Masters Theses

Date of Award

12-2009

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Industrial Engineering

Major Professor

Joseph Wilck

Committee Members

Rapinder Sawhney, Xueping Li

Abstract

This thesis examines the practice of Business Process Modeling (BPM) in the field of contracts management. Government defense contractors are heavily burdened by contracts which have ended, but have not been finalized and closed. In order to keep good relations with organizations regulating government contracts, contractors have been forced to devise a strategy to address contract closeouts. Through utilization of BPM practices, an organization is able to not only model the flow of their contract closeout process, but simulate the performance of their process under varying conditions so that goals and deadlines may be met. Data was collected about a defense contractor’s contract closeout process, and a simulation model was created to mimic the behavior of the system over the time to complete the contract closeout process. Various levels of resources were used in simulating the process to test the performance and throughput of the system. Using simulation software, the closeout process was able to be successfully modeled under varying resource levels. The simulation models included true worker process times with integrated schedules, including holidays, over the expected period of performance. The simulation produced a realistic model which allows an organization to plan their resources to accomplish their contract closeout process under specified conditions and deadlines. This work also provides a base for further studies involving BPM and the field of contracts management.

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