Closing spatial und motivational gaps: Virtual Reality in Business Process Improvement

In times of growing digitization and globalization, Business Process Improvement is becoming increasingly important. Prior to improving processes, weak points in existing business processes must be identified. However, such improvement and change processes are often hindered by a weak participation due to lacking motivation among employees. At the same time, conventional process modelling languages do not allow for including the environment in finding weak points. To address these barriers, we compared the use of Virtual Reality to a conventional 2D-paper presentation. For this purpose, we carried out an experiment, in which weak points of a picking process should be identified. We examined and compared the number of identified weak points and the user perceptions in both environments. It turned out that Virtual Reality applications are an effective and motivationincreasing alternative to conventional instruments for use in Business Process Improvement