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Business Process Modeling Technologies - Jun 1998
| Project Management |
Business Process Modeling
New process modeling technologies provide the means to sustain continuous innovation.
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Managers at successful enterprises increasingly believe that success is tightly bound to the ability to adopt and
exploit practices that drive continuous improvement. Such companies are characterized by a no-holds barred
commitment to business-process innovation. Along with today's enterprise resources planning (ERP) releases, new
process modeling techniques provide the means to sustain continuous innovation.
Companies now look to implement processes that directly address critical business needs, recognize th
cross-organizational nature of the activity, and integrate with existing or planned applications. Given that most ERP
suppliers can address best-practice availability and integration requirements at some level, the issue becomes this:
How do enterprises achieve competitive, process-based differentiation or advantage?
Understanding - and more effectively managing - the relationship among companies as they exist in a chain of
supply and demand has become a driving management imperative. But the widespread achievement of this goal
has been inhibited by the lack of technology sophisticated enough to deliver the desired cross-enterprise
functionality, coupled with a recognition that implementation is possible only in concert with like-minded supply-chain
partners. Some find that a critical new means to address this supply-chain binding centers around the use of
business and process modeling technologies and the manner in which those process models interact and support the
rapid deployment and enhancement of cross-enterprise production applications.
One of the key value-added technologies in this approach is business-process modeling and the development of
industry-based templates - or reference models of best practices. Moreover, this modeling capability needs to be
inherently dynamic in nature. That means it must be able to:
reflect and support a continually changing business model whether new, reconfigured, or time-phased;
completely regenerate and link the underlying business objects that encompass any logic flow and incorporate any
technological advancements; and
generate a customized system without the need to manually set any system parameters, authorization codes, or
redefine user interfaces.
Each of the leading ERP suppliers is moving to address these requirements, with The Baan Co. and SAP AG offering
the most-mature entries. Oracle Corp. and PeopleSoft, however, are in aggressive pursuit.
In addition to the process modeling technologies being brought to bear on process innovation and ERP
implementations, systems suppliers also seek to integrate project management and modeling technology. These
methodologies are extensive, market-proven, and often used as the basis for suppliers' rapid implementation claims.
The representative methodologies are Baan's Target Enterprise, Oracle's AIM, PeopleSoft's Select, and SAP's
Accelerated SAP. The integration of methodology with technology supports the mid-market initiatives of these ERP
system suppliers, placing best practice processes - previously available only to large companies - in the hands of
many.
Directly linking business-process modeling tools with underlying ERP systems means that organizations can now
drive their businesses based on an understanding of industry best practice and their own unique business
requirements rather than constraining business processes by the underlying technology. Given these abilities, the
focus of managers, business analysts, and even system implementors can be addressed from the perspective of the
business imperative rather than the technologically possible.
Advanced modeling encompasses best practices and processes, the technological intricacies of configuring system
parameters and data models, and highly complex product implementation and deployment issues. Technological
differentiation starts with attaining true cross-functional, business-processes integration. Increasingly, the
differences between ERP suppliers will directly appear as the vendors attempt to address the most demanding
cross-enterprise objective - innovation.
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| Disclaimer: This is Paul Allen's personal business library. Articles and papers contained therein are for his use and reference. While this information is being made public by being published on the internet, any use of any material or guidance contained herein is at one's own risk. Neither the author Paul Allen nor Project Executive Group have any responsibility if anything is taken from this website and utilized. While we believe these articles and papers make a significant contribution to learning, beware that anyone who uses this information does so at their own risk. We make no representations to accuracy or completeness. |
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