Petros KAVASSALIS Chios, 06.11.2008

1. Information Systems Design[Σχεδιασμός Πληροφοριακών Συστημάτων]Unit 4: Business Process Models (2)Univ. of the Aegean Financial and Management Engineering Dpt Petros KAVASSALIS Chios, 06.11.2008 2008-09

2. What you will learn in this course • A set of fundamental concepts for understanding the process of Information Systems Design in a Business Context • Principles for Information Systems design • Business operations and processes • Business Process Management (BPM) • Familiarization with Business Process Management practices : • BPMN • XML • A full Case of BPM design • Business logic • Augmented with technical details

3. Communication tools • e-mail: petros at cfp.mit.edu • e-mail to use to submit assignments: petros.students at gmail.com • Course web site: http://infosysdesign2008.blogspot.com • * Last year reference: http://infosysdesign2007.blogspot.com

4. Students evaluation • Class Participation (20%) + • Assignments (20%) + • Final Exam (60%) • * Questions regarding last year course quality: ask gdikas (gdikas [AT] gmail.com )

5. My expectations [I copy a colleague I respect a lot…] • Information Systems Design under a BPM view is practical (with “hands-on” examples) but also intellectually challenging • I'm not a formal person and will be as accessible as I can to all of you – my official office hours are proposed as Thursday 11-13 • But my informality doesn't mean I'm casual about what goes on in my class… • I want from my students to avoid missing lectures and actively participate in the practical work (if yes: there is compensation)

6. A business process view… • Implies an horizontal view of organization • Looks at processes as sets of independent activities designed and structured to produce a specific output for a customer or a market • Uses the term activity • To refer to a small scale process that consists of one or few closely related steps • A process defines • The results to be achieved (start-end) • The context of the activities • The relationships between activities • The interaction with other process and resources

7. A business process model… • Consists of • A set of activity models and execution constraints between them • Is used • To configure the Business Process Management System accordingly • Think about that! • Represents • Activities and Relationships • Graphical representations of business processes focus on the process structure and the interactions of participating parties (rather than on technical / software aspects) • Examples follow

8. Business process model example: a reseller’s process

9. Business process model example: a buyer’s process

10. Interacting business processes (case 1)

11. Interacting business processes (case 2)

12. Business Process Management Notation (BPMN) • Graphical notations are being used to expressing orderings between activities of a business process • There are several graphical notation languages for business process modeling, with the more simplified variant being the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN)

13. BPMN Diagrams from scratch • Events (i.e. the occurrence of states in the real world0 are represented by circles • Activities are represented by rounded rectangles • Execution ordering of activities is expressed by directed arrows • Branching and joining of nodes (i.e. the split behavior of the flow of control between activities) is represented by diamonds (called “gateways”) that can be marked by • A “+”: Parallel Fork ? Join (AND) • A “x”: Exclusive Decision / Merge (XOR)

14. Events

15. Activities

16. Flows

17. Gateways

18. Pools, Lanes (sub-partitions within a Pool) and Executable Pools • Models of human-enabled process are not “executables”

19. Special: Sequence flow and Gateways (1) • Sequence flow: control flow. It is represented by • Solid Arrows between • Activities, Events and Gateways • Normal flow: represents • Expected and Desired behavior of the process • Starts and Ends with • An Event (start and end even) • Continues • Via a a set of flow objects (activities, gateways etc.) • Gateways act • As either a join node • Or a split node

20. Special: Sequence flow and Gateways (2) • Joint nodes: • 2 incoming arcs (at least): • 1 outgoing edge • Split nodes • One incoming arc • 2 outgoing edges (at least) • Remind: • Each Gateway acts as a join node or as a split node

21. “Exclusive or” splits “Data-based exclusive or split” (x) There is gate with an associated condition (gate condition / data based) Once a gate condition evaluated the true, the corresponding branch is taken, and the other conditions are disregarded “Inclusive or” splits There is gate with an associated condition (gate condition / data based) An arbitrary number of outgoing branches is selected (not only 1) Special: Sequence flow and Gateways (3)

22. A complex gateway allows the definition of a combined split and join behavior “And split/join” The process starts with getting an order Then, a “parallel” gateway triggers the execution of number n activities (2 and more) These activities are completed simultaneously When they are completed, the “and join” synchronized the parallel flows, and the process terminates Special: Sequence flow and Gateways (4)

23. More? • BMPN by Bruce Silver Associates • Part 3: https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/70c51475-3b7b-2a10-248c-f4cc7b4dc52c • Part 2: https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/309737c3-3e75-2a10-7097-833d068f2858 • Part 1: https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/10852310-ac6a-2a10-02be-d83f4d2dd647

24. BPM Case: Re-engineering grading permits (San Jose, California) • [See San Jose_case (.pdf)] • Process time: From 21 working days to 5 days! • Transform the process of grading permit to a three-fold process model • Exempt • Express • Regular • First stage: “As is” • Second stage: “To be”

25. The essential of a BPR operation: 8 steps methodology • Flow chart the “as-is” process • Interview customers • Interview staff • Share customer and staff interview with core and technical teams • Make a first-cut at redesign (‘to be”) • Share the redesign results with customers and an advisory group • Revise the redesign • Implement the new process

26. New versus old process • [See Jan Jose .adl process flow diagrams (adonis CE files)] • The process diagrams will be re-designed within the class • New process’ basic concept • Triage [exempt, regular, express] process • Project Manager

27. Innovations (in detail) • Different process for [exempt, regular, express] process • New permit reviews are handled by one (1) from five (5) projects managers (more managers will be trained over time) • Permit issue managers determine whether a project is needed and can issue on-the-spot exemptions • They also decide which applications are express and which regular • Only project managers handle express applications • For regular process applications, the project manager • User-friendly forms have been necessary to reduce errors and decrease staff time and customer waiting time

28. Re-design principles • Preparation • People involved in a process should be actively involved in analyzing, designing and implementing improvements • Analysis-design • Quick “initial review” obligation (by a generalist engineer) • 100% quality at the beginning of the process to get complete applications (only complete applications were allowed to move past the review) • If inputs coming into the process naturally cluster, design a specific process for each cluster • For clusters where each application is unique, create team and co-locate it, if possible • A single point of contact with the customer: the project manager (with sign-off authority) • Implementation • Cross-training to make multi-skills employees