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The monitoring and control of business processes and their variables have strategic importance in order to respond to the dynamics of the world of business. Many monitoring processes are focussed on controlling time and cost and the overall performance is evaluated through a standard set of key performance indicators. These passive approaches do not consider a holistic/system view and therefore ignore the interrelationships between various external and internal variables impacting a business process. This paper investigates an application of multivariate statistical process control techniques [mainly principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares (PLS)] which have been successfully used in process and chemical industries, to model, monitor, control and predict business process variables. A prototype, innovative managerial control system (IMCS), was developed to investigate the application of PCA and PLS techniques to monitor, control and predict business process performance. Data was collected and analysed using a case study in a precast concrete building products company. This study has proved that the PCA approach can be effectively used to control business processes. Also, the PLS approach is found to provide better forecasts as compared to commonly used decomposition method. The benefits and limitations of using multivariate statistical process control techniques as applied to business process control are highlighted.

The concrete building products manufacturing industry supplies 2,000‐4,000 precast concrete building products to the construction industry. Owing to seasonal demand, the industry builds up stock in winter to meet the high demand in summer. As concrete products are heavy and vary in shape and size, proper stocking in terms of layout and methods of stocking of products on the yard is essential. Industrial practice suggests that stockyard space management gets less attention during strategic and budget planning as it is left to the stockyard manager. The industry experiences space congestion for both the storage and dispatch of products. During dispatch process, greater retrieval time is required, long queues of lorries (shipping vehicles) are formed and desired level of service cannot be maintained. Presents a review of stockyard operations, analysis of parameters affecting loading and dispatch process on the yard and strategies to optimise the stockyard layout. It is expected that proper layout planning will reduce the cost of delivery of products by 5‐10 per cent in the industry where profit is less than 5‐8 per cent.

Internet technologies are increasingly being adopted by UK businesses to facilitate collaboration, trade, learn, manage company business processes and deliver services. Most manufacturing small to medium enterprises (SMEs), who are low investors in the technology, have not benefited from its application. The purpose of this paper is to identify ways of removing the barriers for SMEs and the change approaches used by SMEs to implement internet and information technologies.

An analysis of 32 companies assisted in the internet technology adoption initiative under government funding was carried out. Tailored ICT solutions were recommended and implemented. Information was collected before the start assistance and at the completion of 10 or 25 days of assistance to the companies. Each company case was analysed to generalise the findings. Two change models: classic three step change model and improvisational model were used to analyse the approaches taken by the SMEs in the adoption of ICTs.

The study suggests that SMEs tend to favour the improvisational model of technology adoption over the classic change model. The reasons might be the alignment of technology, the organisational context and the change model used.

This study highlights that incremental change model is favoured by SMEs in adopt in ICT technology as a change process.

Any initiative aimed at improving performance of SMEs in ICT adoption will benefit from the lessons learned from this study. Also, SMEs adopting change processes will also find the study valuable.