Business Process Lifecycle

The business process lifecycle consists of the following steps:

· Model and Simulate: Business process owners can use ActiveVOS Designer to create a BPMN model with a list of business goals and KPIs.. Further they can perform optional simulation steps during which hypothetical scenarios are run to identify critical paths and bottlenecks.

· Implement and Deploy/Execute: IT architects and developers can enrich business process models with implementation details such as Web services and BPEL properties. The resulting executable process is then deployed to ActiveVOS BPEL server for execution.

· Monitor and Optimize: Deployed business processes are monitored to measure key performance indicators and other metrics. Process throughput and utilization metrics can be fed into a simulation tool to derive the optimal execution mode by using real data (e.g. historical).

ActiveVOS Designer products are optimized for needs of different users. Non-technical business analysts use simple Windows user interface to specify business processes, business goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) while IT architects and developers use Eclipse IDE to implement, test and deploy Web Services and BPEL.

You can use KPI to specify what to measure and monitor in business activity monitoring (BAM). KPIs are frequently used to "value" difficult to measure activities such as the benefits of leadership development, engagement, service, and satisfaction. KPIs are typically tied to an organization's strategy and goals (as exemplified through techniques such as the Balanced Scorecard).

ActiveVOS Designer products enable better process collaboration by business analysts and SOA architects through shared meta-model and common notations - BPMN. BPMN provides a shared language between consultants, business analysts, technical architects, and IT developers, with no part of the process model inaccessible. The shared meta-model approach with complete round-trip engineering keeps requirements (analysis model) and implementation (implementation model) in sync.

Both “analysis” model and implementation model can be validated. You can use the Validate command to verify that it is compliant with the defined rule profiles. There are four different rule profiles defined: BPMN Standard, BPEL 1.1, BPEL 2.0 and Business Process Simulation and each profile contains a list of model constraints to check for both syntax and flow.

Simulation extends and complements the business process modeling functions and analytical capabilities. Analysts can use the simulation feature to evaluate the impact of process changes and new processes in a model environment through the creation of “what-if” scenarios. Simulation enables examination and testing of options prior to actually implementing them in the “real” environment. Since simulation approximates reality, it also permits the inclusion of uncertainty and variability into the forecasts of process performance. Process throughput and other metrics collected from BAM can be fed into simulation to derive the optimal execution mode.