TEI of KAVALA

Business Process Management

Lecturer: Dr. Dimitrios I. Maditinos

Student: Marcela Svetenco
Elena Caraman
Leena Toivanen
Karolis Izdonas
Ausra Druskyte
Egle Dmukauskaite

Contents

Introduction......................................................................................3
Business Process Management Concept..........................................4
Components of a Business Process Management System...............6
A typical Process Life Cycle using BPM........................................7
Benefits of Business Process Management.....................................9
Business Process Management Model (BPMM)...........................10
Business Process Management Standards.....................................11
Conclusion.....................................................................................12
References......................................................................................13

Introduction
The effects of globalization and the technological advances of the last 20 years
profoundly increased the pace of change and the severity of competition in the business
environment compared to the previous 5 decades. In response to this rapidly changing business
environment, management theorists and scholars are constantly putting forth new ideas to help
corporations succeed in this turbulent world. Still, one idea after another would be put forth,
generating excitement in the management press, only to fade away in a few years. The truth is
most of these management ideas often built on one another and shared central themes that have
not changed through the years. Whether it is Total Quality Management of the 1980s or BPR of
the 1990s, the one central theme common to these management ideas is the concept of process
management.
Business Process Management is a structured method of understanding, documenting,
modelling, analysing, simulating, executing and continuously changing end-to-end business
processes and all relevant resources in relation to an organisations ability to add value to the
business. It is the current term utilised to encapsulate a process-driven approach to attain
enterprise operational efficiency.
Business Process Management is an emerging trend in the area of business process
automation and system design. BPM can help organizations formalize specifications of business
processes and enable their analysis, monitoring and execution. This paper introduces this topic
and gives a brief overview of the developments in this space.

Business Process Management Concept

Business process management (BPM) is a systematic approach to making an
organization's workflow more effective, more efficient and more capable of adapting to an everchanging environment. A business process is an activity or set of activities that will accomplish a
specific organizational goal.
The goal of BPM is to reduce human error and miscommunication and focus stakeholders
on the requirements of their roles. BPM is a subset of infrastructure management, an
administrative area concerned with maintaining and optimizing an organization's equipment and
core operations.
BPM is often a point of connection within a company between the line-of-business
(LOB) and the IT department. Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) and Business
Process Management Notation (BPMN) were both created to facilitate communication between
IT and the LOB. Both languages are easy to read and learn, so that business people can quickly
learn to use them and design processes. Both BPEL and BPMN adhere to the basic rules of
programming, so that processes designed in either language are easy for developers to translate
into hard code.
There are 3 different kinds of BPM frameworks available in the market today. Horizontal
frameworks deal with design and development of business processes and are generally focused
on technology and reuse. Vertical BPM frameworks focus on a specific set of coordinated tasks
and have pre-built templates that can be readily configured and deployed. Full-service BPM
suites have 5 basic components:

Process discovery and project scoping

Process modeling and design

Business rules engine

Workflow engine

Simulation and testing

While on-premise business process management (BPM) has been the norm for most

enterprises, advances in cloud computing have lead to increased interest in on-demand, software
as a service (SaaS) offerings.

Is BPM just process automation?

IT solutions that automate processes in any organization can be built on any platform.
Independent software vendors provide solutions according to the needs of customers.
Interoperability and maintaining these tools corresponding to changes becomes hard.
Employees need to be trained on all the tools. BPM acts a single system that gives
comprehensive solution to any organization. BPM practises are not just automation of few
processes but BPM align itself with strategy of firms. BPM asserts that before any process can be
automated, it is necessary to define (often at a very strategic level or enterprise-wide) all of the
business processes running inside an organisation. From this the processes can be re-defined and
where necessary can be optimised, including automation.
BPM directly impacts an organizational ability to adapt to changes, meet customer
requirements, reduce operational cost and improve service quality.
Why is Business Process Management Necessary?
As the main people who design and maintain information systems to support BPM within
and across comapnies, it also beneficial for the computer scienist and practitioner to understand
the rationale and benefits behind the BPM discipline.

Components of a Business Process Management System

A Business Process Management system consists of a set of tools, which allows users to
define, automate, execute, manage and improve business processes. It may comprise of variety
of independent packages or a comprehensive suite. The activities can either be manual or
automated. The tools for improving the business processes can be described generically as:
1. Process Definition Tool: a graphical drag and drop tool used to define process in terms
of activity flow, business rules and information flow. A set of standard designs are present which
are used to notify particular workflows.
2. Process Simulation Tool: used to simulate real life conditions and identify process
bottlenecks or resources requirements. This helps in predicting and overcoming business issues
right at the design-time.
3. Application Developement Tool: applications built using BPM systems require system
development efforts for building user interface (forms), and bringing about integration of BPM
engines (Workflow and Rule servers) with business applications deployed within and beyond the
organization boundaries. The application development tools minimize the system development
efforts by a set of coordinated activities.
4. Workflow and Rules Server: execute activity flow, information flow, and business
rules. They assign tasks to human performers based on the activity flow and rules defined and
inter-operate with other back-end systems. The rules are defined according to the needs of the
system corresponding to the business processes.
5. Process Execution User Interface: provides a run-time environment to process
performers. This interface allows users to initiate process instances, view tasks and associated
priorities, and carry-out tasks assigned to them.
6. Process Management Tools: provide process activity and performers monitoring
application, query application & analytics tools. It allows monitoring performance of the various
process parameters and taking corrective actions proactively in case of delays and exceptions. It
also helps to analyse process and business performance data to identify areas of process
improvement. More advanced systems support export of process data from production
environment to simulation environment. Overall improvement of the whole system of business
processes is a direct outcome.
7. System Administration Module: allows system administrators to configure servers,
monitor server performance, perform user and access rights management, etc.

A typical Process Life Cycle using BPM

Business process management activities can be grouped into six categories: vision,
design, modeling, execution, monitoring, and optimization. Functions are designed around the
strategic vision and goals of an organization.
Process Design encompasses both the identification of existing processes and the design
of "to-be" processes. Areas of focus include representation of the process flow, the actors within
it, alerts & notifications, escalations, Standard Operating Procedures, Service Level Agreements,
and task hand-over mechanisms.
Good design reduces the number of problems over the lifetime of the process. Whether or
not existing processes are considered, the aim of this step is to ensure that a correct and efficient
theoretical design is prepared.
Modeling takes the theoretical design and introduces combinations of variables (e.g.,
changes in rent or materials costs, which determine how the process might operate under
different circumstances).
Execution - one of the ways to automate processes is to develop or purchase an
application that executes the required steps of the process; however, in practice, these
applications rarely execute all the steps of the process accurately or completely. Another
approach is to use a combination of software and human intervention; however this approach is
more complex, making the documentation process difficult.
As a response to these problems, software has been developed that enables the full
business process (as developed in the process design activity) to be defined in a computer
language which can be directly executed by the computer. The system will either use services in
connected applications to perform business operations (e.g. calculating a repayment plan for a
loan) or, when a step is too complex to automate, will ask for human input. Compared to either
of the previous approaches, directly executing a process definition can be more straightforward
and therefore easier to improve. However, automating a process definition requires flexible and
comprehensive infrastructure, which typically rules out implementing these systems in a legacy
IT environment.
Monitoring encompasses the tracking of individual processes, so that information on
their state can be easily seen, and statistics on the performance of one or more processes can be
provided. An example of the tracking is being able to determine the state of a customer order
(e.g. order arrived, awaiting delivery, invoice paid) so that problems in its operation can be
identified and corrected.
7

In addition, this information can be used to work with customers and suppliers to
improve their connected processes. Examples of the statistics are the generation of measures on
how quickly a customer order is processed or how many orders were processed in the last month.
These measures tend to fit into 3 categories: cycle time, defect rate and productivity.
The degree of monitoring depends on what information the business wants to evaluate
and analyze and how business wants it to be monitored, in real-time, near real-time or ad-hoc.
Here, business activity monitoring (BAM) extends and expands the monitoring tools generally
provided by BPMS.
Process Optimization includes retrieving process performance information from
modeling or monitoring phase; identifying the potential or actual bottlenecks and the potential
opportunities for cost savings or other improvements; and then, applying those enhancements in
the design of the process. Overall, this creates greater business value.
Re-engineering - when the process becomes too noisy and optimization is not fetching
the desired output, it is recommended to re-engineer the entire process cycle. BPR has become
an integral part of organizations to achieve efficiency and productivity at work.( S-Cube
Knowledge Model: Business Process Optimization)

Benefits of Business Process Management

There are three core benefits of implementing BPM that can be identified. They are:
Efficiency BPM allows reducing wastage, reducing manual effort and improves
coordination between activities. BPM allows reducing overall cycle time and the time to
incorporate changes is improved.
Few of the notable changes which increases efficiency will be:

Eliminate Manual Data Entry

Reduce Process Cycle Time

Reduce Analysis and Routing.

Effectivness Implemented BPM suites allow organizations to effectively improve the

processes. A well implemented BPM system help in monitoring performance and identifying
unseen bottlenecks in systems.
Few of the effectiveness changes will be:

Handle Exceptions faster and better

Make decisions better

Consistent execution.
Agility Business Process Management platforms provide ability to meet changes.

These changes can either be driven by internal or external factors. Business Process Management
allows the users to meet these changes in a faster and controlled way. Moreover ability to
accommodate unforeseen changes is a process is an added advantage of Business Process
Management.
Few notable changes which increases agility include:

Faster Regulatory Compliance

Supporting New Business Models.

Business Process Management Standards

Standards play an important role in Business Process Management. Though the
standards are in maturing phase organizations using and designing BPM products should
conform and consider the standards while developing potential BPM solutions.
Business Process Management standards can be classified as:

Graphical Standards allows users to express business processes and their possible flows
and transitions in a diagrammatic way. Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN)
provides methods to organizations internal and external processes using Business Process
Diagrams.

Execution Standards for deployment and automation of business processes. For

example Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) provides a standard language for
the definition of business processes and business interaction protocols.

Interchange Standards to facilitate portability of data across different BPMS.

Diagnosis Standards provide monitoring and administrative capabilities.

10

Business Process Management Model (BPMM)

The Business Process Management Model (BPMM) project was an initiative conducted
by the Division of STD Prevention (DSTDP) in collaboration with state and local health
departments to define a leading practice Business Process Management Model for STD
prevention. This initiative seeks to improve and augment STD prevention practices, and inform
the development of the STD Program Area Module (STD PAM), as part of the National
Electronic Disease Surveillance System (NEDSS). The goal of the initiative is to document the
vision for STD Prevention programs, map out required changes for implementation, and translate
the vision for the technology developers building integrated surveillance and response systems to
support STD Programs.

11

Conclusion
New Process Management technologies get to enable companies to manage the core
activities of their business more readily than using traditional software applications alone.
Most changes in technology have only an incremental effect on the way we do business,
but once in a while a new technology creates a fundamental change. The Internet, and in
particular email and the world wide web, was one. We believe that Business Process
Management is another.
As we managed to understand from the present paper, Business Process Management
refers to the closed loop, iterative management of business processes over their entire lifecycle.
Beside the concept of Business Process Management, we tried to give a brief explanation of the
benefits an organization has implementing BSP Systems and presented a simple model of a
Business Process Management project.
For an organization, its business processes are the key to its success. Therefore, it is of
paramount importance for the organization to have a powerful business process management
approach that enables it to rapidly create new, capable business process and to improve and adapt
existing business process to the changing environment in which the processes are executed.

12

References

Chang, J. F., (2006), Business Process Management Systems: Strategy and

Implementation, Auerbach Publications: Taylor and Francis Group, Boca Raton: New
York. Retrieved on 22/05.2012 from
http://www.enterprisearchitecture.ir/downloads/books/BusinessProcessManagementSyste
ms.pdf

Skalle, H., Ramachandran, S., Schuster, M., Szaloky V., Antoun, S. (2009), Aligning
Business Process Management, Service-Oriented Architecture and Lean Six Sigma for
Real Business Results, Copyright IBM Corp. Retrieved on 22/05/2012 from
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpapers/pdfs/redp4447.pdf

Nagaraj, N.S., Thonse, S. & Balasubramanian, S. (2001), Business Process Management:

An Emerging Trend, SETLabs, Infosys Technologies Ltd. Retrieved on 22/05/2012 from
http://uqu.edu.sa/files2/tiny_mce/plugins/filemanager/files/4150111/bpr/28iflow_bpm.pdf

Smith, H, & Fingar, P. (2003), Business Process Management: The Third Wave.
Retrieved on 22/05/2012 from http://www.fairdene.com/BPM3-ApxA-BPML.pdf

Smith, H., Neal, D., Ferrara, L. & Hayden, F. (2002), The Emergence of Business Process
Management. A report by CSCs research services. Retrieved on 22/05/2012 from
http://alarcos.inf-cr.uclm.es/doc/psgc/doc/lec/parte4b/csc-emergenceBPM.pdf

Truong, H. & and Dustdar, S., (2009), Integrating Data for Business Process
Management, Copyright IEEE. Retrieve on 22/05/2012 from
http://www.infosys.tuwien.ac.at/Staff/sd/papers/Integrating%20Data%20for%20Business
%20Process%20Management.pdf

Chong, S. (2007), Business Process Management for SMEs: An Exploratory Strategy of

Implementation Factors for the Australian Wine Indutry, Bentley, Australia.

13