اندازه گیری

Today, one of the most important concerns of managers is to find a way to measure the maturity level of Business Process Management (BPM) and to recognize improvement conditions. Hence, the aim of this research is to measure and plan various scenarios in order to develop business process management. A Maturity Model has three dimensions: Levels, factors and measurement tools. In this paper, the dimensions are recognized via a comprehensive literature review. Finally, they are conceptualized, measured and a scenario planning is developed.

In this research, the extracted factors and indices form the basic approach of the conceptual model and are validated by a confirmatory factor analysis. Regarding the structure of the conceptual model, factors and indices of all levels of process maturity, a causal loop has been developed based on a fuzzy cognitive map that illustrates the maturity aspects and their relationships to provide scenario planning for developing maturity.

The developed BPM maturity model classifies the maturity levels into the following stages, primary, managed, standardized, predictable and innovative. Also, the findings show that there are 33 process concepts that lead to the development of a business process maturity level. Furthermore, by the result of this research, if the deployment level of concepts in the organization is determined, organizations can measure the level of their BPM maturity and provide scenario planning.

33 BPM maturity concepts can support organizations as a road map to promote maturity level from 0 to 100. In addition, the implementation of the results of this research into case study show that the current status of business processes is graded as level 3 of the maturity level and its score is 36 of 100.

Without measuring governance, it is extremely difficult to talk about improvement. Public policy-making is the tool of governments in governing various areas of society. Policies that are formulated and implemented to solve problems and meet public needs can only achieve their ultimate goal of public interest if they are of good quality in the process of agenda setting, formulation, implementation, and evaluation. Knowing the quality of policies in each of these stages requires accurate and valid measuring tools and metrics. This will be doubly important when it comes to the cultural sphere of the society. In this study, based on the evaluation model of the cultural policymaking process and using the ten-step methodology of designing the measures of Ruther and Jones, and a survey of 10 active experts in the field of culture, a questionnaire for measuring the quality of cultural policies has been designed. The scale, containing 55 questions, has made it possible to measure the quality of cultural policies in five dimensions: problem-identification, solution-taking, legitimization, implementation and evaluation. The problem-identification dimension has a component called cultural excellence with four indicators: deepening of religious and value beliefs, social development, identity-creating and insight-giving. The legitimization dimension has a component of cultural support with two indicators: persuasiveness and legal protection. The implementation dimension has the component of cultural policy-making which includes soft contextualization with indicators like commitment and the potency of the administrators. Finally, the evaluation dimension has the component of cultural monitoring with indicators like, purposeful, continuous, and realistic monitoring.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of the concept of service quality in a supply chain and present a framework for its measurement. A literature review was conducted on key service quality models and measurement issues. Various dimensions related to the quality of service were explored. This was followed by in-depth exploratory interviews at different levels. Based on the insights gained, a conceptual framework for measurement of quality of service in supply chain is presented. The paper presents a conceptual model of service quality in supply chains based on gap analysis. They include the gap between supplier and focal firm, focal firm and distributor, and distributor and customer. The assessment of quality of service in the supply chain is an attempt to cover the relatively less explored area. It is expected that this research will further motivate researchers to work in this area. This service quality framework will be beneficial to researchers and practicing managers in identification of opportunities for improvements in service quality. This paper explores research in the less explored area and offers practical help to researchers and practitioners in providing a direction for service quality improvement in the supply chain.

The present paper analyses the performance of the Iranian thermal power plant by working out the technical efficiency using the mathematical model of data envelopment Analysis (DEA). The DEA is a non linear programming way of calculating technical efficiency of the decision making units. This study use a Malmquist productivity index to investigate Total factor productivity (TFP) change for common set of Thermal power plants existing between 2002 and 2008 using prowess data base. The total factor productivity is decomposed into efficiency change (catching up phenomena) and technical change (innovations). The paper confirms the improvement in productivity, efficiency change and technical change of the Iranian thermal power plants from 2002 to 2008 and thus, help Tavaneer Company to monitor and diagnose changes in the productivity of its thermal power plants. Furthermore, the results allow the agents to define their efficiency profile as a function of their competitors and suggest to them some of the efficiency improvements that they should undertake. in the face of the continuing liberalization of the Iranian power generation market Our analysis suggests that improvements in the efficiency and productivity of thermal power plant in iran have occurred, and there is a relationship between the restructuring and the enhancement of productivity.

One of the difficult tasks in management is decision making. To accomplish all phases of decision making process, all criteria must be measurable and quantitatively available. Because information technology, according to its intangible nature, has a broad range of definitions and generally undetermined indicators some of which are qualitative, there is no certain criterion to measure it. This paper aimed to consider all aspects of information technology. Indicators of information technology have been set in four main groups and in each of them, themain criteria and related sub-criteria are defined. As qualitative and quantitative criteria cannot be measured certainly and accurately, the fuzzy systems (FS) are utilized to assess the magnitude of any indicator. To do so, after creating the matrix of decision-making, weights assessment techniques in multi criteria-decision making (MCDM) have been used and then a model for measuring in order to gain points for a unique level of information technology is provided. The method used to assess the weights is “grouping” that is one of the decision-making techniques and the method of measurement is fuzzy simple addition weight (FSAW). Points earned, indicate the level of information technology in the organization. According to the implementation of the model and examination by experts in this field, designed model was approved and is applicable in all organizations that have IT units.

Quantitative approach is known as a kind of research methods, has been used when measurable parameters are available in the process of research. This kind of research methods is being used in transportation and traffic fields because of the availability of measurable parameters. Although there is some measurable parameters are available, in the recent years qualitative and combined (quantitative and qualitative approaches)approaches have been used in transportation and traffic studies. In this paper a review study has been done to eliminate using qualitative approach in transportation and traffic studies. Results showed that although a number of variables are defined by measurable parameters in the field of traffic and transportation, but qualitative methodologies inresearch process, have been used in many cases. Results also show that in some studies qualitative approach had results that are more appropriate because some of the social parameters particularly in urban transportation have been merged by measurable parameters.