Modelling Standards & Lanyon BPM Consulting

There are a variety of modelling notations in use, two of the most popular are BPMN and EPC... being Business Process Model and Notation (previously known as Business Process Modelling Notation) and Event Driven Process Chain which was originally an IDS-Scheer innovation (now owned by Software AG.). BPMN is used more often with BPM software that actively manages the process workflow and is generally more understood by programmers than business based employees.

Staff can receive training on the techniques of modelling process, indeed Lanyon BPM can provide training on the ARIS toolset, however, just because you believe that you have captured the process and your model passes the semantic* checks (*configurable tool in ARIS to check model logic and rules)... doesn't make it a good model or indeed a valid process map! Every project should have a least one professional on the team who has experience of not only the toolset being employed but also business and process experience... this is where Lanyon BPM can be of particular assistance as we are very experienced in process modelling using various different modelling notations and in setting the right standards for process capture within your business.

General Business Process Modelling

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"Business Process Modelling (BPM) in systems engineering is the activity of representing processes of an enterprise, so that the current process may be analysed and improved. BPM is typically performed by business analysts and managers who are seeking to improve process efficiency and quality. The process improvements identified by BPM may or may not require Information Technology involvement, although that is a common driver for the need to model a business process, by creating a process master. 

Change management programs are typically involved to put the improved business processes into practice. With advances in technology from large platform vendors, the vision of BPM models becoming fully executable (and capable of simulations and round-trip engineering) is coming closer to reality every day.

History  

Techniques to model business process such as the flow chart, functional flow block diagram, control flow diagram, Gantt chart, PERT diagram, and IDEF have emerged since the beginning of the 20th century. The Gantt charts were among the first to arrive around 1899, the flow charts in the 1920s, Functional Flow Block Diagram and PERT in the 1957, Data Flow Diagrams and IDEF in the 1970s. Among the modern methods are Unified Modelling Language and Business Process Modelling Notation. Still, these represent just a fraction of the methodologies used over the years to document business processes. The term "business process modelling" itself was coined in the 1960s in the field of systems engineering by S. Williams in his 1967 article "Business Process Modelling Improves Administrative Control". His idea was that techniques for obtaining a better understanding of physical control systems could be used in a similar way for business processes. It took until the 1990s before the term became popular. 

In the 1990s the term "process" became a new productivity paradigm. Companies were encouraged to think in processes instead of functions and procedures. Process thinking looks at the chain of events in the company from purchase to supply, from order retrieval to sales etc. The traditional modelling tools were developed to picture time and costs, while modern methods focus on cross-function activities. These cross-functional activities have increased severely in number and importance due to the growth of complexity and dependencies. New methodologies such as business process redesign, business process innovation, business process management, integrated business planning among others all "aiming at improving processes across the traditional functions that comprise a company". 

In the field of software engineering the term "business process modelling" opposed the common software process modelling, aiming to focus more on the state of the practice during software development. In that time early 1990s all existing and new modelling techniques to picture business processes were considered and called "business process modelling languages." In the Object Oriented approach, it was considered to be an essential step in the specification of Business Application Systems. Business process modelling became the base of new methodologies, that for example also supported data collection, data flow analysis, process flow diagrams and reporting facilities. Around 1995 the first visually oriented tools for business process modelling and implementation were being presented."  Wiki-Content ends here.