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Model to measure the effect of the The effect of

the integration
integration of information in of information

business processes. Example:

bidding process for an industry 81
Claudia Yadira Rodr
ıguez-Rios and Jorge Enrique Roa-S
anchez Received 27 September 2020
Ingenier
ıa Industrial, Escuela Colombiana de Ingenier
ıa Julio Garavito, Revised 9 February 2021
20 May 2021
Bogot
a, Colombia 25 August 2021
Accepted 20 September 2021

Abstract
Purpose – The main contribution of the research is to propose a quantitative model based on indicators
designed by the authors, to measure the effect on the performance of the process caused by an improvement in
the integration of information.
Design/methodology/approach – It is a descriptive and exploratory investigation, immersed in a case
study; the bidding process was selected by senior management due to the high complexity and impact of this
process on the organization. The protocol for carrying out the study involved interviews with the owner of the
process and all the officials involved, as sources of information, inputs to model in BPMN2.0 at the activity level
and a statistical validation of the model was carried out, to sustain an acceptable confidence of the same.
Findings – Among the most outstanding results of the research are that the effects of the improvements or
changes in the activities were reflected or evidenced in subsequent activities, not in the immediate ones or in
which the improvement is applied. This confirms the theorization of the systemic approach to processes since
the effects of the improvements are not close to their application.
Research limitations/implications – For the proposed model, it was evident that the measurement of the
efficiency and quality dimensions of the process activities required verification in transactional databases
where nonconformities and nonquality costs related to orders are recorded.
Originality/value – In the reviewed literature, there are no models or reference frameworks that
quantitatively measure the effects of the integration of information on the performance of processes.
Keywords Enterprise architecture, Business architecture, Integration of information,
Improvement of business processes, Bidding process, Quantitative models
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
The business architecture (BA) emerges as a methodology to achieve an alignment of the
business strategy with the IT strategy. “The Business Architecture offers a powerful
methodology that allows managers not only to formalize the management of the company’s
business activities but also to integrate information technologies through information
architecture to optimize business processes, improve efficiency and information security as
well as gain competitive advantages in the knowledge and technology economy” (Luftman,
2001; Violinov, 2016). The components of BA are business, information, application and
technology architectures where your most important skill is the ability to understand the
direction of the business, its strategy, as well as stakeholder expectations (Hornford et al.,
2011; Iyamu et al., 2016).
Closely related to business processes is the concept of business process management
(BPM), which is an integrated management system based on processes where management is
understood as the administration of a company, the fact that it is integrated indicates that it
Business Process Management
unites management, systems and processes in a complete structure and allows working as a Journal
single unit towards the same objectives. For this reason, the planning of a company is no Vol. 28 No. 1, 2022
pp. 81-112
longer limited to defining projects, but it goes as far as defining the processes © Emerald Publishing Limited
1463-7154
(Rodr
ıguez, 2015). DOI 10.1108/BPMJ-09-2020-0432
BPMJ Then, the BPM begins when the company’s strategy is determined and joins with the day-
28,1 to-day operation through the processes. The BPM covers processes, people and information
technologies. BPM-based solutions are part of the application architecture. The BA supports
government and the implementation of business capabilities such as the BPM (Hornford
et al., 2011).
Integrating information is an action derived from an even broader concept, known as
information management. “Managing information can be synthesized in the task of
82 providing the right information to the right person at the right time and in the right place”
(Unesco, 1992). These tasks should be applied without exception to all business processes,
which have interference in activities directly related to the provision of the service or
manufacturing of the product. Therefore, it is vitally important to know or determine to what
extent the information needs of the business process are being met.
Figure 1 illustrates the hierarchy of architectures, highlighting business processes, as a
component of BA.
According to the above and that the bidding process in the industrial sector has various
complexities that distinguish it from other bidding processes and in general from other
business processes since the offers from the industrial sector include a component for
estimating the costs of raw materials to be transformed and/or semi-finished products to be
assembled, as well as for the incorporation of efficient costs during the manufacturing cycle
and offer delivery in a short time, in order to achieve a competitive offer (Buzby et al., 2002).
The research investigation proposes a quantitative model to measure the effect of improving
the integration of information, in the performance of the processes.
The structure of this article was organized with the following content: the second section
has the background; the third section establishes the methodology used, with a description of
the data source and the measures; the fourth section presents data analysis and results and

Business
strategy

Business architecture • Business process

• Ac vity of the process

• Informa on en es
Informa on architecture • A ributes of the en es

Applica ons architecture

Figure 1.
Architecture domains, Infrastructure architecture
which will apply on
the model
finally, the fifth section presents the main implications of the findings, the conclusions, The effect of
followed by the limitations of the study and future work. the integration
of information
2. Background
The model to measure the effect of the integration of information that considers the intrinsic
aspects as well as the true usefulness and the degree of accessibility of the information to
effectively execute the activity of the business process (Ofner et al., 2012), in business 83
processes has the following characteristics.
(1) The performance of business processes and the integration of information are
concepts that in themselves by their definition are not measurable or observable.
(2) The main contribution of the research is based on finding measurable and observable
variables that represent these abstract concepts.
(3) The main findings of the literature review and its application highlight that the
analysis of the process performance, as well as the integration of the information
require a multidimensional approach.
(4) The model aims to explore the dependency relationships between information
integration and process performance.
(5) These dependency relationships require a simultaneous analysis between the
variables that represent the cause (information integration) and the effect on each of
the process performance variables. This is because these dependency relationships
can be strong, weak or null.
For the construction of the model, the following assumptions are made:
(1) The relationship between information integration and process performance is causal
and unidirectional.
(2) The integration of the information is considered successful if it is supplied with the
right information, to the right person and in the right place, at the right time and in the
right way.
The document presents a background review to refer to previous research, related in Table 1,
on similar models that sought to examine the impact of variables on process performance.

2.1 Dimensions and performance indicators of a process

A conclusion of the literature review is that the preferred approach to the analysis of the
performance of business processes is the measurement of the dimensions of time, cost,
flexibility and quality represented graphically in the Devil quadrilateral (Brand and Van der
Kolk, 1995). However, Van Loo and Shafagatova (2016) relate some indicators that do not fall
within this classification (Van Looy and Shafagatova, 2016). This set of indicators is grouped
with the term of overall performance of the process that is directly related to the purpose of
the process (Van Looy and Shafagatova, 2016).
Depending on the context in which it is analyzed, the term of effectiveness may have different
considerations. For example, in quality management, the efficacy, “extension in which the
planned activities are carried out and the planned results are achieved” (ICONTEC, 2005) and
efficiency, “relationship between the result achieved and the resources used” (ICONTEC, 2005).
Therefore, the efficiency of the business process is related to the volume of orders,
processed requests that are directly impacting the business result such as: the level of sales,
the level of inventory, the number of returns of defective product, etc. The evolution of the
BPMJ Article
28,1
Architecture-based change impact
analysis in information systems and
business processes
Business process performance
84 measurement: a structured literature
review of indicators, measures and
metrics
Fundamentals of business process
management (First)
Information flows and business process
integration
Best practices in business process
redesign: use and impact
Simulation for business processes and
information systems design
Table 1.
Background Source(s): The authors
Author and date Analysis
Rostami et al. Simulation model
(2017) Simplistic view of performance: only time
is considered
High complexity for your application
Van Looy and Through the book, some important
Shafagatova (2016) indicators were established to measure the
performance of business processes
Dumas et al. (2013) Through the book, some concepts about
BA and business processes were
established
Berente et al. (2009) In this research, the process flows give
through the inputs and outputs of the
process activities. Likewise, it was
concluded that the information
transformation activities needed to be
considered, since the content of that
information participates in the
improvement of processes. In addition, the
identified principles referring to
information flows in a business process
(accessibility, timeliness, transparency
and granularity) encompass a collectively
exhaustive vision to observe the
integration of the process
Limam and Reijers Empirical model
(2007) It does not contemplate the integration of
information
Theories could not be verified
Paul and Serrano Simulation model
(2003) Excessive attention in the aspects of
information systems
Qualitative results

Devil’s quadrature model to a pentagon is proposed, as shown in Figure 2 to answer the

question: how well is the process achieving business objectives?
2.2 Dimensions of performance of process activity level
The sequence of activities that make up a business process requires different inputs to
achieve planned by-products in the process design. Berente et al. (2009) found that these
Time

Effectiveness Cost

Figure 2. Flexibility Quality

Pentagon of business
process performance
Source(s): Adaptation of the Devil quadrature model
inputs and outputs of activities in 90% of cases are information flows (Berente et al., 2009). The effect of
Therefore, to determine the effect of the integration of information in business processes, it is the integration
necessary to analyze the process at the activity level. This approach coincides with the
necessary steps for the construction of data architecture in organizations where their
of information
relationship with the business architecture must be clearly established and extension with its
functions, processes and activities (Hornford et al., 2011).
Decision-making regarding the redesign of a business process should be based solely on
clear and quantifiable evidence that they are not achieving the planned objectives when the 85
activities are executed as planned. The flexibility, efficiency, quality, time and cost and
quality of an activity impact the overall performance of the process, so it is pertinent to design
a set of indicators at the activity level.
For the offer and bidding process, the time and cost of processing an application
corresponds to the aggregation of the time and cost of the process activities. The effectiveness
of an activity is the extent to which its execution can be considered to achieve the planned
impact. In terms of resources, the activity is justified; if in terms of impact, the cost justifies it.
The effectiveness of an activity is given by the degree to which the objectives set forth in its
design were met (OIT, 2011). For the study, the effectiveness of the activity is evaluated by
senior management, such as the ability to appropriately budget the costs of the offers in order
to achieve the planned margin or utility; an activity is considered ineffective by the
organization when it is the root cause of cost overruns in the final product. The cost overruns
due to the poor execution of the offer are registered in the database of nonconformities that
was identified as a source of information.
An activity required by quality management is the planning and documentation of the
processes involved in the manufacture of the product or service (ISO, 2015). For the study, the
evaluation of the quality of the activities is determined when it is considered as the causative
activity or root cause of the nonconformities of the offer and bidding process.
Nonconformities are recorded in the database of nonconformities.
Flexibility in general can be defined as the ability to react to changes. For purposes of the
analysis of flexibility at the level of activities, the trigger for the change that tests flexibility is
the changes in the requirements of the requests, instances or orders that are addressed in the
business process. In these events, the reprocesses are normal, that is, to execute several times
the same activity for the same order, due to the changes in the requests or orders to be
processed. The process owner in the reprocess database registers reprocesses.

2.3 Performance indicators at activity level

According to the dimensions indicated above, the activity performance indicators are
presented in Table 2:

2.4 Dimensions and indicators for measuring information integration

The literature review highlights that the degree to which the information is correct should not
only cover its intrinsic aspects such as being correct, being complete or being consistent
among others. The information must be appropriate for the context, or in this case to execute
the activity in an efficient, flexible, quality, timely manner and at the lowest possible cost.
Furthermore of Stausberg (2015) are about 34 properties related to the quality of the
information, so it is necessary in some way to group the properties described in the literature
in accordance with the dimensions approach, in this case of information integration
(Stausberg et al., 2015).
Therefore, the grouping of the terms defined in the literature is proposed, applying as
criteria:
(1) Similarity or antagonism.
 86
28,1
BPMJ

Table 2.

proposed model
of the activities for the
Performance indicators
Rating scale
Dimension Indicator Formula Low 5 1 Medium 5 3 High 5 5

Effectiveness Activity Activity participation level in the Ineffective activity: the Moderately effective activity: Highly effective activity
efficiency root cause analysis of product activity is the root cause of the activity shares the root Activity is not the root cause
cost overruns cost overruns in the final cause with other activities of cost overruns
product
Time Activity time Reported activity time/Planned Reported time/Planned time Reported time/Planned time Reported activity time/
activity time ≤0.5 ≤1.5 Y Reported time/Planned Planned activity time > 1.5
time> 0.5
Cost Activity cost Relative cost of the Relative cost ≤0.5 Relative cost ≤1.5 Y Relative Relative cost > 1.5
activity 5 activity time [min] * cost > 0.5
rate [$/min]/Planned time [min] *
rate [$/mi]
Quality Conformity of Conformity assessment of the Non-conforming activity: root Moderately compliant activity: Conforming activity: the
the activity activity cause of nonconformance to participate in the root cause of activity does not cause
the process the nonconformance to the nonconformities to the
process process
Flexibility Activity Number of times the activity is Inflexible activity: If number Moderately flexible activity: If Flexible flexibility: If
flexibility executed for the same order of times 5 1 the number of times 5 2 number of times > 2
Source(s): The authors
 (2) Definition of the term according to widely recognized frames of reference (ISACA, The effect of
2013; ISO/IEC, 2017). the integration
(3) Property exclusion. The proposed model places special emphasis on the business of information
architecture at the level of processes and activities, as well as the information
architecture at the entity level. Therefore, properties such as portability,
recoverability and others dependent on information systems are excluded because
they belong to the domain of the application architecture. This is not exclusive to the 87
value that gives the BPISS information systems model since the proposed model
covers information flows and evaluating their validity opportunity but without
delving into the transmission method.
With the above criteria, a summary is constructed in Table 3, with their definitions.
Information precision: A useful simile that allows to define the accuracy of the information
is the concept of metrology, in which, the smaller the dispersion of the measurement data, the
greater its degree of precision. The consistency or inconsistency of the information
determined from two different states. Other related properties such as concordance,
completeness or consistency of format contribute to the accuracy of the information.
Information availability: The availability of information is a property that contributes
directly to the integration of information. Having the information at the right time has a direct
impact on the execution time of the process. In fact, according to the information entity flow
model at the activity level, it is evident that if an entity is not available in a timely manner, it
makes the activity unable to be executed, generating a time waiting since it is not possible to
continue with the next activity. Availability is considered the extent to which information is
available when required.
The measurement of the accessibility of information is aimed at evaluating that the correct
information is delivered to the right people. For this purpose, the logical and operational
accessibility is evaluated; the operative is verified as the degree of automation to retrieve the
information entities at process execution time. Automated queries of entities at runtime have
the highest level of accessibility in contrast to those information entities in which it is
necessary to make several queries in information systems or repositories of the organization
to retrieve them.
The other type of accessibility to verify is the logical accessibility that refers to compliance
with restricted information policies or exclusive internal use within the organization, as well
as compliance with information accessibility policies only to the required persons. For this
evaluation, the evaluation of the existence of authentication and verification of read/write
privileges was used as criteria.
Information validity: The validity of the information must do directly with it being
updated according to the agreements between internal processes, which ensures that the
latest version information entities are always used. In general, the lack of validity of
information entities can cause delays in the process, operational errors or decision-making

Group Dimensions

1. Precision Accurate, consistent, inconsistent, concordant, complete, incomplete, comprehensive and

understandable
2. Available Available, accessible, punctual, confidential, actionable (efficiently) and understandable Table 3.
3. Valid Valid, updated and contextual Grouping of
4. Accuracy Exact, correct and incorrect information
5. Reliable Reliable, credible, agreed, reputed and credible integration dimensions
Source(s): The authors for the proposed model
BPMJ based on outdated information. If, despite the volatility of an entity, the changes are recorded
28,1 and reported increasing their reliability, the guarantee of validity ensures that despite the
human intervention of a business process, no obsolete entity is available for use at runtime
with or without verification of its reliability.
Accuracy of the information: For the information quality criteria, the accuracy of the
information is the extent to which the information is correct and reliable (ISACA, 2013).
Other properties described in the literature that contribute to the accuracy of the
88 information are the degree to which the information is correct or incorrect.
Reliability of the information: The life cycle of information entities is determined by the
conditions of the business context. Frequently, it is necessary to update the entities even at
the time of execution of the business process. Therefore, the verification of trustworthiness of
the entities refers to the degree of trust generated in the roles, including their use, unprepared,
or in contrast, it is often necessary to consult to investigate other roles and other processes on
the degree of reliability of the information that it is intended to be used. At this point,
metadata that describes the content of the entities plays a very important role in identifying
the degree of reliability of an entity. Although change is permanent in modern business
processes, precisely the correct identification and registration or of the change on information
entities answering the questions Who? How? When? Why? For what? It helps to increase
confidence in information.
The adequacy of the information is the degree to which the presentation of the information
entities in terms of format is useful and appropriate for the execution of the tasks. According
to Batini et al. (2009), most authors explicitly or implicitly distinguish three types of data to
build information structured data, semi-structured data and unstructured data. The last one
makes it difficult to analyze, manipulate and process the data, and the most contributions on
the subject have been based on the analysis of structured and semi-structured data (Batini
et al., 2009). For the study process, from the survey of information entities involved in the
process, three main types of formats can be distinguished: emails and documents in portable
document or pdf format, semi-structured tables built in spreadsheets and fully structured
tables whose attributes have fully defined domains, generally, the databases of information
systems. Therefore, it is proposed to catalog these entities according to their ordinal nature.

2.5 Indicators and metrics for measuring information integration

The evaluation of the integration of information is synthesized in answering the question: is
the level of integration dimensions enough to execute the activity at the lowest cost and in the
shortest possible time with high quality, efficiency and flexibility?
Vetro and others (2016) highlight the objective approach over the subjective one since it
allows to corroborate the qualitative measures of the quality of the information obtained
through surveys, questionnaires and opinions of experts or evaluations of users who
frequently suffer from subjectivism and inconsistency (Vetro et al., 2016). To answer these
questions, this model proposes an entity evaluation model both at the attribute level and at
the entity’s metadata level. Figure 3 presents an example of the atomization of information
entities in attributes.
Table 4 presents the indicators and metrics proposed for the objective measurement of
information integration.

2.6 Definition of latent variables and relational model

Latent variables are generally abstract concepts that in themselves are not measurable or
quantifiable. However, through measurable variables, explanation can be given to what
happens with latent variables. The process performance as defined before can be measured
through observable indicators of time, cost, quality, flexibility and efficiency.
 The concept of integrating information in accordance with the previous sections is the The effect of
action of providing the right information, to the right people at the right time, in the right the integration
place and in the right way. The above concepts can be considered as latent variables with the
respective indicators as illustrated in Table 5.
of information
Figure 4 illustrates the theoretical relational model of the components of information
integration in the business process.
89
2.7 Quantitatively determine the effect of the integration of information in business
processes
Carry out the diagnostic measurement to determine the status of the process and the
integration of the information at moment 1 and moment 2.
For the processing of measurement data to determine the aggregations of process
performance at the activity level the following expression was used:
X
Sm ,
Ddam;ACn ¼ Ddm;Si Sm
i¼1

Since:
(1) Dda is the value of the aggregate performance dimension for the moment m of the
ACn activity
(2) Dd is the performance measurement for the moment m of the request Si
(3) Sm is the number of requests for the moment m
For the aggregate measurement of information integration at the activity level, the following
expression was used.
, !,
XSm X
EtACn
Diam;ACn ¼ Dim;Si ;Ej;ACn EtACn Sm
i¼1 j¼1

Since:
(1) Dia is the measurement of the aggregate integration dimension for the moment m of
the ACn activity
(2) Di is the entity integration dimension Ej entering or leaving ACn activity

Attributes of the
information entity

ID
Client
Kind of product
Creation date
Date required
Product Range
Product Features 2
Product Features 3 Figure 3.
Information Atomization of
Entity information entities in
attributes
Source(s): The authors
BPMJ Rating scale
28,1 Dimension Indicator Formula Low 5 1 Medium 5 3 High 5 5

Precision Entity with Number of nonnull Low accuracy: Average High accuracy:
full attributes attributes/total Number of accuracy: Number of
attributes nonnull Number of nonnull
information Entity attributes/total nonnull attributes/total
90 attributes <0.5 attributes/total attributes> 0.9
attributes ≥05 Y
Number of
nonnull
attributes/total
attributes <0.9
Validity Validity Validity guarantee Low validity Guarantee of Low validity
Guarantee evaluation offered guarantees: the average validity: guarantees at
by the entity entity’s validity at runtime, it is runtime, only
must be verified required to verify current entities
by the roles the validity can be used
through manual through the
consultations consultation of
the entity’s
metadata, and
these metadata
are available in
real time
Accuracy Entity with Number of correct Low accuracy: Number of Number of
correct attributes/total Number of correct attributes/ correct
attributes attributes correct total attributes attributes/total
Correct attributes: attributes/total ≥05 Y Number of attributes> 0.9
the entity’s attributes <0.5 correct attributes/
attribute data is total attributes
not the cause of <0.9
cost overruns or
nonconformities
Reliability Reliability of Reliability Low reliability: Medium High reliability:
the entity assessment in changes in the reliability: the entity’s
terms of entity are not changes in the changes are
transparent automatically entity are notified notified in real
notification of notified in real in real time but time with
changes time, and it is up without automatic
to the responsible automatic identification of
to inform them identification of metadata that
metadata (it is records the
required to change (Who?
inquire or at the How? When?
discretion of the Why?)
person
responsible for
the change)
Adequacy Adequacy of Level of ease of Entity with Semi-structured Entity with fully
Table 4. the entity processing and unstructured entity (columns structured data
Indicators for manipulation of data rows in process (structured
measuring the correct, the entity able formats) tables)
adequate and available
information (continued )
 Rating scale
The effect of
Dimension Indicator Formula Low 5 1 Medium 5 3 High 5 5 the integration
of information
Availability Runtime Check the Low availability: Average High availability:
availability opportunity in Availability is not availability: Entity available
which the entity’s real time. It Entity and preloaded at
and is available for requires recoverable runtime for
use processing time through immediate use 91
to make it predefined or
available or semi-automated
manual queries
consultations for
recovery. It
generally refers
to the manual
transcription of
data in other
information
systems along
with a processing
time to obtain the
entity
Operational Accessibility Verify the level of Low operational Medium High operational
accessibility at runtime of accessibility of the accessibility operational accessibility:
activities entities when the refers to the accessibility: entities can be
tasks are being entity’s access entities can be accessed and/or
executed requiring severalaccessed or checked
manual query consulted automatically at
criteria through runtime
predefined
queries
Logic Logical Logical Low logical Medium logical High logical
accessibility accessibility accessibility to accessibility does accessibility: accessibility: the
of entities entities is not meet any of Entities are entities can only
evaluated with the the accessibility accessible only be accessed by
following criteria criteria by process roles, those authorized
but without and with the
privilege privileges
verification and approved by
without authentication
authentication
Source(s): The authors Table 4.

Information integration Dimension

Right information Precision

Accuracy
Reliability
Validity
Right person Logic accessibility Table 5.
Timely information Availability Definition of latent
Place suitable Operational accessibility variables related to
Form suitable Adequacy information
Source(s): The authors integration
 Accurate
BPMJ
Exactly
28,1 Right
information

Valid

Correct person
92 Logical
accessibility
Time
Cost
Process
Quality
Performance
Flexibility
Timely
Effectiveness
information
Availability

Figure 4.
Right place Operational
Theoretical model to accessibility
measure the effect of
the integration of
information in the Appropriate Adequacy
process form

(3) Et is the number of entities that enter and leave ACn activity
(4) Sm is the number of requests for the moment m
The background review shows the lack of quantitative models to measure the effect of
improvement actions on business processes. Some authors such as Reijers, Liman and Zellner
consider that this is more an art than a science, a kind of miraculous process or black box
(Mansar and Reijers, 2007; Zellner, 2011), leaving a space for research in this sense.

3. Methodology
The present research work is eminently descriptive since it will focus its attention on the
objective measurement of the dimensions that determine the degree of integration of
information and the performance of the process without going deeper into the reasons for the
situations or findings derived from the study (Yin, 2003). To find and identify the
relationships between the input variables, called latent variables related to the integration of
the information, with the output variables that are the performance indicators of the activities
of the bidding process, the analysis of the data using structural equation modeling (SEM)
techniques through partial least squares (PLS), which focuses on the analysis of variance
using the WarpPLS 6.0 ® tool, which is considered adequate when the sample size is small
and with predictive precision. Since this research has a fairly small sample size and predictive
precision is essential to corroborate the hypothesis of the proposed model (Plugge et al., 2020).

3.1 Introduction and purpose

This section, it is shown that the integration of information constitutes a key element in the
improvement of the business processes that is needed, so it is pertinent to propose the
hypotheses for the study mentioned below.
The integration of information as a discipline seeks to “provide the correct information, to
the correct person, at the right time” (Unesco, 1992). In the study by Bhatt (2000), the
integration of information systems is defined as the degree to which data and applications
through different communication networks can be shared and available for use within the
organization. Bhatt addresses his study of the effect of integration of information systems on
business processes, considering that such integration is composed of data integration, or in The effect of
terms of business architecture known as data architecture and the integration of networks of the integration
communications or infrastructure architecture. Accordingly, it was proposed that:
of information
H1. The integration of information improves the performance of the offer and bidding
process of the industrial sector.
Similarly, Ray and Serrano (2003), based on the results of previous works, identified that the
changes related to reducing the response time of information systems by intervening in the 93
infrastructure architecture did not have considerable results in the general improvement of
process performance. Rather, they found that detecting bottlenecks in business processes and
leveraging or improving information systems to reduce them had a major impact on the
overall performance of business processes (Davenport, 1993). On the contrary, they found
that detecting bottlenecks in business processes and leveraging or improving information
systems to reduce them did have a high impact on the overall performance of business
processes. In other words, the problem of analyzing the impact of information technologies on
the business can be simplified, neglecting the layer of data networks and infrastructure and
focusing on the performance of information systems (Ray and Serrano, 2003).
On the other hand, the authors find that it is necessary to give a quantitative approach
through metrics to determine the performance of information systems. For example, the
number of orders per unit of time that an information system allows to manage can have a
significant impact on the general improvement of the business process, and these
requirements are part of the service level agreements that are achieved with the client
(Ray and Serrano, 2003).
In the case study conducted by Ray and Serrano, where the effect of the improvement of
the information systems on the performance of the processes is measured, focuses only on the
dimension of time, specifically the cycle time of the process. The foregoing does not agree
with the literature on the performance of business processes, where time is just one dimension
to be analyzed, that is, due to an improvement in the time of the process; therefore, it cannot be
concluded that the performance of the process improve in general. Then, it was raised that:
H2. Improving some of the dimensions of integration improves process performance.

3.2 Data collection and analysis

The above is based on the topics of data quality, information quality and information
integration areas in full development that have not achieved broad consensus. The
application in contexts will require the prior review and validation of the proposed
instruments. The products of the unit’s portfolio are characterized by their high complexity
because it requires the interdisciplinary participation of electrical and mechanical engineers
for their design and the participation of a project manager for the management of the life cycle
of manufacturing orders up to dispatch and commissioning. The sale price of a product can
reach nine hundred thousand US dollars.
The offer and bidding process are considered critical by the top management of the
organization because the success of the process is the success of the organization. The
foregoing is since the competitive proposals of the offer area translate into an order entry to
the business unit. The quality, time, cost and flexibility and efficiency of the process directly
influence the business results as follows:
(1) The quality of the process is directly related in that the decision-making in the early
stages that they detect prevents or mitigates the associated risks during the
manufacture of the product that avoid expensive internal nonconformities or fines on
the part of the client. The quality of an offer is directly associated with the budgetary
BPMJ costs initially estimated in the offers, being sustained until the delivery of the final
28,1 product while maintaining the margin initially projected.
(2) The cycle time of the process is crucial to be able to timely meet the volume of
business opportunities detected by the sales area (around 170 applications in a
quarter) and not exceed the tight deadlines and deadlines for submitting proposals in
the case of procurement processes through tender.
94 (3) The control of process costs influences the rational and efficient use of available
resources to meet the volume of business opportunities. As it is a non-automated
sequential process, specialist engineers oversee bidding, so the rationalization of the
resource is crucial.
(4) The flexibility of the bidding process is directly related to the ability to respond due to
sudden changes in specifications by the client and remain within the deadlines for
submitting proposals initially agreed.
(5) The effectiveness of the bidding process is the fulfillment of the business objectives.
For the study, the offer and bidding process that has the objectives of achieve an
objective performance rate between the numbers of bids submitted and those that
result in the entry of effective orders and maintain the percentage of profit planned in
the bidding stage, which translates into a cost estimate of the precise technical
solution.
For the study, two types of information sources are cataloged according to their application in
the model:
(1) Repository of the offer and bidding process. This repository is made up of an
organization’s network drive. Each folder within the network drive is identified with
the unique number of the request, and the different documents are stored manually
during the process flow as shown in Figure 5.
(2) Transactional databases. From these databases, the data will be extracted to measure
the performance of the process; the sample is presented in Figure 6.
Measurement scale: The segmentation of the requests and the products of the organization
does not have influence on the remaining dimensions of information integration due to: The
measurement scale selected to present the objective measurement of the indicators is an

J:

Offers

FY17-18

H001

H002

...

FY18260
Figure 5.
Repository structure of
FY18261
business process
documents
Source(s): The authors
 Database of the tranaverse
Database of
The effect of
Information system of the
Nonconformity the integration
business unit
of information

Registration ID
ID Nonconformity

95
Manufacturing number
Causative area
Manufacturing Order
Data base of Offers Causative process
Project
Control Causative thread
Factory offer ID
Manufacturing number
ID Sal
Country
Sales engineering
Client

Product class
type of offer
weather
Application date
Reprocessing offers
Planned date
Deadline
Execution time ID Sal
Reason Figure 6.
Planned start date Relationships of
New date transactional
Reprocessing time databases and data to
be extracted for the
measurement of
process performance
Source(s): The authors

ordinal scale classified as low level 5 1, medium level 5 3 and high level 5 5 based on the
Likert type scale. The above is based on:
(1) The ordinal scale allows the standardization and the comparison of the variables of
the two aspects that are intended to be measured: the performance of the process and
the integration of the information.
(2) The variables of the model, such as cost or time, are inherently continuous. On the
contrary, variable such as quality or flexibility, depending on the context can be
subjective.
(3) The graphic representation and ease of reading of the ordinal measurement is
convenient to verify the impact of improvement actions both in the integration of
information and in the performance of the business process.
The design of the measuring instrument aims to present in an aggregate form at the activity
level the status of the business process at time 1 and moment 2 in terms of its performance
and degree of information integration. The information is justified in:
(1) The study process is sequential.
(2) Regardless of the type of request or product class, the same activities must be carried
out.
BPMJ (3) It is not possible to execute an activity without the corresponding input of
28,1 information.
(4) Regardless of the type of request, the same information entities must be created.
For the selected process, the measuring instrument is applied in a timely manner at two
different times. The moment 1 refers to the period in which senior management determined
that the offer and bidding process should be considered as the critical process within the
96 organization (April, May and June in year 1). From this point and through the timeline, two
improvement projects related to the management of process information are formulated:
(1) Design and implementation of a repository of the information entities of the offer and
bidding process so that they can be consulted in the company’s transversal
information system, for the authorized roles of the value chain.
(2) Incorporation of real-time cost calculation of technical solutions in engineering
systems.
The Moment 2 is executed in the months of February, March and April in year 2, after the
launch and exit in production of improvement initiatives.
The quarterly measurement is justified since it is the unit of time used by the organization
to determine business results over a commercial year, so it is appropriate for measuring the
effectiveness of improvement projects after they have been implemented.
In order to improve the efficiency in the attention of offer requests, the organization has
determined the segmentation indicated in Table 6. Depending on the type of product to be
offered, the organization attends them depending on the priority as follows: type A offers for
strategic offers and type B offers for medium priority offers; in addition, it has given them a
code for the product class in Arabic numerals that have been changing over time; according to
some products that have been discontinued, it should be noted that these codes are given
directly by the parent company of the organization.
The analyzed applications were selected for convenience applying the following criteria:
(1) Requests attended by collaborators with more than five years of experience in the
process, considering that it is the average seniority time.
(2) Requests with the unique identifier assigned. For these requests without this
attribute, there is no possibility of extracting the transactional data required for the
measurement. Table 7 summarizes the tender offers analyzed at moments 1 and 2 in
time.
After the development of the research, the application results in the company and the
statistical validation of the same are detailed.

3.3 Statistical validation of the model

For the statistical validation of the proposed relational model of structural equations or SEM,
a relevant multivariate analysis technique was explored, to determine the relationships
between the concepts of information integration and process performance. The main
advantages over other multidimensional models can be summarized as follows:
(1) SEM has the capacity of the multivariate analysis of simultaneous dependence of
each of the variables that summarize the cause on the variables that represent the
effect (Cupani, 2012).
(2) SEM can estimate and evaluate the relationship of unobservable constructs. An
unobservable construct or latent variable is a conceptual representation, often not
Type of request A B A B A B A B A B A B A B A B A B
Product class Class 1 Class 2 Class 3 Class 4 Class 8 Class 11 Class 12 Class 13 Class 15

Detail Equipment Electric Equipment Equipment Equipment Equipment Equipment for Equipment Equipment for
for power for the for for medium for large sub- for sub- large electric
distribution distribution industrial renewable energy power transmission/ transmission power
of electrical equipment sector energy distribution distribution distribution systems transmission
energy in connection systems systems systems systems
aerial
networks
Source(s): The authors
of information

97

Segmentation of
The effect of
the integration

Table 6.

requests for offers

BPMJ measurable but that can be represented by a set of measurable variables or indicators
28,1 (Cupani, 2012). For the study, the latent variables selected are information integration
and process performance.
(3) The SEM model in contrast to other multivariate analysis models has the ability to
relate multiple measurable indicators that represent latent variables in contrast to
other techniques that require the latent variable to be represented by a single
98 indicator (Cupani, 2012).
(4) The SEM model is relevant when the phenomenon to be observed is new, and
generation theories are sought before confirmation, which is appropriate to the
exploratory and descriptive nature of this research.
For the statistical validation of the model, the WarpPLS 6.0 ® tool was used that requires the
preparation of a matrix of observations or measurements of the phenomenon, where each row
represents the observation, and each column represents the measurement of the indicator.

4. Data analysis and results

In this section, it contains the measurement of the integration of information and the
performance of the process at the activity level in the bidding process of the company, the
statistical validation of the model and the dependency relationships of the model, which allow
to contrast the hypotheses established within the investigation.

4.1 Measurement of the degree of integration of information to the business process at

activity level
The methodology for measuring the integration of information into the business process is
summarized in the application of the following steps:
(1) The atomic unit of the process, that is, the activity, is identified with the information
entities whose degree of integration will be measured to the roles of the process
(people) to which the information must be properly supplied.
(2) The activities as indivisible units of the process, their degree of performance is
determined with the measurement of time, cost, quality, efficiency and flexibility. The
process performance matrix is built.
(3) The entities identified by activity are assessed the degree to which correct
information is provided, in the appropriate manner and in a timely manner from or to
the activities, through the dimensions of precision, accuracy, reliability, validity,
adequacy and availability. The correct, accessible and available information
evaluation matrix is constructed.
(4) With the roles and entities identified by activity, it is evaluated to what extent the
information is provided to the right people through the dimensions of logical
accessibility and operational accessibility. The information accessibility assessment
matrix is built.

Table 7. Period analyzed Moment 1 (April, May, June in year 1) Moment 2 (February, March, April in year 2)
Definition of moment 1
and moment 2 for Number of requests 82 requests 79 requests
the study Source(s): The authors
The evaluation of the information at the activity level corresponds to the evaluation of the The effect of
dimensions of quality of information on the entities, both for the necessary information inputs the integration
ENi (in) as well as the expected information products ENj (out) at the level of the ACn activity,
see Figure 7.
of information
Table 8 presents the information entities involved in the activity level and the
corresponding information flow (input or output).
99
4.2 Results of the measurement of information integration and process performance at the
activity level
The activities that make up the offer and the bidding process are listed in Table 9, and the
process diagram in BPMN2.0 notation is found in Annex.
As stated in the methodology section, the measurement of the performance of the process
and the integration of the information was carried out for moment 1, where the organization
determined that the offer and bidding process is the critical process. The improvement in the
integration of information was carried out with two projects like this:
(1) Implementation of a new entity repository of the bidding process, which changes
from the network units and request folders to the business unit information system.
(2) Implementation of real-time cost calculation of technical solutions in the bidding
stage.
After the live exit of the improvement initiatives, the measurement moment 2 is raised.
As stated in previous sections, information flows in business processes occur at the
activity level, so the analysis of the effect of the improvement is presented through
descriptive aggregations at the activity level for the before and after.
The arithmetic aggregation of the indicators that represent the integration of the
information and the performance of the process at the activity level is justified in:
(1) The activity is the minimum atomic unit of the process.

Figure 7.
Evaluation of the
integration of
information at the
activity level
BPMJ ID Activity IN OUT ID Information entity
28,1
AC1 Decide whether bid or no bid X EN1 RFQ offer request
X EN2 Technical specifications
X EN3 NO BID notification email
AC2 Read general technical specifications X EN2 Technical specifications
AC3 Schedule offer X EN4 Bid scheduling
100 X EN5 Schedule notification mail
AC4 Read control engineering technical X EN2 Technical specifications
specification
AC5 Develop basic control engineering X EN6 List of control and monitoring accessories
AC6 Request a quote for special accessories X EN6 List of control and monitoring accessories
X EN7 Request for quotation of accessories
X EN8 Accessories quotes
AC7 Read technical specification Electrical X EN2 Technical specifications
design
AC8 Develop basic electrical design X EN9 Basic electrical design
engineering
AC9 Read technical specification of X EN2 Technical specifications
mechanical design
AC10 Develop basic mechanical engineering X EN9 Basic electrical design
X EN10 General dimension plan
X EN11 Weights sheet
X EN10 General dimension plan
AC11 Calculate factory cost of the solution X EN9 Basic electrical design
X EN11 Weight sheet
X EN6 List of control and monitoring accessories
X EN8 Accessories quotes
X EN13 Master list of material prices
X EN14 Production times
X EN15 Design times
X EN17 Projected exchange rates
X EN16 Commercial regulatory
X EN18 Control panel and wiring price list
X EN19 Cost sheet
AC12 Prepare deliverables X EN20 Datasheets filled out
X EN21 Technical offer document
X EN10 General dimension plan
X EN22 Completed offer self-review checklist
X EN19 Cost sheet
AC13 Review technical offer X EN2 Technical specifications
X EN10 General dimension Plan
X EN19 Cost sheet
X EN20 Datasheets filled out
X EN21 Technical offer document
X EN25 Bid control database
X EN11 Weight sheet
X EN13 Master list of material prices
X EN14 Production times
X EN15 Design times
X EN16 Commercial regulatory
X EN19 Control panel and wiring price list
X EN22 Bid review checklist completed
engineering supervisor
Table 8. X EN23 Email with comments
Flow of information
entities at activity level (continued )
ID Activity IN OUT ID Information entity
The effect of
the integration
AC14 Release technical offer to the applicant X EN20 Datasheets filled out of information
X EN21 Technical offer document
X EN10 General dimension plan
X EN19 Cost sheet
AC15 Close RFQ/Update BD control offers X EN3 Bid scheduling
X EN25 Bid control database 101
X EN19 Cost sheet
Source(s): The authors Table 8.

Activity ID Description of activity

AC1 Decide whether bid or no bid

AC2 Read general technical specifications
AC3 Schedule offer
AC4 Read control technical specifications
AC5 Develop basic control engineering
AC6 Request a quote for special accessories
AC7 Read technical specifications of the electrical design
AC8 Develop basic electrical design engineering
AC9 Read technical specifications – mechanical design engineering
AC10 Develop basic mechanical engineering
AC11 Calculate factory cost of the solution
AC12 Prepare deliverables
AC13 Review technical offer – feedback if necessary
AC14 Release technical offer to the applicant Table 9.
AC15 Close RFQ – update offer control database Activities process of
Source(s): The authors offer and bidding

(2) The type of application and the type of product should only be considered as
instances of the business process of this study.
(3) The study process is sequential, it is not possible to carry out the following activities
until the by-products of the current activity are completed and delivered. Therefore,
from the point of view of the process flow, all activities have the same importance.
(4) The process flow is stopped if the information entities do not enter the activities, or
the by-product is not delivered to the next activity. Therefore, from the point of view
of the process, all information entities enjoy the same importance.
Table 10, presents the distances defined as the difference between the measurements of
moment 2 with respect to moment 1. A positive value reflects an improvement in the
dimension and a negative value reflects a decline in the aspect evaluated.
The graphic representation of the changes between measurements by activity is
presented in Figures 8 and 9 (perspective from the integration of information) as follows:
(1) Figure 8 represents the measurement of aggregated indicators of time 1 and time 2
(dimensions of performance and integration), the dimension representing process
activities according to their identifier and the result of measurement aggregate.
(2) Figure 9 shows the same measurement, but with a rotation to analyze the dimensions
of integration of information.
 28,1

102
BPMJ

moment 2
Table 10.

moment 1 and
measurements of
Distances between
Activity Operational Logic
ID Time Cost Quality Effectiveness Flexibility Precision Accuracy Reliability Validity accessibility accessibility Availability Adequacy

AC1 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.67 0.67 2.67 1.33 2.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
AC2 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 4.00 0.00 2.00 2.00 0.00 0.00
AC3 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.33
AC4 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 4.00 2.00 2.00 0.00 0.00
AC5 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 2.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
AC6 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
AC7 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 2.00 2.00 0.00 0.00
AC8 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 4.00 2.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 2.00
AC9 0.00 0.00 0.57 0.57 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 2.00 2.00 0.00 0.00
AC10 0.00 0.00 0.57 0.57 0.00 0.50 0.50 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.50
AC11 0.00 0.00 0.57 0.57 0.00 0.20 0.40 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.71 1.00
AC12 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.40
AC13 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.15 0.46 1.08 0.46
AC14 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.50 0.00 0.00 0.50 0.50
AC15 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.67 0.67
Source(s): The authors
 AC1 Measurement
AC2

4.00
4.50
5.00

2.00
2.50
3.00
3.50

1.00
1.50
AC3
AC4
AC15
AC5
AC14
AC6
AC13
AC7
AC12
AC8

Source(s): The authors

AC11
AC9
AC10
AC10

Source(s): The authors

AC9
AC11
AC8
AC12
AC7
AC13
AC6
AC14
AC5
AC15
Adecuación 2 AC4
Adecuación 1 AC3
Disponibilidad 2 AC2
Disponibilidad 1 AC1
Accesibilidad lógica 2
Tiempo 1
Accesibilidad lógica 1
Tiempo 2
Accesibilidad opera va 2
Costo 1
Accesibilidad opera va 1
Costo 2
Validez 2
Calidad 1
Vallidez 1
Calidad 2
Confiabilidad 2
Eficacia 1
Confiabilidad 1
Eficacia 2
Exac tud 2
Flexibilidad 1
Exac tud 1
Flexibilidad 2
Precision 2
Precision 1
Precision 1
Precision 2
Flexibilidad 2
Exac tud 1
Flexibilidad 1
Exac tud 2
Eficacia 2
Confiabilidad 1
Eficacia 1
Confiabilidad 2
Calidad 2
Vallidez 1
Calidad 1
Validez 2
Costo 2

Dimensions of performance and integra on

Accesibilidad opera va 1
Costo 1
Accesibilidad opera va 2
Tiempo 2
Accesibilidad lógica 1
Tiempo 1
Accesibilidad lógica 2
Measurements of moment 1 vs moment 2 from the perspec ve of informa on integra on
Dimensions of performance and integra on

Disponibilidad 1

1.00
1.50
2.00
2.50
3.00
3.50
4.00
4.50
5.00
Disponibilidad 2
Adecuación 1
Measurements of Moment 1 vs. Moment 2 from the perspec ve of process performance

Adecuación 2
Measurement
of information

103
The effect of
the integration

Figure 9.
moment 1 vs the
Figure 8.

view 2
moment 1 vs moment 2
Measurements of
moment 2 view 1
Measurements of
BPMJ The measurement allows concluding:
28,1 (1) Given the improvements that were implemented in the company, previously
explained, it cannot be confirmed that the integration of information improves the
performance of the bidding process for the industrial sector, the performance of the
business process has not shown obvious changes compared to moment 2 with the
moment 1 as seen in the table of distances and the height of the bars, therefore, the H1
104 is not confirmed. The actions to improve information integration were not focused on
providing accurate, accurate, reliable and valid information.
(2) The adequacy of the information demonstrates notable improvements as evidenced
in the entities that feed the AC8 entities to develop the basic electrical design
engineering and AC11 calculate, the factory cost of the solution due to the
incorporation of the real-time cost calculation of the solutions techniques, where the
information related to the electrical engineering technical solution and the cost is
obtained is stored in a structured way.
(3) Availability improved for activity AC11 to calculate the factory cost of the solution
and activity AC13 Review Technical Offer because some of the entities that feed the
cost calculation can be retrieved during the review automatically.
(4) The logical accessibility and operational accessibility were strongly improved for
activities related to the reading of technical specifications: AC1, AC2, AC4, AC7, AC9
and AC13, the result of the incorporation of the improvement action, where the technical
specification is now stored in the company’s cross-sectional information system.
(5) By improving some of the dimensions of information integration, such as adequacy,
improved availability and logical accessibility and operational accessibility, an
improvement in the activities of the process is denoted; however, they are not enough
to improve the total performance of the process. Therefore, H2 is not confirmed.

4.3 Statistical validation of the model

For the statistical validation of the proposed SEM model, the relationships between the
concepts of information integration and process performance are determined using a
multivariate analysis technique and the WarpPLS 6.0 ® tool. In accordance with the above,
for the study and following the matrix methodology proposed by Gerring for the numerical
analysis of the different studies (Gerring, 2017):
(1) The rows represent observations comparable to each other. In this study, the rows
represent the bid requests.
(2) The columns of the matrix represent the indicators or measurements of the variables
to be observed. The aggregation of the measurement at the request level corresponds
to the proposed model, for all the activities carried out to process a request.
The arithmetic aggregation of measurements at the activity level to determine the value per
request is justified in:
(1) The business process is sequential.
(2) It is not possible to execute an activity without having all the information inputs
required to execute the activity.
In Table 11, there is a summary of the metrics used for aggregation measurements presents
activity for aggregate both execution performance measurement application, as well as the
degree of integration of information from the entities involved in the application.
Dimension Indicator
Effectiveness Effectiveness of the request
Time Relative time for request
execution
Cost Relative cost of request
execution
Quality Conformity of the request
Flexibility Flexibility of the request
Precision Accuracy of the request
information entities
Accuracy Accuracy of request
information entities
Reliability Reliability of the request
information entities
Validity Validity of the request
information entities
Operational Accessibility of the request
accessibility entities
Logic Logical accessibility of the
accessibility request entities
Availability Logical availability of the
request entities
Adequacy Degree of adequacy of the
entities of the application
Source(s): The authors
Formula
The effect of
the integration
Arithmetic aggregation of the effectiveness of information
measurement of all application activities
Sum of activity time/Standard time
Sum of activity cost/Standard cost
105
Arithmetic aggregation of the quality measurement of
all activities
Arithmetic aggregation of the flexibility of all activities
Arithmetic aggregation of the precision measurement
of the entities involved in the request
Arithmetic aggregation of the accuracy of the entities
involved in the request
Arithmetic aggregation of the measurement of
reliability of the information entities involved in the
request
Arithmetic aggregation of the validity measurement of
the information entities involved in the request
Arithmetic aggregation of operational accessibility
measurement of the entities involved in the request
Arithmetic aggregation of logical accessibility
measurement of the entities involved in the request
Arithmetic aggregation of the availability
measurement of the entities involved in the request Table 11.
Arithmetic aggregation of the adequacy measurement Aggregation of
of the entities involved in the request measurements at the
request level

The size of the matrix that feeds the model is 161 3 13, where the size of the rows corresponds
to 79 requests at moment 1 and 82 requests at moment 2. The 13 columns correspond to the
indicators defined to measure the performance of the process and integration of the
information.
The integration of the measurements of moment 1 and 2 is justified as Gerring which
indicates they are observations of the same phenomenon using the same variables (Gerring,
2017). Table 12 presents an extract of the aggregate measurements at the request level.

4.4 Significance of the variables

According to the results, for the study the significance values <0.05 are indicators that
integrate the model. The statistical significance of the variables of time, efficiency, flexibility,
precision and accuracy is questioned by the results, as can be verified in Table 13.
The explanations to these results are listed below.
(1) The process time has not undergone major modifications in the two time periods.
(2) The efficiency measurement has a direct correlation with the quality measurement,
justified in that the same data source is used (database of nonconformities) taking into
account that for the study, the nonconformities detected had as root cause, the cost
overruns to the final product due to a bad estimate in the supply stage.
(3) The measurements of precision and accuracy of the information do not produce major
changes in the two measurement periods, justified in that the improvement actions
did not focus on the quality of the information supplied or delivered by the process.
 28,1

106
BPMJ

Table 12.

per request
Example of
measurements added
Operational Logic
Request Time Cost Quality Effectiveness Flexibility Precision Accuracy Reliability Validity accessibility accessibility Availability Adequacy

H0186 3 3 5 5 1 4.050 0.563 3.611 2.463 1.056 3.400 2.870 2.093

H0199 1 1 5 5 1 4.576 0.618 3.611 2.463 1.056 3.400 2.870 2.093
H0206 5 5 5 5 1 4.749 0.677 3.611 2.463 1.056 3.400 2.870 2.093
H0212 5 5 5 5 1 4.839 0.602 3.611 2.463 1.056 3.400 2.870 2.093
H0186 5 5 5 5 1 4.050 0.563 3.611 2.463 1.056 3.400 2.870 2.093
H0271 5 5 5 5 1 5.701 0.743 3.611 2.463 1.056 3.400 2.870 2.093
H0194A1 1 1 5 5 1.267 #N/A 0.576 3.611 2.463 1.056 3.400 2.870 2.093
H0191 5 5 5 5 1 4.604 0.646 3.611 2.463 1.056 3.400 2.870 2.093
H0202 5 5 5 5 1 4.514 0.597 3.611 2.463 1.056 3.400 2.870 2.093
H0203 5 5 5 5 1 5.135 0.719 3.611 2.463 1.056 3.400 2.870 2.093
H0204 5 5 5 5 1 4.604 0.646 3.611 2.463 1.056 3.400 2.870 2.093
H0166 1 1 5 5 1 4.839 0.672 3.611 2.463 1.056 3.400 2.870 2.093
H0213 5 5 5 5 1 4.741 0.658 3.611 2.463 1.056 3.400 2.870 2.093
H0221 5 5 5 5 1 5.038 0.705 3.611 2.463 1.056 3.400 2.870 2.093
H0229 5 5 5 5 1 4.788 0.663 3.611 2.463 1.056 3.400 2.870 2.093
H0190 5 5 5 5 1 4.988 0.696 3.611 2.463 1.056 3.400 2.870 2.093
H0070 1 1 5 5 1 4.410 0.618 3.611 2.463 1.056 3.400 2.870 2.093
H0193 5 5 5 5 1 5.460 0.668 3.611 2.463 1.056 3.400 2.870 2.093
H0209 5 5 5 5 1 5.398 0.689 3.611 2.463 1.056 3.400 2.870 2.093
H0215 5 5 3.4 3.4 1 5.731 0.731 3.611 2.463 1.056 3.400 2.870 2.093
H0200 5 5 5 5 1 5.613 0.738 3.611 2.463 1.056 3.400 2.870 2.093
H0228 5 5 5 5 1 5.224 0.682 3.611 2.463 1.056 3.400 2.870 2.093
Source(s): The authors
 Process Right Correct Timely Adequate Correct
The effect of
performance information person moment information place Significance the integration
of information
Time 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Cost 0.656 0 0 0 0 0 <0.001
Quality 0.709 0 0 0 0 0 <0.001
Effectiveness 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Flexibility 0.034 0 0 0 0 0 0.33 107
Precision 0 0.093 0 0 0 0 0.113
Accuracy 0 0.072 0 0 0 0 0.177
Reliability 0 (0.406) 0 0 0 0 <0.001
Validity 0 1.391 0 0 0 0 <0.001
Logic 0 0 1 0 0 0 <0.001
accessibility
Availability 0 0 0 1 0 0 <0.001
Table 13.
Adequacy 0 0 0 0 1 0 <0.001 Validation of the
Logic 0 0 0 0 0 1 <0.001 weight of the reflective
accessibility indicators vs. latent
Source(s): The authors variables for the study

The model with latent variables and significant indicators is presented below in Figure 10.

4.5 Model dependency relations

The verified chance of the latent variables that describe the integration of the information on
the process performance is presented in Table 14.

Figure 10.
Applicable model for
the study

Description of Right To the right In the timely In the right

latent variables information person In the right place moment way

Indicators Reliability Logical Operational Availability Adequacy

validity accessibility accessibility
Process 0 0 0 0 1 Table 14.
performance Evaluation of
Source(s): The authors coefficients of austerity
BPMJ Only the adequacy of the information entities, which represents whether the information is
28,1 structured, semi-structured and unstructured, demonstrated a positive dependence on the
performance of the process. Figure 11 shows the normalized effect of improving the adequacy
on the process performance and it can be concluded:
(1) There is dependence and positive correlation between the adequacies of the
information, that is, the way in which the information is delivered to the activities for
108 their execution and the performance of the process.
(2) An improvement in 40% of the adequacy of the information of the applications
represents a 6% improvement in the performance of the process.

5. Conclusions and future work

The systemic approach widely used to analyze the interaction of the different processes
involved in organizations states that many actions have no immediate effect because that its
consequences can only be established at a later stage. The above was applied in measuring
the dimensions of quality and efficiency. The Devil quadrature model continues to be the
preferred approach for measuring process performance. However, the literature review
showed that there are key performance indicators that cannot be cataloged in that model.
For the proposed model, it was evident that the measurement of the efficiency and quality
dimensions of the process activities required verification in transactional databases where
nonconformities and nonquality costs related to orders are recorded. This has implications
for current methodologies construction data architecture and information, as frequently to
limit the critical process and sources of information directly related bypassing their
involvement to another process of the organization.
The concept of information integration, as the study suggests, involves broader concepts
of data quality. The literature review shows a lack of consensus in the definition
of dimensions of data quality and the recent development of studies of information quality.

Figure 11.
Standardized effect of
the adequacy of
information on the
performance of the
selected process
as study
The concept of information integration encompassed dimensions such as logical The effect of
accessibility, operational accessibility and the availability to contemplate aspects beyond the integration
the intrinsic characteristics of information entities.
The measurement of the exact information dimension, understood as the degree to which
of information
the attribute of an entity represents the true or correct value, had to apply once again the
systemic approach to determine the error caused by the incorrect value in later stages.
The application of the model to measure the effect of the integration of the information to
the selected process showed that the improvement actions proposed by the organization at 109
the time did not have an integral vision of the power of the information, focusing on specific
actions such as improving the accessibility and availability of the technical specifications
that only affected specific activities. The measurements of the study show that the timely
improvement of the integration of information in some activities did not have a general and
appreciable effect on the overall performance of the process.
This suggests that improvement plans on information in organizations should have a
comprehensive approach. The objective of improving the integration of information into a
process is a broad and determined plan with different work packages that attack the different
dimensions proposed in the present study. In fact, the same ignorance of the concept of
information integration can lead to the approach of digital transformation projects that,
although in intentions seem important for the organization, generally only attack one or some
of the dimensions and are not seen as parts of everything. This implies that they are raised
incorrectly and result in inflated expectations with disappointing results from the point of
view of interested parties.
The direct correlation evidenced between time and cost of the process due to the high
dependence on human resources and hence the largest component of cost variable, for the
related man-hours. The foregoing evidence that a low degree of automation is perhaps one of
the actions to analyze in the work packages to form the portfolio at the end of the business
architecture construction exercise.
The measurement instrument and the proposed model constitute a valuable source of an
improvement plan for an organization since the application of the measurement instrument
also proposes to provide a diagnosis, to validate what actions should be carried out to
improve the value of the analyzed indicators, checking the measurement scale. However, the
results and findings of the application of the measurement instrument are only limited to the
unit of analysis defined as the process of offers and tenders; it is assumed that the information
sources reflect the reality of the business process.
On the other hand, the results and findings of the application of the measurement
instrument are limited to the unit of analysis defined as the process of offers and tenders, and
it is assumed that the information sources reflect the reality of the business process.
As a reflection, for future work, it is suggested to advance from the exploratory and
descriptive phase of the model to the experimental phase through its application in other
business processes, testing the model and analyzing the effect of the improvement in the
performance of the dimensions of costs, with the possible automation in highly manual
processes.

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Corresponding author
Claudia Yadira Rodr
ıguez-Rios can be contacted at: claudia.rodriguez@escuelaing.edu.co
BPMJ Appendix
28,1

112

Figure A1.
Model of the offer and
bidding process