America is in trouble, there is no doubt about it. Here is perhaps the best proof: We are now experiencing the first generation in our history in which children will reach adulthood in a poorer economic climate than thatenjoyed by their parents.

"The first half of the book presents an overall business process improvement model, with the ensuing chapters dealing with topics of understanding and modeling your current business processes, using performance measurement in improvement work, creating a business process improvement road map, and organizing for improvement work. The second half of the book presents the overall toolbox, followed by one chapter for each phase of the overall improvement model. For each of these phases, a selection of suitable tools is presented with background, steps for how to use them, and an example of their use. The final two chapters contain two more extensive case studies illustrating the use of the full methodology.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Business Process Management, BPM 2007, held in Brisbane, Australia, in September 2007. The papers are organized in topical sections on business process maturity and performance, business process modeling, case studies, compliance and change, process configuration and execution, formal foundations of BPM, business process mining, and semantic issues in BPM.

Business Process Management (BPM) has become one of the most widely used approaches for the design of modern organizational and information systems. The conscious treatment of business processes as significant corporate assets has facilitated substantial improvements in organizational performance but is also used to ensure the conformance of corporate activities. This Handbook presents in two volumes the contemporary body of knowledge as articulated by the world's leading BPM thought leaders. This second volume focuses on the managerial and organizational challenges of Business Process Management such as strategic and cultural alignment, governance and the education of BPM stakeholders. As such, this book provides concepts and methodologies for the integration of BPM. Each chapter has been contributed by leading international experts. Selected case studies complement their views and lead to a summary of BPM expertise that is unique in its coverage of the most critical success factors of BPM.

Process Improvement Simplified is written for leaders and managers of organizations or enterprises who: Are struggling with their organization’s success Are not satisfied with the current state Are striving to be number one Have heard about the negatives or positives of process improvement (PI) but have never implemented it But PI is not a panacea; it takes leadership commitment and involvement, plus organizational behavior modification so that PI becomes a disciplined way of life. It entails hard work through dealing with nitty-gritty details. PI is not just a problem-solving methodology or another quality control tool. In fact, it is not a quality improvement tool like statistical process control or Six Sigma. It is a systematic approach to focus, measure, and redesign a critical process of any organization in order to reduce waste and achieve breakthrough improvement for that process. In this approach, personnel from other functions within the organization will be involved to ensure that the needs of customers and suppliers of the process are correctly reflected and supported. This is a how-to book with simple examples. A step-by-step method of implementing PI is presented using the example of running a restaurant business.

“ ... the enterprise of today has changed ... wherever you sit in this new corporation ... Srinivasan gives us a practical and provocative guide for rethinking our business process ... calling us all to action around rapid development of our old, hierarchical structures into flexible customer centric competitive force .... A must read for today’s business leader.” Mark Nunnelly, Executive Director, MassIT, Commonwealth of Massachusetts and Managing Director, Bain Capital “’Efficiency,’ ‘agile,’ and ‘analytics’ used to be the rage. Venkat Srinivasan explains in this provocative book why organizations can no longer afford to stop there. They need to move beyond – to be ‘intelligent.’ It isn’t just theory. He’s done it.” Bharat Anand, Henry R. Byers Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School In the era of big data and automation, the book presents a cutting-edge approach to how enterprises should organize and function. Striking a practical balance between theory and practice, The Intelligent Enterprise in the Era of Big Data presents the enterprise architecture that identifies the power of the emerging technology environment. Beginning with an introduction to the key challenges that enterprises face, the book systematically outlines modern enterprise architecture through a detailed discussion of the inseparable elements of such architecture: efficiency, flexibility, and intelligence. This architecture enables rapid responses to market needs by sensing important developments in internal and external environments in real time. Illustrating all of these elements in an integrated fashion, The Intelligent Enterprise in the Era of Big Data also features: • A detailed discussion on issues of time-to-market and flexibility with respect to enterprise application technology • Novel analyses illustrated through extensive real-world case studies to help readers better understand the applicability of the architecture and concepts • Various applications of natural language processing to real-world business transactions • Practical approaches for designing and building intelligent enterprises The Intelligent Enterprise in the Era of Big Data is an appropriate reference for business executives, information technology professionals, data scientists, and management consultants. The book is also an excellent supplementary textbook for upper-undergraduate and graduate-level courses in business intelligence, data mining, big data, and business process automation. “a compelling vision of the next generation of organization—the intelligent enterprise—which will leverage not just big data but also unstructured text and artificial intelligence to optimize internal processes in real time ... a must-read book for CEOs and CTOs in all industries.” Ravi Ramamurti, D”Amore-McKim Distinguished Professor of International Business and Strategy, and Director, Center for Emerging Markets, Northeastern University “It is about the brave new world that narrows the gap between technology and business .... The book has practical advice from a thoughtful practitioner. Intelligent automation will be a competitive strength in the future. Will your company be ready?” Victor J. Menezes, Retired Senior Vice Chairman, Citigroup Venkat Srinivasan, PhD, is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of RAGE Frameworks, Inc., which supports the creation of intelligent business process automation solutions and cognitive intelligence solutions for global corporations. He is an entrepreneur and holds several patents in the area of knowledge-based technology architectures. He is t

Unlike other books that promote a specific process and performance improvement discipline, this book shows organizations how to achieve success by fixing basic operational issues and problems using a broad and wide-sweeping process-based toolkit. In addition, it helps individuals who have worked in stale- or siloed-thinking enterprises make the tra

A fine blend of the three disciplines, viz. quality, reliability and maintainability, this book provides a clear understanding of the concepts and discusses their applications using statistical tools and techniques. The concepts are critically assessed and explained to enable their use for management decision-making. The book describes many current topics such as six sigma, capability maturity model integration (CMMI), process data management, reliability system models, repairable system models, maintainability assessment and design and testing concepts. It is intended as a textbook for the undergraduate students of Mechanical Engineering and Production and Industrial Engineering. The book will also be useful to the postgraduate students of Applied Statistics, Quality and Reliability, and Quality and Productivity Management as well as to the management and engineering professionals. KEY FEATURES : Provides charts and plots to explain the concepts discussed. Gives an account of most recent developments. Gives illustrations of practical situations where tools can be applied immediately. Interspersed with plenty of worked-out examples to reinforce the concepts. Includes chapter-end exercises to drill the students in self-study.