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The techniques for representing and analyzing business processes are referred to as business process modeling. Many business process modeling methods and their associated tools have been used to capture the characteristics of business processes. However, most methods view business processes from different perspectives and have different features and capabilities. Thus, an important research question is how process designers should select appropriate modeling methods for their BPR initiatives. In this paper, we propose a framework for selecting business process modeling methods based on modeling objectives. This framework can serve as the basis for evaluating modeling methods and generating selection procedures. A general selection procedure is also described. We use an expense claim process as an example to illustrate the application of the selection procedure.

This study aims to trace methods that help to develop the reflective behaviour that is necessary for identifying and describing learning processes in organisations that focus on improvement and innovation.

An extensive literature review results in the characteristics of reflection when reflection is used to trace learning processes in innovation. This results in five characteristics. Literature on research methodology is reviewed in order to find methods that promote this reflective behaviour. These methods are analysed to find out to what extent they contain the characteristics for reflection in innovation processes.

The literature review leads to five elements that characterise reflective behaviour in innovation processes. It offers a description of several methods that can be used to identify learning processes. The main conclusion is that hardly any method contains all five characteristics for adequate reflective behaviour.

The current study mainly reviewed research methodologies and no other methods that actively promote reflection.

The findings offer concrete guidance for practitioners how to encourage reflective behaviour and innovation processes.

The paper refers to the interest of both research and practice. From the research point of view it presents a variety of methods for analysing learning processes in order to deepen our knowledge with respect to these processes. From the practice point of view, it offers concrete methods that enable participants to develop reflective skills that help them to become more knowledge productive.

This paper aims to propose a characteristic stabilized finite element method for non-stationary conduction-convection problems.

To avoid difficulty caused by the trilinear term, the authors use the characteristic method to deal with the time derivative term and the advection term. The space discretization adopts the low-order triples (i.e. P₁-P₁-P₁ and P₁-P₀-P₁ triples). As low-order triples do not satisfy inf-sup condition, the authors use the stability technique to overcome this flaw.

The stability and the convergence analysis shows that the method is stable and has optimal-order error estimates.

Numerical experiments confirm the theoretical analysis and illustrate that the authors’ method is highly effective and reliable, and consumes less CPU time.

The aim of this paper is to circumvent the multi‐distribution effects and small sample constraints that may arise in unreplicated‐saturated fractional factorial designs during construction blueprint screening.

A simple additive ranking scheme is devised based on converting the responses of interest to rank variables regardless of the nature of each response and the optimization direction that may be issued for each of them. Collapsing all ranked responses to a single rank response, appropriately referred to as “Super‐Ranking”, allows simultaneous optimization for all factor settings considered.

The Super‐Rank response is treated by Wilcoxon's rank sum test or Mann‐Whitney's test, aiming to establish possible factor‐setting differences by exploring their statistical significance. An optimal value for each response is predicted.

It is stressed, by example, that the model may handle simultaneously any number of quality characteristics. A case study based on a real geotechnical engineering project is used to illustrate how this method may be applied for optimizing simultaneously three quality characteristics that belong to each of the three possible cases, i.e. “nominal‐is‐best”, “larger‐is‐better”, and “smaller‐is‐better” respectively. For this reason, a screening set of experiments is performed on a professional CAD/CAE software package making use of an L₈(2⁷) orthogonal array where all seven factor columns are saturated by group excavation controls.

The statistical nature of this method is discussed in comparison with results produced by the desirability method for the case of exhausted degrees of freedom for the error. The case study itself is a unique paradigm from the area of construction operations management.

A new algorithm for the inhomogeneous Boltzmann equation in one spatial and velocity dimension, based on the method of characteristics, is presented. Using the analytic solution to the Boltzmann equation along its characteristics, the solution to the classical transport problem in semiconducting structures within the relaxation time approximation for the collision integral is obtained iteratively. An n+nn+‐diode is studied numerically and the effects of ballastic electrons on low‐order moments are investigated.

This paper aims to contribute further to QFD applications in product development system of organisations by drawing reflections from managing an action research program on QFD applications in Brazilian organisations in the last ten years. The reflection follows two interwoven lines, theory and practice, as it is assumed that effective practice requires good understanding of methodological basis and methodological basis is continuously refined by good actual practices, so the construction and accumulation of QFD knowledge may be obtained. Thus, this article attempts to highlight the methodological characteristics of QFD in a structured manner by bringing a three‐dimensional analytical framework (phenomenon of interest, “manifest” methodological characteristics, and “underlying” methodological characteristics) and to formulate a guide for application of QFD method in intervention processes, with a potential for context diagnosis, circumscription of problem situation, and operational features.

Research questions: Is there a systemic relationship between different methods of screening candidates for predictive maintenance? How do the goals of a predictive project influence the choice of a dropout method? How do the company’s characteristics implementing the predictive project influence the selection of the dropout method?

The authors described and compiled a taxonomy of currently known methods of screening candidate aircraft components for predictive maintenance for maintenance, repairs and overhaul organizations; identified the boundaries of each way; analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of existing methods; and formulated directions for further development of methods of screening for maintenance, repairs and overhaul organizations.

The authors identified the relationship between various screening methods by developing the approach proposed by Tiddens WW and supplementing it with economic methods. The authors built them into a single hierarchical structure and linked them with the parameters of the predictive project. The principal advantage of the proposed taxonomy is a clear relationship between the structure of the screening methods and the goals of the predictive project and the characteristics of the company that implements the project.

The authors of the article proposed groups of screening methods for predictive maintenance based on economic indicators to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the screening process.

The purpose of this paper is to better understand and study the architecture and system characteristics of the underlying support platform for crowd system, by recognizing the characteristics of service internet is similar to the coordination characteristics between the massive units in the underlying platform of crowd system and studying the form, nature and guidelines of the service internet.

This paper points out the connection between the underlying support platform of crowd system and service internet, describes the framework and ideas for researching service internet and then proposes key technologies and solutions for service internet architecture and system characteristics.

The research unit in the underlying support platform of crowd system can be regarded as a service unit. Therefore, the platform can also be regarded as service internet to some extent. The ideas and technical approaches for the study of service internet’s form, criteria and characteristics are also provided.

According to this paper, relevant staff can be guided to better build the underlying support platform of crowd system. And it can provide a highly robust and sustainable platform for research studies of crowd science and engineering in the future.

This paper aims to present a new method for identification of some flight modes, including natural and non-standard modes, and extraction of their characteristics, directly from measurements of flight parameters in the time domain.

The Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT), as a novel prevailing tool in the signal analysis field, is used to attain the purpose. The study shows that the HHT has superior potential capabilities to improve the airplane flying quality analysis and to conquer some drawbacks of the classical method in flight dynamics.

The proposed method reveals the existence of some non-standard modes with small damping ratios at non-linear flight regions and obtains their characteristics.

The paper examines only airplane longitudinal dynamics. Further research is needed regarding lateral-directional dynamic modes and coupling effects of the longitudinal and lateral modes.

Application of the proposed method to the flight test data may result in real-time flying quality analysis, especially at the non-linear flight regions.

First, to utilize the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) capabilities in real time, a local-online algorithm is introduced which estimates the signal trend by the Savitzky-Golay sifting process and eliminates it from the signal in the EMD algorithm. Second, based on the local-online EMD algorithm, a systematic method is proposed to identify flight modes from flight parameters in the time domain.

This study aims to capture the effective behavior of double-diffusion problem, which arises from the combined heat and mass transfer in porous medium and develop the modified characteristics finite element method.

The proposed finite element method deals with the nonlinear term temporal term by modified characteristics method. Then, the authors compute the velocity, pressure, temperature and concentration using the decoupled technique. Finally, to show the efficiency of the method, the authors give some numerical examples.

From the numerical results, one can see that the method has a good accuracy, which shows that the method can simulate this Darcy–Brinkman problem well.

The originality lies in the fact that the proposed scheme is the first time for solving the Darcy–Brinkman problem, which is a more complicated model, and includes the velocity, pressure, temperature and concentration.