Developing Business Process Modelling and Simulation for the Digital Age (RDF17/BAM/DAMIJ)

The process centred view of organization management was first introduced by Hammer and Champy (1993) in their seminal work on business process reengineering. Business process modelling and consequently business process simulation has since been practiced and investigated in academia as well as the business sector aiming to gain deeper insights into work processes and organisations, and therefore improving organisations’ performance via process improvement. As a result, a large number of process models have been developed as well as tools that support their design. In other words they try to capture “who does what, where and when”.

Despite their obvious benefits, traditional process modelling approaches are no longer able to produce required support to organisations to efficiently deal with ever changing environments and the swiftness of change. Nowadays, businesses around the world undergo tremendous changes as a response to the changes in the environment. These changes are (among others) a result of globalization, differences in the customers’ behaviour patterns, increased competition and the dawn of the new technologies, especially Digital. Business process modelling and business process simulation, as techniques aiding decision-making, need to take into account the factors mentioned above. Changes happen increasingly fast not only because of the technology, but also because of rapid cultural changes. More and more business processes are actually carried out on the move with the extensive use of modern ICT tools. Traditional businesses' reliance on documents, forms, and even emails is being suppressed by the necessity of being “always online”. More and more business people instead of having numerous data sources and going through lots of text prefer to have the information and knowledge at their fingertips.

The project will start with an examination of traditional approaches to business processes and business process management characterised by very document-centric, and to some degree bureaucratic, routines that are slow to react to business needs. Based on this, a conceptual model will be built that will not only incorporate the values of traditional approaches to business process management and simulation, but more importantly integrate them with cloud based concepts, multimethodology approaches and digital business in an agile environment. It is necessary for practitioners utilising business process modelling and business process simulation to be able to adjust their practices to embrace the changing nature of the business environment.

The successful applicant will work within the NBS Digital Business research signature area, and will demonstrate an understanding of at least one of the key areas, i.e. business process development, process simulation and process management with a strong background in IT or computer science to tackle cloud based, Digital and agile concepts; and a willingness to investigate across those areas. An ability to conduct research that analyses the linkages between different actors and institutions operating at multiple scales will also be critical to the successful completion of the project.

Eligibility and How to Apply
Please note eligibility requirement:
• Academic excellence of the proposed student i.e. 2:1 (or equivalent GPA from non-UK universities [preference for 1st class honours]); or a Masters (preference for Merit or above); or APEL evidence of substantial practitioner achievement.
• Appropriate IELTS score, if required (evidence required by 1 August 2017).

For further details of how to apply, entry requirements and the application form, see
https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/research/postgraduate-research-degrees/how-to-apply/

Please ensure you quote the advert reference above on your application form.
Deadline for applications: 20 January 2017
Start Date: 2 October 2017

Northumbria University is an equal opportunities provider and in welcoming applications for studentships from all sectors of the community we strongly encourage applications from women and under-represented groups.