UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS: 2019/2020
EXAMINATION FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN
DATA ANALYTICS / INFORMATION SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT
MDA 5201/ MISM 5201: BUSINESS PROCESS MODELLING
SECTION 2: OPEN-BOOK EXAMINATION
DATE: MAY, 2020 TIME: 6 HOURS
INSTRUCTIONS: Answer ALL Questions
QUESTION ONE [15 MARKS]
Consider the following process scenario:
In order to apply for admission, students first fill in an online form. Online applications are recorded in an
information system to which all staff members involved in the admissions process have access to. After a
student has submitted the online form, a PDF document is generated and the student is requested to
download it, sign it, and send it by post together with the required documents, which include:
• Certified copies of previous degree and academic transcripts.
• Results of English language test.
• Curriculum vitae.
When these documents are received by the admissions office, an officer checks the completeness of the
documents. If any document is missing, an e-mail is sent to the student. The student has to send the
missing documents by post. Assuming the application is complete, the admissions office sends the
certified copies of the degrees to an academic recognition agency, which checks the degrees and gives an
assessment of their validity and equivalence in terms of local education standards. This agency requires
that all documents be sent to it by post, and all documents must be certified copies of the originals. The
agency sends back its assessment to the university by post as well. Assuming the degree verification is
successful, the English language test results are then checked online by an officer at the admissions office.
If the validity of the English language test results cannot be verified, the application is rejected (such
notifications of rejection are sent by e-mail).
Once all documents of a given student have been validated, the admission office forwards these
documents by internal mail to the corresponding academic committee responsible for deciding whether to
offer admission or not. The committee makes its decision based on the academic transcripts and the CV.
The committee meets once every 2 to 3 weeks and examines all applications that are ready for academic
assessment at the time of the meeting.
At the end of the committee meeting, the chair of the committee notifies the admissions office of the
selection outcomes. This notification includes a list of admitted and rejected candidates. A few days later,
the admission office notifies the outcome to each candidate via e-mail. Additionally, successful
candidates are sent a confirmation letter by post.
With respect to the above process, consider the following questions:
a) What value does the process deliver to its customer(s)? (1 Mark)
b) What are the possible outcomes of this process? (2 Marks)
c) Draw the current process structure (Hint, can use Bizagi desktop or mobile app) (3 Marks)
d) Taking the perspective of the customer, what performance measures can be attached to this
process? (2 Marks)
e) What potential issues do you foresee this process might have? What information would you
need to collect in order to analyze these issues? (3 Marks)
f) What possible changes do you think could be made to this process in order to address the
above issues? Discuss in detail. (2 Marks)
g) In what ways can the process be automated? (2 Marks)
QUESTION TWO [15 MARKS]
The following are some key redesign heuristics associated with business processes or process
tasks:
• Task elimination
• Task composition
• Communication optimization
• Resequencing
• Automation
Using an appropriate case scenario, discuss the following:
a) How each heuristic could be applied to improve in redesigning a process and cite the process
performance measures that would be affected by the redesign (both positively and
negatively). (10 Marks)
b) Explain in detail how you would conduct root-cause analysis for a process. (5 Marks)
