Simulation based business processes analysis in higher education institutions

Business process management (BPM) based on the usage of simulation modelling allows organizations to sustain and improve their operational performance. Discrete event simulation (DES) can help identify resource's bottlenecks, such as staffing, estimate process execution or delay times, test improvement suggestions in the process design phase, and overall assist in understanding how processes might impact performance in various scenarios. While many research papers report on the industry applications of BPM and DES, we focus to higher educational institutions (HEIS). Goals of the paper are: (1) to review the research of BPM and DES in HEIs, and (2) to discuss the impact of BPM and DES to process performance in one Croatian HEI. The case study methodology has been used in order to shed some light on the issue of applying discrete event simulation in BPM in the HEIs, especially for the purpose of collaboration improvement and impact assessment.