Business process modeling

Business process modeling includes techniques and activities used as part of the larger business process management discipline. Both have the same acronym BPM.

Business process modeling is an activity performed by business analysts within a company. Analysts use modeling tools to depict both the current state of an enterprise and the desired future state. The activity of modeling a business process usually predicates a need to change processes or identify issues to be corrected. This transformation may or may not require IT involvement, although that is common driver for the need to model a business process. Change management programmes are desired to put the processes into practice. With advances in technology from larger platform vendors, the vision of BPM models becoming fully executable (and capable of round-trip engineering) is coming closer to reality every day. Supporting technologies include River Logic Inc., Unified Modeling Language (UML), model-driven architecture, and service-oriented architecture.

Business Process Modeling addresses the process aspects an Enterprise Business Architecture, leading to an all encompassing Enterprise Architecture. The relationships of a business processes in the context of the rest of the enterprise systems, data, org structure, strategies etc. create greater capabilities in analyzing and planning a change. One real world example is in corporate mergers and aquisitions; understanding the processes in both companies in detail, allowing management to identify redundancies resulting in a smoother merger.

BPM has always been a key aspect of business process reengineering, and continuous improvement approaches seen in Six sigma. (BPR), based on Hammer and Champy's book.

See also

• Business Process Management
• BPMN
• Domain Specific Language
• Model Driven Engineering
• Process architecture

External links

• Why Combine Business Process Reengineering with Object Oriented Analysis?
• GoldSim - Business and Economic Simulation Modeling
• P3 Signposting - Process Modelling and Simulation for Engineering Design