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Money Making Drivers for BPM Part 3
By Jim Sinur | May 13, 2008
In the last blog entry on drivers for BPM, I indentified drivers around process outsourcing, package implementations and process standardization.
In this blog entry, I will explore people automation, value chain enablement, optimization, and compliance and process scenarios.
Get Work Away From People Through the Automation of Manual Processes When deciding what processes should go into a “human-to-human” or “system-to-system” process flow, process models can be analyzed for candidates. I believe that process models will start momentum toward automating the management of human activities through facilities found in BPM suites.
These are normally processes visible to humans (above the water line), but the models can also illustrate processes captured in computing systems (below the water line) and identify tasks that would economically move from human hands to system components or service-oriented business activities.
Additionally, human-centric processes implemented in a BPMS engine can be studied to determine if the process steps can be replaced with rules or even services. If you expect that the logic is volatile, then a rules engine might make sense. If not, hard coding might be a good alternative. So you can automate pure manual processes into a BPMS and take certain tasks below the water line when it appears that the human tasks managed by the BPMS are too mundane and repeatable.
Value/Supply Chain Creation/Maintenance
This is much like new process creation, but the process model serves as a crucial input to the partner negotiation process. Through methods that are “swim-lane oriented,” process models can help determine which partner/party is responsible for what portion of the process. BPM tools can also simulate interactions and outcomes for value chain behavior under unanticipated conditions.
There are even system dynamic models available for supply chain design and management. The models can be used to plan and manage partner/party impacts implied in pending changes. Much the same processes can be applied to internal process fusion, but the internal organization negotiates roles among the human and systematized processes.
Modeling can also be the gateway for the fusion between the business process and the supporting technical infrastructure. Care must be taken to make sure all parties agree on the meaning of the data underlying the shared process model when going across functions and legal entities.
Do Things Better With Optimized Processes
Processes can easily be managed for optimized cost, time to market, resource loading, risk and quality through the use of process models for initial design and ongoing improvements. This can work in conjunction with methods such as six-sigma and round-trip engineering.
Process models are no longer just logical/theoretical representations. They can accept near-real-time input from the real process flows and be re-simulated for incremental improvements. I have even seen BPM tools that can perform “champion-challenger” and “surround simulation” that automatically drives the process solution towards pre-determined business targets.
Stay Out of Trouble by Staying Ahead of Compliance
Typically, compliance is focused in a reactive matter where the actions are caught by auditing history after the fact. BPM allows one to build the compliance constraints into the process, so things get done properly. Process models can be helpful for instrumenting processes with compliance controls. As the costs of remaining compliant go up, and as governing boards and societies require more-responsible behavior, modeling changes in compliance with the business process will increase in importance.
Stay Hungry: Move Faster Through Scenario Building for Agility and Policy Management
Process models can be used to create reactions to opportunistic and threatening scenarios. Obvious process strengths can be applied in a model to different business, market and geopolitical conditions. The same would apply to obvious or subtle weaknesses. The accepted planning scenarios could be waiting for out-of-tolerance conditions or threat markers, with associated policies linked to ready-to-implement and pretested packages of rules that can be plugged into business processes.
These initiatives will serve as the foundation for these enterprises’ improved capabilities to cut costs and boost competitive advantage. Simulation can also be used to try out good or bad scenarios and explicit rules will allow the agility needed to adjust to a scenario as it is sensed in near real time with BPM.
Bottom Line:
Good business leaders understand that process disciplines can be applied in multiple directions, but care must be applied to set priorities and stay focused. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but a solid understanding of the real process goes a long way in helping guide results.
Topics: BPM |