Modelling for business process design: a methodology based on causal loop diagram

Business process modelling is an essential part of developing a process improvement project. Current modelling methods always fall short in analysing capability to assist modelling users with process design. To describe cause-and-effect relationships among process variables clearly and then to provide a complete understanding of the business process both to the developer and to the end-user, the modelling approach described in this paper is composed of traditional process improvement techniques and system dynamics. After a careful evaluation and comparison of different modelling methods, a guideline is proposed for using graphical process representation techniques and causal loop diagram to establish a set of business process models in different stage. Finally, a case study is presented in order to illustrate the effectiveness of such a modelling framework.