can't have objects from same pool. Figure B.4 Figure B.4 depicts the message flow. It will be clearer if one real life example can be presented. Let 'X' is a manufacturing company that basically aims to fabricate Integrated Circuit (IC). For the company to be run smoothly it need approximately 10 million dollars of money for compensating variable costs. As a whole it's impossible for 'X' to invest such a huge amount. Though it can but it won't try to do so for maintaining overall company's GDP at steady and good level. So, it needs help from financial institutions. Company will request for credit to the financial institution. As an acknowledgement finance company will response. All these effects come under message flow (figure B.5). Figure B.5: Message flow connecting boundaries of two pools. In order to associate information and artifacts with flow objects Association is used. Its job is to show the functionalities used for compensating for an activity. It is represented as single dotted back line. a) Simple b) Directional Figure B.6: Association A directional association is used to show that a data object is either an input to or an output from an activity. Often, association is used to connect user-defined text with flow object. Figure B.7 is giving an idea of association of text annotation. Figure B.7 These flow types can be used in any business process model to define the connection among different fragmented sections and connection rule between them. Read More