A configurable airport reference model for passenger facilitation Samia Mazhar (M.Inf.Tech., B.Comp.Sc.) Principal supervisor: Prof. Dr. Michael Rosemann Associate supervisor: Dr. Paul Wu Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Information Technology (Business Process Management) Queensland University of Technology Science and Engineering Faculty Information Systems School Brisbane 2015 Statement of original authorship The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted to meet requirements for an award at this or any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made. QUT Verified Signature Samia Mazhar 04 September 2015 Acknowledgements I want to extend my gratitude to all the amazing people that I interacted with throughout this long and intense adventure of my degree, both in the project and outside it. First of all, I am deeply grateful to broad range of the remarkable business representatives who participated in this study, from: the airports, Air New Zealand, ISS, Tolls Dnata, Menzies, Australian Customs and DAFF Biosecurity. In particular, my sincerest thanks to Dennis Krause (Brisbane Airport), David Blackwell (Rockhampton Airport), Robbie Maxwell (Perth Airport), Maurice Geary (Gold Coast Airport), Anna Gikovski (Melbourne Airport), and also Arundhati Gupta and Paul Behan from IATA - you all made this possible. It takes a village to raise a child and I want to thank my scholarly village composed of friends and colleagues from across the globe. The entire Airports of the Future team, especially Vikas, Tristan, Vesna, Ben, Lissy, Prasad and Ruth - thank you for your timely advice. The entire BPM research group especially Ayon, Guy, Axel, and Erwin - thank you for so much your encouragement. Thanks to so many wonderful colleagues, the balcony from level 5 at 126 Margaret remains a wonderful memory: Ayed, Stefan, Thomas, Alfredo, Niz, Karen, Tonia, Jessica, Ross, Greg, Marcello, Jan, Wasana and all the permanent and and visiting academics from our time in that building - you made it fun! Thank you also to the marvellous Masters students I supervised for your valued contributions. A special mention of two people who were Godsends - Kerrie Mengersen and Michael Leyer - you reached out to help at exactly the right time and made me feel that someone up there was still watching over me. To all my dearest friends outside of the scholarly context - you kept me going. Thank you also to my trainers and instructors - you kept me centred and the physical discipline you helped build outside of work put me on a path to focus and greater confidence. To my supervisors Michael Rosemann and Paul Wu, your guidance has helped me on so many levels that a paragraph simply does not do it justice. Suffice it to say that without you I could not have started or finished this journey and its many iterations. Michael your clear and poignant wisdom and Paul your witty and dedicated advice remains a hard act to follow - yet I will endeavour to help others the way you helped me. Thank you both for the motivation, support and unwavering faith you put in me - the positive impact of all that you have done for me has truly influenced my life for the better. Naturally a big huge thank you goes to my family for being the most adorable and supportive and loving and accepting one in the whole wide world. Thanks to my parents I got every opportunity to grow wings, stretch them and use them to good advantage. To them and the rest of my beautiful family: you are all the ground that stands me firmly and the sky that embraces me - you have made me capable of this, all that came before, and all that will come after. Also, a special thanks to my amazing nephews for teaching me the power of persistence! Finally, Mum it is impossible to verbalise what you mean to me and what you have done for me, especially in achieving this huge milestone - I am so grateful to God for all my blessings, of which you are the most important. Everyone who encouraged me, gave feedback, and simply listened: you have been instrumental to my learning and growth - thank you from the bottom of my heart! I now take the Force with me and bravely go where I've never gone before. Samia Sept. 2015 This work is dedicated to my roots - the legacy of people that brought me here - especially my beloved grandparents Baba and Bibi You are remembered Abstract The air transport industry is a complex environment facing challenges that include catering to rising passenger numbers, while coping with a changing economic, health, security, and technological climate. Passenger facilitation at airports is a part of the socio-technical system where this challenge manifests, impacting business operations in terms of time, cost and quality. Sub-optimal visibility and collaboration across the highly interdependent stakeholder organisations in such a complex and changeful environment introduces difficulties in effective planning and design of the process and the airport infrastructure required to support it. Global organisations, as well as those local to Australia, express a need for integration, standardisation and consistency in ensuring an effective and efficient process and positive passenger experience. This study aims to assist airports in designing the passenger facilitation process by developing a cross-organisational, configurable airport process reference model. This model provides clarity and visibility by integrating the perspectives of all organisational stakeholders involved in the international departure process - namely the airport operator, the airline, Customs and the security contractor – with that of the passenger, who is the key actor in the process. The reference model uses a questionnaire to elicit the contextual needs of the airport user, and presents a relevant, specialised end-to-end subset of the extensive model based on their contextual needs, providing them ability to make informed choices and perform further focussed analysis if required. This reference model is based in deep empirical knowledge across five Australian airports (Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Gold Coast, and Rockhampton) that are used as case studies for the international departure process, and can be extended to other airports and facilitation processes, e.g. international arrivals. The research employs Design Science to design and develop an artefact applying existing scientific knowledge. This is the first reported application of configurable reference modelling to airport passenger facilitation, and is the core domain contribution of this study. Methodological contributions are proposed as space-sensitive additions to Business Process Management Notation (BPMN), derivation of contextual factors, and normative guidelines for inductively developing the configurable reference model. The artefact has undergone ex- ante evaluation based on a range of conceptual, scientific, and usefulness criteria. Outcomes contribute to both research and practice as scientifically grounded concepts of practical relevance, as is the priority of a Doctorate of Information Technology. This project has been conducted as part of the ARC Linkage project LP0990135 “Airports of the future”. Keywords Business process management, airport passenger facilitation/flow, configurable reference model, BPMN, space-sensitive process model, process merging, contextual factors, process configuration Contents 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1 1.1. Background and significance ...................................................................................... 1 1.2. Motivation .................................................................................................................. 2 1.3. Problem area .............................................................................................................. 4 1.4. Research questions .................................................................................................... 5 1.5. Contribution, innovation and relevance ..................................................................... 6 1.6. Research approach ..................................................................................................... 8 1.7. Thesis structure .......................................................................................................... 9 1.8. Chapter summary ..................................................................................................... 10 2. Literature review ........................................................................................................ 11 2.1. Chapter introduction ................................................................................................ 11 2.2. Configurable reference models ................................................................................ 13 2.3. Process modelling of passenger facilitation at airports ............................................ 14 2.4. Process model merging ............................................................................................ 17 2.5. Contextual factors .................................................................................................... 19 2.6. Process configuration using a questionnaire interface ............................................. 22 2.7. Configurable reference model