BPM & BPEL. Author : Arun Pareek March 2010

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1 BPM & BPEL Author : Arun Pareek March 2010

2 Agenda Overview of BPM discipline Types of processes Standards, Tools & Roles Overview of BPEL Key Differences - BPM & BPEL Case study of Order-to-Cash process for manufacturing industry like Dell Conclusions & Recommendations Discuss the application of these two technologies for the right business context and requirements.

3 Business Process Is a discipline for management of atomic business processes whose functional boundaries and human actors are welldefined. Hence, centres around documents, people and processes. High-level Activities in BPM Process Definition Process Execution Process Monitoring Process Optimization

4 Type of Processes Document-centric: Processes revolve around approval, routing and handling of documents. People-centric: Processes revolve around human tasks, refer back or re-execution of tasks, parallel tasks, complex user interactions (loops), escalations, etc. with quick turnaround times. Process-centric: Processes revolve around a core business function/process which has a well defined boundary (within a department like a Warehouse, Finance, etc). System-centric: Processes revolve around the execution of functional workflows/processes in other systems, reexecution of sub-processes, etc. while retaining control of the end-to-end business process at a macro level when work flows across systems (rather than just people)

5 Standard, Tools & Roles Activity Standard Tools Role Process Definition BPMN XPDL ebxml BPSS AquaLogic Business Process Modeller IDS-Scheer ARIS (Oracle BPA Suite) WebSphere Business Process Modeller Business Analyst Business Process Architect Process Execution Proprietary BPEL BPEL4People WS-CDL Wf-XML AquaLogic BPM (earlier Fuego BPM) Lombardi PEGA BPM TIBCO iprocess Suite Business Process Developer/Designer BPEL Developer Process Monitoring Proprietary right now Standard evolving Oracle BAM TIBCO BAM PEGA BAM Business stakeholders Operations Complemented by other standards on Standardized data models for verticals (OAGIS, ebxml, RosettaNet) Technology standards XML, SOA security, Messaging, etc(oasis)

6 Standard, Tools & Roles Process Design Process Execution Process Monitoring DELL CONFIDEN 6 TIAL

7 Overview of BPEL BPEL is a popular standard for orchestration of composite business processes that span across systems that in turn run atomic & functional sub-processes. Hence is systemcentric Currently the standard is BPEL 1.2 (Oracle supports BPEL 1.1) BPEL is XML based standard and is machinereadable DELL CONFIDEN 7 TIAL

8 Overview of BPEL <variable> <process> BPEL Flow start 10:00am Credit Rating <partnerlink> Get Rating Send Loan Application <invoke> <flow> Handle Negative Credit Exception Send Loan Application <faulthandlers> United Loan <invoke> Star Loan <partnerlink> Receive Loan Offer <receive> Receive Loan Offer <partnerlink> <switch> </flow>? Select Lowest Offer </process> end 03:00pm

9 Key Differences - BPM & BPEL Criteria BPM BPEL Scope Intra-department functional workflows with well defined boundaries Centricity or Focus Document-centric People-centric Process-centric Actors Actors are mostly Humans Workflows are complex with the actors confined to largely one department and its functions. Standards Proprietary execution formats & standards Processes can be defined in BPMN Inter-department, cross-system composite (endto-end) processes; sometimes across organizational boundaries System-centric Structure Fairly un-structured Structured Transaction Volume Cannot handle large volumes Typically support large number of users Actors are mostly Systems Human tasks in the processes are mostly reserved for process/business exceptions to be handled by process owners. Open standard BPEL engines do have proprietary extensions Processes can be defined in BPMN and exported to BPEL format Can handle large transaction processing volumes (millions of processes per day)

10 Cross System Interactions Case Study A Typical End-to-End O2C Process Order-to-Cash Process Customer Customer Relationship Relationship (CRM) (CRM) Finance Finance Order Order Shipping Shipping Production Production (WMS) (WMS) Enquiry & Quote Enquire & Request Quote Quote Accepted? Order Booking Y Order Entry Sales Order Order Processing Check in Warehouse Exists? N Create Work Order Produce Product Y Update Increase Plan Dispatch Packing Slip Shipping Reduce Transfer from Storage to Shipping Area Load & Ship Pick Ticket Ship Confirm Raise Invoicing Request Invoicing Receive Invoice AR Invoice Receipt & Allocation Make Payment AR Receipt Soft-copy Receipt Invoice Allocation In the real world, most of these systems will be from different vendors. These core functional systems will have their own proprietary workflow tools Most of these core functional systems are designed from the function and user point of view. BPM cannot orchestrate these E2E and also provide visibility. Process Owner does not have visibility of the E2E process.

11 Case Study A Typical End-to-End O2C Process Order-to-Cash Process Customer Customer Relationship Relationship (CRM) (CRM) Finance Finance Order Order Shipping Shipping Production Production (WMS) (WMS) Enquiry & Quote Enquire & Request Quote Quote Accepted? Order Booking Y Order Entry Sales Order Order Processing Check in Warehouse Exists? N Create Work Order Produce Product Y Pick A BPM Candidate Update Increase Plan Dispatch Packing Slip Shipping Reduce Transfer from Storage to Shipping Area Load & Ship Pick Ticket Ship Confirm Raise Invoicing Request Invoicing Receive Invoice AR Invoice Receipt & Allocation Make Payment AR Receipt Soft-copy Receipt Invoice Allocation Most of the atomic and departmental functions/processes are well-defined. If implemented as part of a packaged application, the choice of using BPM for such processes won t be there. If implemented from scratch, such processes are good BPM candidates.

12 Case Study A Typical End-to-End O2C Process Update in WMS count and adjustment Event WMS Manager WMS Clerk WMS Receipt & Put Away or Pick Ticket & Dispatch Create Physical Document Physical Document Physical Count Review Count Enter Count in WMS Accept Count? Yes End Process No Recount In the real world, such functions involve a lot of human tasks that have to be done manually. In the real world, these systems are packaged applications with their own workflows which may or may not be in BPM tools. These core functional systems are designed from the Functional User point of view.

13 Conclusions BPM is a discipline for management of atomic business process whose functional boundaries are well-defined rather than management of longrunning end-to-end business processes that fulfil an end-to-end business process that spans across multiple disparate systems. BPEL is a sub-set of the Business Process discipline BPEL bridges the gap between BPM and SOA. BPEL does what BPM cannot do on its own i.e. execute/orchestrate processes across department/functional systems in a standard way while at the same time providing Visibility & Control to the Business Process Owner. BPEL is not good at handling complex workflows that involve a lot of human tasks (work-items) and which demand quick turn-around times. EAI can fill in the cross-system workflow gap to some extent but it does not give visibility and control to the Process Owners. BPM tools are not suitable for high-volume transaction processing while most BPEL tools are.

14 Recommendations Use BPM for inter-departmental function workflows/processes that are centred around human tasks and documents Orchestrate end-to-end, cross-system processes using a BPEL engine. In a green-field project, if all functional workflows are going to be built from scratch, then BPM can be used for process management and process-integration instead of BPEL but if more than one packaged application/system are going to be used in the project, then using BPEL along with BPM is a better option. Use BAM in tandem with BPM and BPEL for end-to-end process visibility.