The Merits of Automating Business Processes - Essay Example

3.0 Methodology The literature review in this paper presents undoubtedly the merits of automating business processes. The concept of Business Process Management (BPM) has been implemented by various corporations to eliminate the constraints that normally occur in manual operations. More importantly, cost-efficiency, higher productivity and profitability are usually the motivating factors that encourage automation in many companies (Allen, 2001; Concoran et al., 2010). The research technique to be used for this study is quantitative methodology. This entails collecting appropriate data that would demonstrate the significance of automation as a quality enhancer and a transferrable idea that could help organizations to speed up their activities while aiming for optimum performance and productivity (Atkins, 2001; Domingue and Pedrinaci, 2009). To understand how effective the phenomenon of automation is, it is imperative to design this research in a way that the applicable variables are tested and the right participants are investigated in order to come up with useful statistical presentation. The purpose of this is to reveal the fact that automation works perfectly when all the component structures are properly aligned in its implementation (Comuzzi and Pernici, 2009). 2 3.1 Sample The participants to be investigated for this research would be employees of the target organization who are in charge of the organization’s IT Department, Manufacturing Department, and Accounts Department. The number of participants from each Department will be ten (n=10); hence, the total number of employers to be engaged in the entire research would be 30 (N=30). The employees would be chosen at random to avoid prejudicial selection so as to get fair results. The conditions for participation would be that each chosen employee has worked for the organization for a minimum of 5 years and have noticed drastic improvements in the organization’s performance owing to the automation of the operations at the organization. Variables The most important variables this research would test include the following merits of automation: Optimum Performance Ratio:- This will be measured by comparing the percentages of performance before and after automation. The percentage of performance can be estimated from the responses participants would provide to the questionnaires. Cost-efficiency Ratio:- This is why the Accounts Department employees are included as participants in this research so that they could give the extent of cost of operation before and after the automation. 3 Comparative Speed of Operation:- The employees at the IT and Manufacturing Departments would be expected to supply the needed information about the relative speed of operation at the organization before and after the implementation of automation. 3.2 Instruments The major instrument that would be used for this study is an open questionnaire which would contain important questions the chosen employees of the organization must provide responses to. The advantage of an open questionnaire is that applicants would not be provided with any response option: they would be required to supply response to each question as they deem fit. Other applicable information about the organization’s operations would be garnered from the Annual Report of the organization. 3.3 Research Design Each open questionnaire would contain ten questions. And unlike closed questionnaire, the participants are free to supply any response they deem appropriate to the questions. A sample of the ten questions is given as follows: (i) What does the operations at your organization look like before some or all of the processes were automated? Please comment about the speed, cost and performance of operations. (ii) And what does the operations look like after automation? Please also comment on the speed, cost and performance of operations. 4 (iii) Which areas are mostly improved through the implementation of automation procedures? (iv) How about the quality of production or manufacturing at your organization? (v) Does your organization have a maintenance program that would constantly guarantee that the automation is undisturbed? (vi) How has the automation process enhanced human performance in your organization? (vii) How long can the automation remain effective? But if it fails, which areas of your organization’s operations would be immediately affected? (viii) Has there ever been any friction in the collaboration between human operations and software applications? That is, has the automation in your organization ever faced human opposition? (ix) How much do you understand the usefulness of automation in an organization? (x) How would you describe your personal development owing to the implementation of automation process? 3.4 Statistical Design The responses provided by the participants on the questionnaires would be presented in a statistical method for easy interpretation. First of all, all the results would be tabulated based on the categories of factors they want to highlight: For examples, cost-efficiency, 5 optimum performance and comparative speed of operation. Since it could be not guaranteed that each response provided by the participants would be error-free, it is imperative that the data is calculated in percentages and averages. Bar chart, pie chart and pictographs would be used to present the data in a more understandable manner. 3.5 Ethical Considerations Some of these ethical considerations would be given to the confidentiality of the primary data obtained from the participants. As a result of this, only the necessary parts of the primary data would be revealed for analytic purpose, confidential data and statistics would be kept strictly confidential, as required by the organization’s protocol for information retrieval and processing. Also, since the researcher is not directly linked to the information system department of the organization, it would be difficult to ascertain that all the information collected for the analysis in this paper duly represent the policies of the organization—even though they, to some extent, represent the practices at the organization. 6 References Allen, T. (2011). Improve Your Business Processes for ERP Efficiency. Strategic Finance, 92(11), 54-59. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. Atkins, J. (2011). Networks turn to self-help [PDF]. Retrieved from doi: 10.1049/et.2011. Comuzzi, M., and Pernici, B. (2009). A Framework for QoS-Based Web Service Contracting [PDF]. Retrieved from doi: 10.1145/1541822.1541825 Corcoran, K., Vogtman, M., & Nash, N. (Deloitte Consulting, Technology, Strategy and Architecture). (2010). Improving Services and Transparency in EmergingGovernments through Business Process Automation [PDF]. Retrieved from http://doi.acm.org.dml.regis.edu/10.1145/1930321.1930399j Domingue, J., and Pedrinaci, C. (2009). Ontology-based metrics computation for business process analysis [PDF]. Retrieved from doi: 10.1145/1944968.1944976 Read More