1.2 - Ingredients of a Business Process

  • Business processes encompass a number of events and activities.
    • Events = Things that happen atomically (have no duration), may trigger other events or activities. (ex. arrival of equipment)
    • Activity = Thing that takes time. (ex. inspection of equipment)
    • Task = Simple activity that can be seen as a single unit of work. (ex. checking the equipment)
  • A typical process involves decision points
    • When a event or activity can have multiple outcomes. For example when an inspection has been done, it can be cleared for use or send back when faulty.
  • A typical process involves actors
    • For example: Human actors, organizations and software systems.
  • A typical process involves physical objects
    • For example: Equipment, materials, products and paper documents.
  • A typical process involves immaterial objects
    • For example: Electronic documents and records.
  • The result of a process leads to one of several outcomes:
    • A positive outcome = Delivers value to the actors involved (ex. Product is purchased > money for the supplier + happy customer)
    • A negative outcome = All actors gain no value. (ex. Product is returned > no money + no product)
  • Consumer = The actor who consumes the output of a process
    • Multiple consumers = For example selling a house. The buyer, seller, real estate agent, mortage providers and a notary all gain something when a house is sold.
  • Related BPM Disciplines :
    • TQM (Total Quality Management)
      • Historically preceded and inspired BPM.
      • Focus on: continuous improving and sustaining quality of products.
      • TQM is found more in the industry, because BPM is more oriented towards service organizations.
    • Operations Management
      • Focus on: managing the physical and technical functions of a firm or organization, particular relating to production and manufacturing.
      • Math plays a big part. (probability and queuing theory, decision analysis, mathematical modeling and simulation)
      • Operations management controls a process without necessarily changing it. BPM makes changes to improve.
    • Lean
      • Focus on: Elimination of waste (activities that do not add value to the customer).
      • Originates from manufacturing industry (Toyota)
      • Lean is similar to BPM, but BPM encompasses more and uses IT as a tool to improve business processes to make them more consistent en repeatable.
    • Six Sigma
      • Focus on: Minimization of defects (errors) by measuring quality of the process output.
      • Originates from manufacturing (Motorola)
      • Often combined with Lean. Many techniques are commonly applied in BPM as well.