Proposed in the thesis is a systematic approach to converting process description documents (PDD), which represent To-Be-Process, into a set of executable workflow models (EWM). Recently, the focus of product development management has been changed from product-data centered to process centered. For example, it is mandatory for automotive suppliers to manage their product development process explicitly to meet quality-systems requirements such as ISOx and QS9000. Thus, many companies are introducing workflow-based BPMS (business process management systems) to manage and improve their business processes. The most time-consuming phase of building a BPMS is to convert existing PDD into EWM, mainly because there are no systematic methods or tools to be used for the conversion.
In this thesis, we propose a systematic conversion method consisting of three phases: To-Be-Process inspection phase, Structuring phase, and Pattern-generation phase. As a vehicle to convert given PDD into EWM, the well-known enterprise modeling tool ARIS was adapted. The proposed method has been applied to a new product development process of automotive suppliers in order to demonstrate its validity and usefulness. The proposed method, which is expected to be a useful tool for BPMS designers in creating efficient workflow models when building a product development BPMS, can also be used for other ad-hoc business processes.
