Business Process Modeling and Standardization

Business Process Modeling and Standardization October 2004 Content Introduction................................................................................................................3 Business process: one word, multiple arenas of application.............................................4 Criteria for a business process modeling standard ..........................................................5 State of the Industry ...................................................................................................6 XPDL, BPML, BPEL...................................................................................................7 UML 1.x..................................................................................................................7 UML 2.0 .................................................................................................................8 BPMN – Business Process Modeling Notation..............................................................8 ISO 9000/2000 .......................................................................................................9 BPDM – Business Process Definition Metamodel ....................................................... 10 Microsoft: the unknown factor ................................................................................ 11 Summary.............................................................................................................. 11 MEGA’s Approach ...................................................................................................... 11 About MEGA ............................................................................................................. 12 © MEGA September 2004 MEGA & Standard Bodies page 2/12 Introduction The emerging interest in the process approach is giving rise to numerous expectations and views. Whether it be Business Process Reengineering (BPR), Business Process Management (BPM), Activity Based Costing (ABC) or Business Activity Monitoring (BAM), process modeling is at the core of each of these approaches. The arrival of modeling standards is now resulting in the rationalization of process analysis methods and the creation of a knowledge base that can be shared by market participants. Substantial progress has been made in business process standardization. However, it is clear that the wide range of domain covered by business process modeling requires more that a single compacted standard. This article attempts to present the current status and the need to embrace the multiple dimensions of business process approaches.The perspectives given in this report are based on MEGA customer experience and our many years of participation in standardization groups. © MEGA September 2004 page 3/12 Business process: one word, multiple arenas of application Before creating a list of the modeling standards being developed, we will first address the following question: what business processes are we talking about? The term “Business process” is often used in relation to very different types of projects. Of these, we are addressing the following three: • The creation of a customer-oriented business management method. This means running the company via its business processes or value chains. • The creation of procedures to oversee the organization’s operations. • The integration of IT resources using a business process approach. In planning a company’s operations, one factor is the relationship between strategy and business processes. For example, a bank can decide to focus on the financial products market over the retail banking market. The business process “Provide financial products” thus becomes the bank’s major value added product line. Bank operations must be reorganized according to this business process so that each branch focuses on satisfying customers who buy financial products. In the second example, a bank is looking to improve its operational organization. For example, this bank would want to ensure, through management procedures, that it had control over its customer debt levels. The goal is to determine what rules to apply and which organizational units are responsible for applying them. Here, task distribution and management of responsibilities for each task are at the forefront. The third example involves information systems. The issue here is coordination of software services and user tasks. In the case of this bank, for example, a workflow could be implemented to automate the gathering of past customer records for debt control purposes. It is apparent that the above described areas cover topics as varied as strategic analysis, responsibility analysis and information system architecture. This review of different instances involving business process modeling reveals that no single standard being proposed today can satisfy all these differing requirements. It is important to realize that for each approach, there must be a specific, adapted type of process modeling. Business analysts using the process approach will need to be informed as to the optimal standard to deploy. The next paragraph provides a classification of the main business process standards. © MEGA September 2004 page 4/12 Criteria for a business process modeling standard Aside from covering the different business process modeling requirements as described above, a standard for analyzing business processes must meet certain criteria that apply to any modeling standard: • An intuitive notation that is easily adopted for use by those involved with business analysis: a good diagram is worth a thousand words. • A metamodel and vocabulary—a group of concepts and relationships—that are strictly and consistently defined to provide a solid foundation for the various business process approaches. • A breakdown of the metamodel and notation for each level of analysis of business processes: value chain, organization, IT integration. This breakdown must be accompanied by a mechanism for navigating between the different levels of analysis. • An exchange format for both the process models and their diagrams. © MEGA September 2004 page 5/12 State of the Industry A double analysis grid depicting the field of application for the process modeling and the characteristics of a modeling standard enables us to classify the main standards that already exist and those currently being created. Fields of Application • Value Chain Analysis • Organization Analysis • Business Process Automation Analysis • Execution language for automated processes Characteristics of a modeling • Has a metamodel standard • Has a notation • Has an exchange format Figure 1 – Grid analysis for a business process modeling standard The following table gives us an overview of existing and proposed standards: Name Standard Status Field of application Meta Notation Exchange organization model format XPDL WFMC Finalized Execution language Yes No Yes BPML BPMI Finalized Execution language Yes No Yes BPEL OASIS Finalized Execution language Yes No Yes New version in the planning stages UML 1.0 OMG Finalized Business Process Automation Analysis Yes Yes Yes UML 2.0 OMG Being finalized Business Process Automation Analysis Yes Yes Yes BPMN BPMI Finalized Business Process Automation Analysis No Yes No 1.0 BPMN BPMI Planning Business Process Automation Analysis ? Yes ? 2.