ibm bpm for dynamic business process

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IBM Business Process Management solutions

White paper

IBM Business Process Management suite for dynamic

business processes: a foundation for Lean Six Sigma.

Arthur Lampert

Jon Mc Namara

March 2009
http://www.ibm.com/ushttp://www.ibm.com/websphere


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IBM Business Process Management suite for dynamic business processes: a foundation for Lean Six Sigma.

2

Introduction

The concept of process improvement is not new history is littered with

visionaries who were driven to change established business practices by

extending the boundaries of conventional thinking. Lean Six Sigma is based

on the practical learning of organizations improving their processes for over

50 years.

Henry Ford: process pioneer

Henry Ford revolutionized the auto manufacturing industry, transforming the

construction of automobiles from predominantly small-scale, custom-made

production to large-scale, standardized production using production lines.

Such radical changes facilitated dramatic cost reductions, while at the same

time delivering great improvements in productivity.

Contents

2 Introduction

2 Henry Ford: process pioneer

3 Why business process re-engineering

failed

4 Lean Six Sigma: striving for

continuous process improvement

8 The three engines of Lean Six Sigma

8 Process improvement and waste

elimination

9 Process design and redesign

10 Process management

11 Five levels of process maturity

12 IBM BPM suite vision

13 Business events

14 Analytics

15 Rules

15 Service selection

16 Active content

16 Policies17 BPM from IBM delivers value across

your organization today

18 Supporting the DMAIC process with

the IBM BPM suite

19 Define

23 Measure

24 Analyze

25 Improve

26 Identify a solution

27 Control

28 Document the improvement

28 Keeping score29 Continuous improvement

30 Summary

31 For more information

Foundation for Lean Six Sigma

Just in Time (80s)(Kanbans, pull systems,

visual management)

Deming/Juran(80s)(14points,statisticalquality)

Ohno(60s/70s)

(ToyotaProductionSystem)

Lean Manufacturing (90s)(Machine that changed the world,

Lean Thinking, Value Stream Mapping)

Total Quality Management (80s)(SPC, Quality

Circles, Kaizen)

Motorola Six Sigma (80s)(Allied Signal)

GE (80s 90s)Six Sigma (applied method for growth and productivity)

Customer Partnering (GE Toolkit, QMI, Customer CAP)

Change Acceleration Process CAP (Change method and tools)

Process Improvement (NPI, supply chain, suppliers)

Best Practices (benchmarking, across and outside of GE, ending NIH)Work-out (Kaizen type, cross-functional teams, boundarylessness, values)

Strategy (No. 1 or No. 2 in each business, fix, close or sell)

(culture change/benchmarking,

Baldridge/EFQM, ISO 9000)

Kotter etc.Transforma-tion and

leadership

Intensit

y

ofchange

BPR (90s)(downsizing, to be

processes, process owners)


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However, it took much longer for such radical thinking to find its way

from the world of manufacturing to office-bound, paper-based processes.

Even then, the initial impact of information technology was focused on

eliminating many of the physical aspects of the process itself. For example,

some of the most common uses of computer technology are the retrieval

and presentation of information to support decision making. The use of

databases, document imaging and, later, enterprise content management

(ECM) helped to improve the overall efficiency of process workers by

freeing them from the physical constraints associated with storing bothstructured and unstructured information.

These benefits were achieved by minimizing the time taken to retrieve,

analyze and assimilate the information pertinent to a specific task while

increasing the accessibility of the information allowing more tasks to be done

in parallel. The ability to track what stage of completion tasks have reached

and to audit who did what effort when on a task is of significant value.

Why business process re-engineering failed

The 1990s saw the rise of business process re-engineering (BPR), which triedto take badly designed processes and replace them with better ones. The

problem with this premise was the assumption that there were fundamental

flaws inherent in the process design and that once these were addressed, the

full potential associated with this re-engineered process would be realized. A

re-engineered process could be deployed and essentially forgotten with little

or no thought given to the ongoing maintenance of process performance.

Another flaw of BPR is the fanatical focus on step change, ignoring the

process of continuous improvement, thus forgoing its benefits, lesser orga-

nizational impact and relative ease of implementation. Toyota Motor has

demonstrated the transformational qualities of continuous improvement

through the creation of a learning organization that constantly experiments

with the current operational model.

The ability to track what stage of completion

tasks have reached and to audit who did what

effort when on a task is of significant value

Highlights


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Other reasons and issues include:

Inability to break down functional silos

Limited end-to-end process view and business process architecture

Limited or no process ownership

Process baseline performance not understood, re-engineering often working on symptoms

vs. root cause

Process metrics and targets not established, typically only results metrics/targets

Limited alignment to the organizations strategy

With the dramatic acceleration of the business marketplace, it is no longer

sufficient to view process improvement as one finite event in the lifespan

of a business process. Practitioners now understand process improvement is

essentially a continuous activity.

Lean Six Sigma: striving for continuous process improvement

Six Sigma Methods

Lean Methods

Increase effectiveness

Reduce variation

Eliminate defects

The customer isthe driving force

behindimprovement

efforts

Increaseefficiency

Simplify workflow

Eliminate waste

Process efficiency is thedriving force behindimprovement efforts

Product or service outputs

A BCritical customerrequirement

Product or service output

As-is flow To-be flow


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Lean Six Sigma fuses the key elements so that the combined method is actu-

ally complementary. Lean Six Sigma drives out waste and nonvalue-add

activities. Lean doesnt focus as much on what the customer wants, which

changes for each customer and over time; instead, its good at getting rid

of what nearly all customers do not want. Six Sigma is focused on what the

customers want and eliminates the variability in operations that dissatisfy

customers.

The increasing need for continual improvement of businesses, in response toa variety of pressures such as the rapidly changing business landscape and the

desire to reduce operational expenses, has resulted in an upsurge of interest

in a variety of quality initiatives such as ISO 9000, Total Quality Management

(TQM) and Lean Six Sigma.

Six Sigma originated in the late 1970s from efforts to improve the processes at

Motorolas Government Electronics Group (GEG). The application of already

well-established statistical analysis techniques to minimize procedural errors

proved extremely successful, eventually being adopted by organizations such

as GE, Honeywell and Fleet Boston.

The term Six Sigma comes from a statistical term (Sigma or ) used to

describe the variation that occurs in all processes and the products they

create; this spread of a certain quality characteristic (length, duration) is

known as standard deviation. Sigma measures how much a process varies

from

customer requirements. Sigma values can also be expressed as the number

of defects per million opportunities for a defect to occur.

Sigma Value Defects Per Million Opportunities (DPMO)

1 690,000

2 308,000

3 66,800

4 6,210

5 230

6 3.4


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It is important to note that a Six Sigma process does not mean that

99.99966% of all units produced are perfect this figure refers to the

frequency with which defects will occur per million opportunities,

remembering that any given unit may have multiple defects.

Lean is another process improvement methodology often used in conjunction

with Six Sigma. Lean tools are designed to identify where wasteful activities

occur in existing processes. By modeling the as-is (current state) process,

analysts can visualize and identify pain points and take corrective action.Complete understanding of the current process is fundamental to creating

a to be (future state) process that reduces cycle time by eliminating

wasteful activities.

Lean methods originated with the Toyota Production System (TPS), which

enabled the automaker to achieve just-in-time deliveries from its suppliers.

By reducing waste and cycle time throughout the value stream, inventories

were significantly reduced and production was aligned to customer demand.

Six Sigma and Lean methodologies have strengths that have been combined

by many process improvement practitioners into Lean Six Sigma.

Business Process Management (BPM) is a discipline to build, manage and

govern an organizations cross-functional, core business processes which can

include integration of processes across different applications. IBM extended

BPM capabilities with tooling to address broader enterprise BPM require-

ments enabled by service oriented architecture (SOA), including modeling,

simulation, business activity monitoring and human interaction.

This white paper presents the IBM BPM suite which consists of two foun-

dational offerings one targeted for dynamic processes emphasizing process

flexibility and integration, and the other for active content emphasizing content

interaction with processes and compliance. In this paper, we focus on the

IBM BPM suite foundational offering for dynamic processes and the associ-

ated tooling that can support the three engines of Lean Six Sigma.

BPM is a discipline to build, manage and

govern an organizations cross-functional,

core business processes which can include

integration of processes across different

applications

Highlights


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The three engines of Lean Six Sigma

There are three basic parts to a successful Lean Six Sigma program:

Process improvement (DMAIC) and waste elimination (Lean)

Process design (DMEDI)

Process management

Process improvement and waste elimination

Process improvement and waste elimination are all about identifying andremoving the root causes of variation from the execution of a process. In the

context of Lean Six Sigma, this requires the identification (and subsequent

elimination) of the causes of unwanted defects or errors produced by the

process. This elimination of unwanted variation improves consistency of

delivery and service to the customer with fewer defects.

At the heart of Lean Six Sigma is the requirement that process improvement

is a continuous process defined by the multiphase DMAIC cycle (see below),

where DMAIC stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control.

1. Define

3. Analyze

2. Measure

4. Improve

5. Control

The DMAIC Process Improvement Cycle


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Process design and redesign

The DMAIC cycle can be implemented in a variety of business scenarios.

However, there are circumstances when a different approach is needed:

When it is determined that the required level of performance is not attainable by improving the

current process

When an entirely new process is required to address a newly identified opportunity, product

or service

As the focus of designing entirely new processes is more on innovation and

less bound by the current process, the DMAIC principle is often adapted to

emphasize ways to identify innovative, effective ways to get work done. This

is sometimes referred to as the DMEDI cycle:

Define customer requirements and goals for the process/product/service

Measure and match performance to customer requirements

Explore and assess process/product/service design

Develop new processes/products/services

Implement the improvementsand maintain performanceSome organizations still use DMAIC and merely adjust the activities in each

phase of the cycle accordingly.


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Process management

The concepts of Lean Six Sigma apply not only to specific process improve-

ment initiatives but also to the management of processes across large

organizations and government agencies. This application of Lean and Six

Sigma principles is the most radical as it often requires shifts in both culture

and management throughout the organization in parallel with the Lean Six

Sigma initiative in order for the benefits to be fully realized.

Business process management is the continuous improvement managementsystem that enables an enterprise to sustain and accelerate the gains achieved

through implementation of strategic Lean Six Sigma. Process management

begins with process owners and process teams.

The BPM method provides a structured process for developing an organiza-

tions cross-functional, customer-focused, end-to-end core business processes

that achieves strategic business objectives, integrates verticals, optimizes core

work and creates a framework for continuous improvement.

BPM implementation can be broken down into the following key steps:

Identify top-priority, critical processes

Validate customer requirements

Model the process

Develop process measures

Monitor the process for:

Stability (consistent performance)

Capability (meeting customer needs)

Flexibility (for new requirements)

Manage and improve the process

Business process management is the

continuous improvement management

system that enables an enterprise to sustain

and accelerate the gains achieved through

implementation of strategic Lean Six Sigma

Highlights


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Five levels of process maturity

An organization that is at a higher level of process maturity is able to realize

higher process efficiencies, fewer defects, increased consistency of product or

service delivery and, ultimately, higher levels of customer satisfaction.

BPM ensures that end-to-end business processes are aligned with strategic busi-

ness objectives and metrics, that organizations supporting end-to-end business

processes are aligned with process performance objectives and that end-to-end

business processes are supported by the right technologies and data.

BPM also ensures that business processes are governed by a governance

framework focused on strategically aligning business processes throughout the

process life cycle:

Change management

Execution and performance management

Resource management

Level Focus Process Areas

5Optimizing

Continuous process

improvement,

Realize Six Sigma

DPMO (defects per

million opportunities)

Technology innovation and causal analysis and

resolution

4Quantitativelymanaged

Quantitative manage-

ment data

Process performance and quantitative project

management

3Defined

Process standardiza-

tion organization

Process focus, process definition, training, integrated

project management, risk management, decision

analysis, requirements development, technical solu-

tions, product integration, verification, validation

2Repeatable

Basic project

management

Requirements management, project planning, project

monitoring and control, supplier agreement manage-

ment, measurement and analysis, process/product

quality assurance, configuration management

1Initial

Unpredictable


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An example of a business process management system. A business process management approach

ensures ongoing process ownership and improvement.

IBM BPM suite vision

IBM WebSphere Dynamic Process Edition is a comprehensive software

offering designed to allow customers requiring enterprise-wide integration

capabilities and SOA to optimize their business processes with dynamic BPM

capabilities. IBM BPM empowers customers to know when to effect a changeand when to see a variation as a normal occurrence; this profound knowl-

edge of their own operations allows them to embrace change when it is truly

needed, collaborate to make it happen and continuously optimize their busi-

ness in a continual cycle of organizational learning. This delivers significant

value by aligning an organization to their business process objectives and

their changing business needs.

The IBM vision for BPM is to provide tooling that enables customers to

create more agile and dynamic processes today, which serve as the foundation

for greater innovation in the future. BPM is a catalyst for alignment between

business architecture and IT infrastructure, and this alignment is sufficiently

flexible to adapt to changing business needs. Automated tooling eliminates

the tedium of making repetitive process model changes, freeing time for

analysis and testing of what if scenarios to meet the organizations goals.

Enterprise-wideprocess management

Process andcustomer

scorecards

Process andcustomer

scorecards

Process andcustomer

scorecards

Process andcustomer

scorecards

Process andcustomer

scorecards


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The IBM BPM suite is a comprehensive set of role-based, SOA-enabled

product capabilities that provide customers with the ability to continuously

optimize processes and adapt them rapidly to changing needs. The IBM BPM

suite contains key functionality to control and manage business processes

across their life cycle, and it emphasizes business user involvement and

collaboration across multiple roles within your organization. The IBM BPM

suite combines product capabilities from across IBM Software Group into

an integrated offering that matches the way customers purchase, implement

and upgrade BPM software while protecting and reusing their existingIT investments.

The IBM BPM suite is unique in its ability to support the demanding needs

of agile businesses today. Key enablers that make an organizations processes

more flexible and dynamic are called points of agility. When unmet

business needs trigger the launching of projects of improvement, the Lean

Six Sigma methodology responds appropriately to implement these points of

agility. Organizations have these points of agility today, but unfortunately, they

are not so agile. Their points of agility may be manual processes, inefficient

human tasks, or may be ad hoc and undocumented. The IBM BPM suiteis unique in its ability to make each of these points more agile, responsive,

reliable, and scalable through application of the suites product capabilities

combined with professional services and related BPM best practices.

The IBM BPM suites six agility enablers are business events, analytics, rules,

service selection, active content and policies.

Business events

DEFINITION: Business events occurring from multiple sources (internal

or external to the organization) which are correlated into actionable event

patterns which may initially appear random and nonsequenced. As we will

see, this functionality is integral to the Measure phase of the Lean Six

Sigma process.

The IBM BPM suite is a comprehensive set of

role-based, SOA-enabled product capabilities

that provide customers with the ability to

continuously optimize processes and adapt

them rapidly to changing needs

Highlights


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Important business events occur all the time. Often, the speed with which you

respond to that event can make a big difference in capitalizing on an opportu-

nity, or minimizing your risk exposure.

Take the example of a consumers credit card being used to make purchases

in two parts of the world simultaneously after it has been stolen. Triggering

an immediate fraud alert when this event occurs can save time and money,

and prevent customer service nightmares. Events are the moments of truth

when customers interact with a business process and obtain satisfaction or are

the victims of operations that do not meet their requirements. This is studied

in the Define phase of Lean Six Sigma.

Analytics

DEFINITION: The analysis of information from processes, applications,

events, historical data and other sources to support decision making and

improve business performance.

Processes respond faster to changing

needs when supported by agility enablers.

Serviceselection

The IBM BPM Suite is unique in enablingall six agility enablers.

Active

content

Business

eventsPolicies

Analytics Rules

Business ProcessManagement


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Analytics are important to optimize your processes and improve your business

performance. For example, mortgage lenders are very focused on preventing

future mortgage defaults. In addition to simple metrics like consumer credit

score, deeper analysis of mortgage delinquencies and default trends and

patterns can help lenders change origination processes to prevent bad lending

practices and loans in the first place. These are used to support the Analyze

phase of the Lean Six Sigma process.

RulesDEFINITION: Combinations of procedural logic (if A, then B until Z) typi-

cally applied to general-purpose decisions, assignments or routing needs.

We rely on business rules behind the scenes to make decisions all the time.

One example occurs when a patient visits a doctors office at the point of care.

Rules determine the patients benefits and eligibility for a given treatment,

determines the amount owed and any settlement calculations. Rules can be

simple, or deep and complex, but they serve an important role in making

our processes more efficient and reliable. These rules are the implementation

of business processes defined during the Improve or Develop phases ofLean Six Sigma.

Service selection

DEFINITION: Selection of the most appropriate service asset in an SOA for a

given service request.

Service selection means picking the optimal service available from your IT

environment for a given need. Consider a natural disaster, and a P&C insurer

faced with thousands of policyholder claims submitted at the same time. The

insurer needs to allocate its resources wisely, and may send some auto policy

calls to an outsourced company to handle surplus claims traffic, and give

priority treatment for higher-value home policies to their internal call centers.

These detailed procedures are a refinement of business processes defined

during the Improve or Develop stages of Lean Six Sigma.


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Active content

DEFINITION: Content that is logically filed, automatically changed or

personalized, initiates corresponding processes, and requests additional

content as needed.

Active content refers to linking documents and content dynamically to a

process, such that changes in a document can trigger something to happen

automatically in the process, and executing a process can automatically find

and attach supporting documents as needed.

An example in the shipping and logistics business includes shipping mani-

fests, which are constantly updated as pickups and deliveries are made,

in turn triggering invoices, receipts and other processes as the manifest is

changed. Active content makes human interaction with processes more

efficient, and allows the processes to be more flexible and responsive.

The performance of processes that continuously update operational data

is governed by the rules set forth in the Control or Implement phases of

Lean Six Sigma.

Policies

DEFINITION: Combinations of business-level, declarative statements used to

dynamically assemble business functionality into business processes.

Policies manage the way products or services are assembled, personalized and

delivered. For example, telecom services providers frequently create service

bundles or promotions consisting of call minutes, text messaging, multimedia

content and other items, which are personalized and targeted for a specific

demographic group like teens and families. Policies allow business users to

rapidly and easily modify core processes like service ordering and billing,

so that they can be rapidly personalized in a way that is less disruptive, and

doesnt require significant lead times and IT resources. Policies are used to

effect the Define phase of the Lean Six Sigma process.


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BPM from IBM delivers value across your organization today

Across the organization there are many people and many different roles

some with a business perspective, others with an IT perspective. The IBM

approach is to bring them together through BPM.

BPM from IBM provides role-based capabilities that deliver value acrossthe organization, and help align each roles focus around business process

objectives and the changing needs of your business. This includes providing

compelling value to both line of business (LOB) and IT leaders, with a range

of benefits specific to both. For example:

Business leader wants full process visibility, compliance and governance

Process owner needs to be empowered to make their own process changes

Business analyst wants to simulate process results without deploying

Business user wants to become more productive and responsive to customer needs

IT architect needs to leverage and extend existing assets IT leader has to deliver faster time to value and reduce costs

IT developer wants to collaborate more easily with process stakeholders

Comprehensive, role-based capabilities that deliver value across the organization

Business ITBusiness user

Businessleader

Processowner

ITdeveloper

ITleader

Businessanalyst

ITarchitect

IBM BPM Suite

BPM from IBM provides role-based capabilities

that deliver value across the organization, and

help align each roles focus around business

process objectives and the changing needs of

your business

Highlights


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In addition to receiving value from BPM, IBM believes that all types of

process participants, from business leaders to IT architects, can collaborate in

managing and optimizing their processes. The goal of BPM is not restricted

to simply building and running a good process, but also to create processes

designed for continuous optimization, supported by a continuous feedback

loop, and the tools and capabilities to collaborate across multiple stakeholders

within your organization. With BPM from IBM, each role contributes and

gives back to the process so that it can be continuously improved and opti-

mized further.

We will now explore each phase of the Six Sigma process and demonstrate

how the IBM BPM suite supports its implementation.

Supporting the DMAIC process with the IBM BPM suite

The IBM BPM suite of tools is instrumental in progressing the BPM initiative

through the DMAIC phases of Lean Six Sigma.

IBM BPM suite is marketed as the WebSphere Dynamic Process Edition,

which includes three products:

IBM WebSphere Business Modeler to define, model and simulate

Delivers the IBM BPM tooling for business analysts

Integrates with IBM Rational Asset Manager as an asset repository to manage BPM assets at

design time

Includes additional capabilities for business analysts to create human workflows

IBM WebSphere Business Services Fabric to rapidly deploy and change

More functionality for business users with simplified tools, faster return on investment

(ROI) metrics

Enhanced integration with WebSphere Business Monitor and WebSphere Business Modeler

Platform enhancements for business partners (ISV/Sis) including Global Business Services to

deliver asset-based solutions, software stack upgrades for WebSphere products, databases and

operating systems


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IBM WebSphere Business Monitor to monitor, predict and act

Increased access to information from wherever you are dashboards on mobile devices, such

as a BlackBerry, help business users stay abreast of real-time data for actionable insights from

wherever they are located

Extended reach view information from a broader range of process data sources on business

dashboards

Improved support for business users and business analysts ability to collaborate on dashboard

design to simplify development and deployment of monitoring solutions

Accelerated time to value ability to graphically debug and manage monitoring models tospeed development of monitoring solutions

Define

As part of the Define phase we can use WebSphere Business Modeler

to define the business process, business requirements and the business

performance criteria for the process. WebSphere Business Modeler provides

a comprehensive process definition environment, which allows the author

to initiate a high-level process map and steadily include deeper levels of

complexity as the definition phase progresses.

Processpayments

check returns

Processpayments

Is itwithGRN?

50% Yes

50% No

50% No

Is itutilities?

Receive andpost utilities_elect_ water

Other invoiceswithout

GRN

50% Yes

50% No

Is itwet

stock?

Receive andpost wet

stock invoice

Receive andpost dry

stock invoice

Hascheck beenreturned?

50% Yes

50% No

50% Yes


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WebSphere Business Modeler serves as a repository for business processes

and subprocesses, activities, services, resources and key performance indica-

tors (KPIs). The WebSphere Business Modeler repository facilitates reuse,

consistency and saves time across improvement and design teams. WebSphere

Business Modeler provides sophisticated analysis and reporting facilities,

which supports goal setting around process capabilities, cycle times, cost,

throughput and revenue.

The business model can be quickly constructed showing a high-level view ofyour business process. This high-level view can be made up of subprocesses

representing specific functions of your business.

Each of these subprocesses can be drilled down to show the individual

activities that make up the specific function, where resources required to

execute the activity are defined and added.

As part of the Define phase, it is important to document the KPI, which

demonstrate the health of the process when matched against business

performance criteria. WebSphere Business Modeler provides the functionalityto document these KPIs and, in doing so, supports the business user with a

function to determine how well the process performs against business service

level agreements (SLAs).

The KPI functionality of WebSphere Business Modeler is comprehensive and

intuitive. For example, WebSphere Business Modeler can support the business

user in specifying acceptable time ranges for key business activities. The busi-

ness user can quickly define an alert which can be used to perform an action

such as sending an e-mail, should the duration approach or exceed the SLA.


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On the screenshot below, we can see an example of a KPI defined within

WebSphere Business Modeler. Shown is the KPI description field, which

allows the user to document how the KPI relates to the SLA. Also, we can

clearly see the specifics of the KPI, including the optimal target duration for

the business activity.

The KPI description allows the user to document

how the KPI relates to the SLA.

Here the target value is set for the process. The

expected duration is 3 days.


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In the following screen capture we see how the business user enriches the

KPI with further business-relevant information on the health of the process.

We see how the user can also specify a range of durations, showing the overall

health of the business process. As well as specifying the business as usual

expected processing time of three days, we can also set ranges of performance.

For example, if the business process completed in two days rather than three,

we might consider this an excellent processing time; between two and four

days would be considered the norm and rated as acceptable; and over four

days would be considered exceptionally long and possibly dangerous to theeffectiveness of the process.

The business user can specify a range of

durations, showing the overall health of the

business process.

Ranges can show the business process

exceeding, meeting and falling short of

performance targets.

The user can also specify alerts which are

actions automatically triggered on the condition

that an event has occurred, in this case when a

duration has been exceeded.


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Measure

When implementing a WebSphere-focused BPM solution, the measurement of

process performance is provided in real time by WebSphere Business Monitor.

Measurement of the business process is critical to the success of any process

improvement initiative. Six Sigmabased processes measure performance

continuously and in many cases, in real time. By providing this continuous,

real-time measurement, WebSphere Business Monitor is able to support

Six Sigmafocused BPM.

While WebSphere Business Monitor provides detailed real-time information

on the performance of the business process, it also provides the functionality

to allow the WebSphere Business Modeler process model to be updated with

the process performance data it has monitored. This is an extremely useful

function as it allows further analysis to be undertaken in WebSphere Business

Modeler, based on real-life data rather than best-guess assumptions.

WebSphere Business Modeler provides the business process model artifacts which include the

business KPIs. These are imported into WebSphere Business Monitor.


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Analyze

In this phase, we utilize the capabilities of WebSphere Business Modeler to

analyze the business process in order to identify salient points as cycle time,

rework, downtime and other activities that potentially decrease the process

effectiveness. The simulation function of WebSphere Business Modeler

supports the business user in creating and running alternative scenarios to

determine how the business process will perform in a variety of conditions.

More than this, the business user can also modify the probability distribution

to determine if the process can be made more effective by favoring someprocess paths over others. These scenarios can be stored for later use in

preparing for the Improvement phase of the Six Sigma methodology.

As part of the Six Sigma analysis it is likely that a number of different

scenarios will be run in order to both test the scenarios under various

conditions and also ensure all business-relevant permutations of the process

have been covered and analyzed.

As part of the Analyze phase, classifiers provide an important function by

enabling the process of decision making. This is achieved by allowing the

business process to be broken down into business-pertinent categories.

WebSphere Business Modeler provides the

functionality to compare simulations, where we

need to see the benefit of the to be changes to

the process.

By examining these real-time costs in the model,

the user can perform analysis based on real

information in order to formulate progression

toward the to be model.

Using WebSphere Business Modelers analytic

capabilities, some paths are shown to be more

effective than others.


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Classifiers can also be used to provide clarity when using simulations in the

Analyze phase. This functionality can be incorporated into the simulation

analysis, to segment results into the categories most relevant to the businessprocess. For example, in the diagram on the next page we can see that the

simulation result has been broken down into classifiers such as exception

path processing, labor type and quality control. This shows quite clearly how

each section has performed in relation to the others.

Improve

Once these scenarios have been established and analyzed, WebSphere

Business Modeler can then be used to compare separate scenarios to deter-

mine the most effective solution.

These classifiers are set up for Lean or Lean Sigma and are used to highlight the sources of waste in

a process. These are the seven sources of waste used by Toyota.


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Identify a solution

The selection of a solution should be based upon quantitative and qualitative

measurement of all relevant alternate scenarios. WebSphere Business Modeler

provides the functionality to compare the simulation results of all analyzed

alternative solutions. This means that not only can the competing solutions be

quantitatively assessed for their relative effectiveness, but also as the simula-

tions in the Analyze phase have been run on live data, the chosen solution

will be sure to improve performance rather than degrade it.

In the screenshot below we can see how WebSphere Business Modeler can

compare two separate alternatives to determine which is the most effective.


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Once the most effective solution has been selected, the business user can

then proceed to firming up the to be solution. At this point, using the

WebSphere Business Modeler simulation capability, the user should be in

a position to be able to redistribute resources to ensure they are not being

under or overutilized.

A major part of the Improvement phase is the ability to effectively collate

and utilize the experience of the subject matter experts. WebSphere software

provides the functionality to do this, by providing an effective meansof disseminating the process performance information.

Control

Once the process has been deployed into the production environment, it is

important to maintain control of the process, in order to facilitate incremental

and continuous improvement. In order to do this it is necessary to consider

the following salient points.


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Document the improvement

One aspect of Control, the importance of which is often underestimated, is

the documentation of the improved process. This helps us to quickly identify

process changes and the reasons behind the changes. WebSphere Business

Modeler provides ample scope for clearly documenting the process. This can

be done in a clear, visual manner by attaching post-it notetype comments

directly on the process face itself, or by attaching documentation to at either

the activity or the process level. Simulation results can also be stored, as to

provide the factual reasons behind the selection of a particular solution.

Keeping score

Using the functionality of WebSphere Business Monitor, the business user

has access to an array of real-time, operational visibility for the performance

of the business process. Dashboards provide a clear and concise view of

the process running in production. Also, based upon the KPIs generated in

WebSphere Business Modeler, the user can also see how the process performs

in relation to any SLAs the process is expected to fulfill. Should the process

performance appear to be dipping to a level where SLAs are in danger of not

being met, WebSphere Business Monitor provides the ability to automaticallygenerate an alert, which can be sent via e-mail to all interested parties.


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Continuous improvement

While the business process is running in production, executing real-life

requests and fulfilling SLAs, WebSphere Business Monitor is tracking the

information on how the process is being executed. In this way, the busi-

ness user is able to continually gather data not only on how well the process

is performing, but is able to detect changes in the environment in which

the process operates. Shifts in trends may well lead to the business process

being executed differently, resulting in resources being under or overutilized.

As WebSphere Business Monitor is able to pass this information back toWebSphere Business Modeler which can then manipulate this business-

driven data in the form of simulations the business process will always be

able to adapt in a timely manner to changes in its environment and the

market in which it operates.

The ability to understand process baseline performance with real-time

measures is a critical element to a robust business process management

system (BPMS) and represents a fundamental shift in how most business

processes are managed today.

With the ability to gather real-time data on critical process performance, a

logical next step is to establish multiyear stretch performance targets for the

critical business processes. The BPMS now provides the ability to conduct an

effective gap analysis between current-state and future-state process perfor-

mance. The gap analyses are used to create an effective project pipeline

targeting continuous process improvements to close the gap in perfor-

mance. It also ensures that you are maintaining the gains from the process

improvements.


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Finally, achieving process ownership with performance accountability of

the end-to-end critical business process, tracking the improvement projects

and value realization of the process improvements themselves enables both

culture change and leadership commitment to the organizations continuous

process improvement journey.

Summary

IBM WebSphere software provides a closed-loop environment for process

improvement, accelerating the speed with which processes can be analyzedand continuously improved. We have seen how at every stage of the DMAIC

Six Sigma analysis, IBM BPM tools can be used to progress the effective-

ness of the business process, ensuring that it is always able to adapt to the

changing circumstances of the market in which it operates.

The IBM BPM suites WebSphere Dynamic Process Edition foundational

offering supports process optimization across heterogeneous, dynamic,

transaction-rich environments, from departmental projects to enterprise-

wide, integration-intensive, value-chain processes. Powered by SOA, this

foundational offering delivers visibility and choreography across multipledivisions, departments or applications, including those that may involve

higher frequencies of change. Products for this foundational offering include

IBM WebSphere Business Modeler, IBM WebSphere Business Services

Fabric (which includes IBM WebSphere Process Server and IBM WebSphere

Integration Developer) and IBM WebSphere Business Monitor.


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The IBM BPM suites FileNet Active Content Edition foundational offering

supports process optimization where content is core to processes or inte-

grated compliance requirements exist. This foundational offering is the best

for processes that require the content object to be managed as the item of

work utilizing content repository services (document management, versioning,

imaging and more) expected in a world-class enterprise content management

system. Products for this foundational offering include IBM FileNet Business

Process Manager, IBM FileNet Business Activity Monitor, IBM FileNet eForms

and IBM FileNet Business Process Framework.

For more information

To learn more about the WebSphere Dynamic Process Edition, contact

your IBM representative or IBM Business Partner, or visit ibm.com/

software/innovate
http://www.ibm.com/software/innovatehttp://www.ibm.com/software/innovatehttp://www.ibm.com/software/innovatehttp://www.ibm.com/software/innovatehttp://www.ibm.com/software/innovate


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Copyright IBM Corporation 2009

IBM Corporation

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Produced in the United States of America

March 2009

All Rights Reserved

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