Brian H. Cameron
The Pennsylvania State University, USA
AbstrAct
Business process modeling (BPM) is a topic that is generating much interest in the information tech- nology industry today. Business analysts, process designers, system architects, software engineers, and systems consultants must understand the foundational concepts behind BPM and evolving modeling standards and technologies that have the potential to dramatically change the nature of phases of the systems development life cycle (SDLC). Pareto’s 80/20 rule, as applied to the SDLC, is in the process of being drastically altered. In the past, approximately 20% of the SDLC was spent on analysis and design activities with the remaining 80% spent on systems development and implementation (Weske, Goesmann, Holten, & Striemer, 1999). Today, with the introduction of the Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI), Web services, and the services-oriented architecture (SOA), the enterprise SDLC paradigm is poised for a dramatic shift. In this new paradigm, approximately 80% of the SDLC is spent on analysis and design activities with the remaining 20% spent on systems development and implementation. Once referred to as process or workflow automation, BPM has evolved into a suite of interrelated components for systems analysis, design, and development. Emerging BPM standards and technologies will be the
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background
Adaptive organizations want to be able to rapidly modify their business processes to changes in their business climate including competitive, market, economic, industry, regulatory and compliance, or other factors. Meanwhile, enterprise architects within IT or- ganizations have long dreamed of a repository for models that are interconnected and extend to support application delivery. No single tool exists that enables enterprise architects to connect the dots between high-level models geared toward a business audience and execut- able code to instantiate the vision (Carlis & Maguire, 2000).
Business process modeling (BPM) is both a business concept and an emerging technology. The concept is to establish goals, define a strategy, and set objectives for improving particular operational processes that have significant impact on corporate performance. It does not imply reengineering all business processes; rather, the focus is on busi- ness processes that directly affect some metric of corporate success. Business performance manage- ment and measurement emphasize using metrics beyond financial ones to guide business process management strategies (Delphi, 2001). Metrics related to customer value or loyalty are examples. Business process modeling is becoming the central point of organization for many systems. BPM as a concept is not new; multiple process manage- ment methodologies such as six sigma and lean manufacturing have existed for years. However,
new BPM technologies are fueling a renewed interest in process thinking (Ettlinger, 2002). New BPM technologies promise business modelers and managers a visual dashboard to manage and adjust, in real time, human and machine resources, as well as information being consumed as work progresses.
The business and IT worlds are taking more strategic and holistic views of IT and how it sup- ports the business. IT strategy, business process improvement, and IT architecture are experi- encing a renaissance. Enterprise architects have tackled the technical architecture effectively. Now, enterprise architects are looking to ex- pand their efforts into the business architecture space. Enterprise business architecture (EBA) is the expression of the enterprise’s key business strategies and their impact on business functions and processes (Adhikari, 2002b). Business archi- tecture efforts in most organizations are limited to thematic project-level initiatives. Thematic business architecture artifacts generally fail to evolve once the projects are complete because little perceived value exists for keeping business architecture content alive. However, emerging standards show promise in keeping business ar- chitecture and associated artifacts alive to serve as key business strategy enablers.
The IT world is moving more toward a model of integrating pieces or components vs. building from scratch (Adhikari, 2002a). Organizations are looking to strategically optimize, automate, and integrate key processes to provide seamless service to more demanding customers in a mul- primary vehicles by which current systems portfolios transition to Web services and service-oriented architectures (Aversano, & Canfora, 2002). The Business Process Management Initiative’s business process modeling notation (BPMN) subgroup is currently finalizing a standardized notation for business process modeling. Although the notation is still in working-draft format, system architects and designers should consider incorporating the concepts of BPM into their current and future systems analysis and design procedures.
tichannel world. To do this effectively, systems must be integrated at the process level as well as the data level. Integrating systems at the process level has been a challenge that, when unmet, leads to data duplication and inconsistency, and functional overlap (i.e., inefficient processes and processing; Reingruber & Gregory, 1994). Many companies are embarking on process improvement initiatives in hopes of increasing the efficiency or effectiveness of the organization.
Process improvement initiatives go by many names, including ISO certification, enterprise business architecture, business process improve- ment, six sigma, business process reengineering, and lean thinking, to name a few. Most of these initiatives utilize visual modeling techniques to understand current-state and future-state design. Several accepted standards exist for visual model- ing (e.g., integrated definition [IDEF], American National Standards Institute [ANSI], event-driven process chains [EPCs]). None of these visual process modeling standards offers a seamless extension of visual models into executable script or source code. In response to this shortcoming, a new modeling standard (business process model- ing notation, BPMN) is emerging that promises this seamless model to code integration (BPMI. org, 2005). This model to execute the goal is remi- niscent of the failed promises of computer-aided software engineering (CASE) tools. Advances in the fields of computer science and mathematics are now making this goal attainable. BPMN offers a mechanism for true business- and IT-process modeling convergence. Notations and methods for process improvement and modeling within the business are mature, as are the notations and methods for application development and delivery within IT. However, the current business- and IT-process models and methods fail to align well with one another (Adhikari, 2002b).
BPMN is mapped to the business process modeling language (BPML) and business process execution language for Web services (BPEL4WS),
thus process models created with BPMN will auto- mate much more rapidly than is currently possible with any other modeling notation (Ewalt, 2002). The business process query language (BPQL) has been introduced by the Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI) to query process repositories, similar to the manner in which SQL is used to query data repositories. Several concepts presented in BPMN should be considered for immediate adoption by system designers and integrators. First is the agreement on a standard notation and principle set for process modeling. Many modeling tools are incorporating support for BPMN, BPEL4WS, and BPML.
Technical modeling standards (e.g., entity re- lationship diagrams, unified modeling language) are being coupled with more business-oriented modeling approaches (e.g., BPMN, swimlane diagrams) to converge business and IT model- ing. The goal of these efforts is to incorporate a set of standardized guidelines into all inter- nal and external modeling initiatives. With increased attention to process integration with supply chain partners, organizations are quickly moving to a standardized approach for process modeling to support intra-organizational and interorganizational development and integra- tion initiatives.
Software tools have long been used to automate tasks and reduce manual interactions. Thus, it is important to distinguish business processes from IT applications. A business process is a sequence of activities performed by people and machines necessary to produce a desired result (Adhikari, 2002b). It is initiated by the arrival of work (such as a phone call, faxed order, or timing event) that triggers the sequence of operational activities. An application is a logical grouping of tasks automated by a computer with the objective of reducing or augmenting human interactions. Thus, an applica- tion is a subset of the tasks of a business process. Many human-centric activities of a business
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process have largely been unautomated (though some organizations use workflow automation to manage electronic work queues).
A business process management suite (BPMS) is a new development environment that enables business users to collaborate with IT professionals in the design and development of optimized busi- ness processes (not applications), thus reducing the communication gap between business and IT. Ideally, a business process management suite supports a business process modeling environ- ment that is shared by business analysts, process engineers, IT architects, and programmers. The modeling surface or palette exposes different capabilities to support each of these roles. Un- like earlier code-generating tools, the modeling environment creates XML (extensible markup language) metadata that describes how applica- tion functionality and information, and human activities should interact and be instantiated at run time.
The new run-time engines interpret the metadata at run time (Mangan & Sadiq, 2002). Increasingly, vendors are endorsing the busi- ness process execution language (BPEL) as the standard process description language. Thus, changing a business process requires changing the graphical model, regenerating the metadata, and redeploying process instances. This is a much simpler and faster approach to changing how work gets done. This faster rate of change to operational best practices and the ability to change activi- ties dynamically are what make an organization adaptive. An adaptive organization can adjust its operational business processes in near real time to capitalize on opportunities, avoid threats, and maximize corporate performance.