Principles for modelling business processes

Any industrial engineer designing business processes can testify to the results of projects that went wrong because the initial process requirements were not correctly understood, formulated, or communicated throughout the design process. This paper identifies and defines fundamental systems thinking principles that should be present in a business process design methodology. The research is based on the understanding that complex business processes are formed from organized business patterns, and that the appropriate systems thinking principles enable the industrial engineer to capture these patterns and design business processes to reflect real world behaviour. Doing so enables the formulation of a well structured business process design specification.