The editorial team of the logistyka.net.pl portal and the company ABG Centrum Promocji Biznesu invite you to the conference ‘Business Process Management — from process management to enterprise management system’, which will take place from November 29 to December 1 in Warsaw.
The following article is an excerpt from a lecture titled ‘iGrafx Enterprise Central — a new quality in business process performance and risk management’, which will take place on November 30, 2005, in Warsaw during the conference organized by ABG Centrum Promocji Biznesu: ‘Business Process Management — from process management to enterprise management system’. The application of tools for mapping in the BPMN standard and business process simulation will be discussed.
BPMN is becoming a generally accepted standard for describing business processes (including logistics processes). Thanks to the acceptance of major business software vendors and unambiguous conversion to the WS-BPEL language, it is displacing other notations in this regard. One would like to say: ‘And rightly so’. Because it is arguably the easiest to understand notation proposed in recent times. The use of this notation, in a sense, makes us independent of software vendors. It allows for describing a process in a way that is understandable both to the process owner/designer and sufficiently precise for the programmer creating the application specification. BPMN-compliant documents, regardless of the software in which they were created, look similar and (if the software supports conversion to BPEL — most good ones do) can be used to obtain BPEL code. Therefore, manufacturers are left to ‘race’ on additional features that will improve the quality of the prepared code. An example of such additional functionality is the ability to simulate a process. Such a feature is invaluable in logistics processes. When we consider ‘Just in time’ deliveries, it is important not only whether the goods/prefabricated parts will be delivered, but also in what time, what the risk is that this time will not be met, and how much the delivery will cost.
[…] Orders arrive with a certain frequency. There are moments when they pile up, and other times when there is a lack of them. Also, individual activities take a different amount of time depending, for example, on customer requirements, etc. It can be said that everything is variable. How, in such a case, can we determine: how many orders we are able to process in a given time, what is the cost of handling a given type of order, are we able to process a given class of orders in a given time? To answer this question, we must resort to simulation. In our case, using iGrafx Process. Before we do this, we must parameterize our process. For each activity, provide the average time (or the time range in which it is performed), the resources necessary for its execution, possible priorities, etc. We must also determine what resources we have at our disposal and how (with what frequency) orders appear. Having this data, we can proceed to the simulation. As a result, we will receive information regarding: the cost range within which our order handling will fit, the degree of employee utilization, and the time range in which the execution should succeed (with the probability distribution of such time occurring).
As long as we are examining and improving individual processes, working with iGrafx FlowCharter / iGrafx Process class tools is sufficient. However, if we need group work on all processes in the company, we need a much more comprehensive tool.
In the latest iGrafx repository — iGrafx Enterprise Central, the BPMN notation is one of two (alongside Swimlane) methods of graphical process description that allow for modeling processes which, after being placed in the repository and supplemented with data, can serve as a knowledge center about the enterprise, controlling ERP, CRM, Workflow, or QMS class software. Here we model not only processes but also the risks associated with them (risk management), we create full information structures about assigned tasks and responsibilities, and about connections with various IT systems. All this can, of course, take place in working groups with full version control. But that is a topic that will be discussed in detail during the seminar.
The author of the article is Piotr Biernacki — owner of MGX Infoservice. Since 1993, he has been dealing with tools for documentation, simulation, and analysis of business processes. Between 1992 and 2003, he completed various internal training courses at Micrografx and Corel dedicated to the aforementioned issues. On behalf of Micrografx, he authorized all Micrografx training centers in Central and Eastern Europe. He completed training on workflow tools from Rodan, CeBIP, and e-RTM. Partner of iGrafx, Minitab, Rodan, EnergSys, e-RTM, and CeBIP (software), Umbrella, Softtutor, TEQ, Infoconsulting (advisors). He has led or participated in many different projects related to the documentation and analysis of business processes in telecommunications, services, manufacturing, and public administration (including FM Logistic logistics processes). Lecturer at P-JWSTK, additionally, he has given lectures on documentation and process analysis (including for the needs of the Six Sigma strategy) at, among others, the Wrocław University of Science and Technology, the Maritime University, the University of Szczecin, WSB in Poznań, and numerous conferences, congresses, seminars, and symposia.