Business Process Management

Business Process Management
Business Process Management (BPM) Business Process Management (BPM) is a field of knowledge at the intersection between Management and Information technology, encompassing methods, techniques and tools to design, enact, control, and analyze operational business processes involving humans, organizations, applications, documents and other sources of information. The term "operational business processes" refers to repetitive business processes performed by organizations in the context of their day-to-day operations, as opposed to strategic decision-making processes which are performed by the top-level management of an organization. BPM differs from business process reengineering.BPM covers activities performed by organizations to manage and, if necessary, to improve their business processes. While such a goal is hardly new, software tools called business process management systems (BPM systems) have made such activities faster and cheaper. BPM systems monitor the execution of the business processes so that managers can analyze and change processes in response to data, rather than just a hunch. Process design encompasses the design and capture of existing business processes, as well as the simulation of new ones. The software used to do this includes graphical editors that document processes, repositories that store process models, and business process simulation tools to run a process a large number of times in order to measure performance parameters such as average time and cost.Good design reduces the number of problems over the lifetime of the system. Changes to business processes, resulting from changes in the context that a business operates in, are a current research area. The integration of software used to create graphical representations of workflows, as well as to implement and maintain these workflows makes evolution of business processes less stressful. Process execution is the traditional way to automate processes is to develop or purchase an application that executes the required steps of the process. However, in practice, these applications rarely execute all the steps of the process accurately or completely. Another approach is to use a federation of software and human intervention. Due to the complexity of the federated approach, documenting a process is difficult. This makes changing or improving the process difficult.

Business Process Automation
As most IT systems are inherently automation engines in themselves, a valid option is to extend their functionality to enable the desired automation, creating customised linkages between the disparate application systems where needed. This approach means that the automation can be tailored specifically to the exact environment of the organisation, on the down-side it can be time-consuming to find the necessary skills either internally or in the marketplace. Purchase of a specialist BPA tool is Specialist companies are now bringing toolsets to market which are purpose-built for the function of BPA. These companies tend to focus on different industry sectors but their underlying approach tends to be similar in that they will attempt to provide the shortest route to automation by exploiting the user interface layer rather than going deeply into the application code or databases sitting behind them. They also simplify their own interface to the extent that these tools can be used directly by non-technically qualified staff. The main advantage of these toolsets is therefore their speed of deployment, the drawback is that it brings yet another IT supplier to the organisation. Purchase of a Business Process Management solution with BPA extensions from the discussion below, it can be seen that a Business Process Management system is quite a different animal from BPA, however it is possible to build automation on the back of a BPM implementation. The actual tools to achieve this will vary, from writing custom application code to using specialist BPA tools as described above. The advantages and disadvantages of this approach are inextricably linked – the BPM implementation provides an architecture for all processes in the business to be mapped, but this in itself delays the automation of individual processes and so benefits may be lost in the meantime. Purchase of a Middleware solution is ‘Middleware’ is a generic IT term which describes infrastructural solutions for tying disparate application systems together. It can provide a method of automating the replication and synchronisation of separate databases and so provide a robust solution which will be invisible to end users. Its main drawback is that it is a highly technical approach and therefore dependent upon specialist skills, both for the initial implementation and to effect changes later.

Business Process Management Certification
IDS Scheer North America, the leading provider of business process excellence services and tools, today announced that it is offering customers, partners, and consultants a web-based exam designed to test their levels of knowledge and experience on the ARIS Framework and Toolset to become a Certified ARIS Professional (CAP). The exam targets business process management professionals who have completed an ARIS Basics class and some level of project work. The CAP exam enables business process professionals to accurately gauge themselves on their skill set and proficiency in ARIS. Once certified, users become a member of the official ARIS Professional community, and have access to resource sharing with other CAPs, speaking opportunities, and updates on releases and new products. Users can also expand their ARIS knowledge and skill level with continuous certifications from IDS Scheer. "We are excited to offer our customers, partners and employees an ARIS certification program that provides them with a barometer of their expertise and proficiency and ultimately enhances their knowledge of the market-leading tool for business process management," said Dr. Mathias Kirchmer, CEO of IDS Scheer North America. "We will add more levels of certification to our community of ARIS users beyond the CAP Basics exam and introduce advanced, administration and other certification in the future."