Service Oriented Architecture Field Guide for Executives

2.4. WHAT IS BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT?

BPM is a discipline that covers all aspects of defining and performing business processes. It has the following components:

• Define the business process. This involves modeling the process. Business process modeling is a discipline in its own right, and we will discuss that in some detail in this chapter.

• Establish the business process. This involves activities such as training the staff and writing software to automate the tasks. This is the groundwork needed before the process is put into practice.

• Put the process into practice and begin following the process.

• Monitor and control the process. We have to make sure that everyone is following the process. Performance level of the staff is monitored and managed using the usual management practices. The time and cost performance of the business process falls directly under the jurisdiction of BPM. How long does it take from order placement to shipment? How long on average does a machine sit idle waiting for a job? How long does a part have to wait before the paint machine can process it? These numbers, if you can gather them, can indicate the vital pulse of your business. For example, a machine sitting idle for too long indicates over-capacity. A part waiting too long to get painted points to a bottleneck.

• Improve the business process. The urgency to fine-tune a process usually comes from the discovery that it takes too long or too much money to complete the process, that customers have shown ...