Importance of Business Process Modelling

Business Process is a total response that a business undertakes utilising the resources and delivering the outputs that create a value for the customer.

The business process:

 Has a goal

 Uses specific inputs

 Delivers specific outputs

 Collects resources

 Performs a number of activities in some order

 Creates value for the customer

Business Process Modelling refers to a set of activities undertaken to optimise the business process.

The reasons for optimising the business process is to: (See figure 7.1 Optimising the business process)

 Improve the performance of the process

 Deliver better value for the customer

 Maximise the earnings of the organisation

 Keep its head above competition from outsiders

Fig. 7.1: Reasons for optimising the business process

The business system contains a combination of people and the applications organised to meet the business objectives. The applications are automated timely and efficiently to enable information and reporting system to be accurate. To meet the business objectives:

 Designers and programmers: The designers and programmers of the modelling process, together:

 Put together the data and processes to provide optimum benefits

 Put in place the architecture which is capable of addressing these needs

 Architecture: The architecture should be flexible to adapt new methods, processes, and business plans.

All the elements of the business process have to be structured and controlled for the purpose of analysis, evaluation, modification, implementation, and correction. Some of the elements are activities, parts, products, data, people, processes, software tools, delivery systems, and performance measurement.

This is all what we are going to study under BPM. It is synonymously used even for the software tools, because of the extensive use of various software programmes for all the activities seen above.

Self Assessment Questions Fill in the blanks

1. The business system contains a combination of ____________

organised to meet business objectives.

2. ________ is used synonymously used for the software tools also.

7.3 Business Process Modelling

Business Process Modelling can be categorised into two parts – Logical Processing Modelling and Physical Process Modelling. (See figure 7.2 Types of modelling)

Fig. 7.2: Types of modelling

In this section, let us know more in detail of the two processes of modelling.

7.3.1 Logical process modelling

Logical process modelling is the representation of putting together all the activities of business process in detail and making a representation of them.

The initial data collected need to be arrange in a logical manner so that, links are made between nodes for making the workflow smooth. The steps to be followed to make the work smoother are given below:

1. Capture relevant data in detail to be acted upon

2. Establish controls and limit access to the data during process execution 3. Determine which task in the process is to be done and also the

subsequent tasks in that process

4. Make sure that all relevant data is available for all the tasks 5. Make the relevant and appropriate data available for that task

6. Establish a mechanism to indicate acceptance of the results after every task or process. This is to have an assurance that flow is going ahead with accomplishments in the desired path

Some of these activities may occur in a sequential order whereas; some of them may run parallel. There may even be circular paths, like re-work loops.

Complexities arise when the process activities are not connected together.

Logical process model consists of only the business activities and shows the connectivity among them. The process model is a representation of the business activities different from the technology dependent ones. Thus, we have a model that is singularly structured only for business activities.

Computer programmes are also present in the total system. This allows the business oriented executives to be in control of the inputs, processes and outputs. The Logical Process Model improves, control on the access to data. It also identifies, who is in possession of data at different nodes in the dataflow network that has been structured.

A few of the logical modelling formats (See figure 7.3 Ways of representing logical process modelling) are given below:

1. Process Descriptions with task sequences and data addresses 2. Flow Charts with various activities and relationships

3. Flow Diagrams 4. Function hierarchies

5. Function dependency diagrams

Every business activity, when considered as a logical process model, can be represented by a diagram. It can be decomposed and meaningful names can be given to the details. Verb and Noun form combinations can be used to describe at each level. Nouns give the name of the activity uniquely and are used for the entire model meaning the same activity.

Fig. 7.3: Ways of representing logical process modelling

7.3.2 Physical process modelling

Physical process modelling is concerned with the actual design of data base meeting the requirements of the business.

Physical modelling deals with the conversion of the logical model into a relational model. Objects get defined at the schema level. The objects here are tables created on the basis of entities and attributes. A database is defined for the business. All the information is put together to make the database software specific. This means that the objects during physical modelling vary on the database software being used. The outcomes are server model diagrams showing tables and relationships with a database.

Self Assessment Questions Fill in the blanks

3. Every business activity can be considered as a __________ and represented by a ________.

4. Physical process modelling is concerned with the design of ______

meeting the requirements of the business and represents using _________.