An activity based framework for business process evaluation: Case study of a county's evaluation of an integrated court system

Organizations often need to invest in a variety of Information Technology (IT) projects to improve their business processes. Traditional methods of investment justification largely depend on qualitative judgment and lack in their capability to provide a quantifiable assessment prior to project initiation. In this article, based on Activity Based Management (ABM); we propose a standardized process improvement framework. The proposed framework enables quantitative assessment of the impact of different activities on performance. Based on the assessment, process improvement initiatives can be undertaken to reduce the impact of specific Non-Value-Added activities on performance measures. Pre and post implementation evaluation of such measures can be used to gauge process improvement. We elaborate the framework using a case study in a southern United States county where the different departments in its judicial system needed an integrated IT solution to track its cases as it progresses through the justice system.