Automated Business Process Management

Organizations constantly seek for means of improving their business processes to remain competitive. Recently, much effort has been devoted to business process automation (BPA) projects. However, it has been unclear how these projects differ from traditional business process management (BPM) projects and which critical success factors (CSFs) play a crucial role. This study comparatively assesses how CSFs change for BPA with respect to BPM. Using a survey sample of 139 BPM and BPA experts, the study shows that top management support as a CSF warrants attention for BPM than BPA, while the importance of choosing project methodology significantly differs for BPM and BPA. The comparison between lightweight and heavyweight BPA types indicates that the top management support is relatively less critical for lightweight BPA. The explorative and fsQCA analyses provide insights about the patterns for industries with different IT strategic roles, expert perspectives, and among CSFs. Overall, the findings may help project managers assess the role of key CSFs better based on project focus.

Information System is one of the key domain in which lot of research has been done in the past few years. Applying Information systems to heterogeneous and distributed environments is one of the current research areas. Business Process Management Systems is the information systems which deal with the administration of tasks in the business processes, organizational structures, or in the related context. The Workflow Management system, the early idea of BPM, controls the workflow in an organization, data transfer, and integration of legacy information systems with existing programs and program modules, delegation of business tasks. Offering task management services especially modeling of business processes and underlying organizations, BPM serves it meaning and incorporates the WFM system. BPM supporting the use of knowledge concerning the awareness/unawareness of integrated software, and analysis of processes and organizational structure in terms of verification, modification, evaluation are key management in BPM system I.INTRODUCTION TO BPM: Combination of corporate restructuring and mergers urged the department and processes to be automated and linked together. Unfortunately it created largely disconnected spaghetti of systems and applications. Business Process Management (BPM) was born from a strong need to streamline internal processes and connections between both internal and external functions. It provides ability to model, monitor, manage and manipulate processes quickly in response to changes in strategy and market forces. BPM is an extension of classical Work Flow Management (WFM) systems and approaches. BPM delivers the maximum utility of legacy system. It is a method for revolutionizing the way the work moves throughout an organization. II.COMPONENTS OF BPM: The four key elements in Business Process Management are: Process modeling, Process rule, Process management, and Process performance analytics. Process modeling: Process modeling describes the flow of information (business process).It helps in building a model of process and mapping into an implementation frame work. Modeling requires a consistent analysis and representation of the processes. It forms the basis for the userspecific process environment. Process Rule: Process Rule is a heart of the BPM. It involves execution of discrete steps & integration of information. A process rules engine is used for this purpose. The engine is to monitor and manage the given steps by providing a flow control over the business process. If a process fails or delayed, a compensated action can be done to rectify. Process Management: Process Management is to correlate business/application events to fundamental business metrics .It enables the organization to monitor and optimize the business process. Once the process has been analyzed, modeled and the associated rules are formed. The next stage involves the visualization and management. Visualization means transaction data ranging from holistic to process-state or client state specific rules. Process Performance Analytics: Process Performance Analytics is a transition data source available for sophisticated management analytics .This data should be available on a retrospective or real-time basis. It should answer to one of the most difficult question like “how much does it cost to process a specific transaction?” By this way BPM mainly addresses four components. They are Work Flow Management, Content and records management Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) and Business Activity monitoring (BAM). III.RELEVENCE TO SYSTEM INTEGRATION: BPM can be fitted easily on the top of existing IT system. It is the Process rules that governs all the happenings and optimizes the process. BPM will not be able to work without the connectivity provided by the EAI layer. EAI layer provides BPM to gain and measure the value from the investment. On the other hand, BPM provides value to the EAI technology layer of Information technology. BPM layer offers business management the view of the message processing layer. It is used to unlock the value of the information held in the integration layer. It is also used to gather data of every transaction in the lifecycle. IV.APPLICATION OF BPM: BPM can be applied to any application which needs these advantages. BPM reduces unnecessary high losses in time critical transactions, helps to provide any critical information, practical application yield fast ROI ,better control over the information, identifying and maximizing the benefits faster, better analysis and tracking, provides enterprise-wide visibility of business processes, improve the effectiveness of the core operations, provides ability to coordinate interactions between information systems, business process and the people, flexible and easily changed by non-technical business people.

Nowadays, the problem in business process management (BPM) is that BPM systems should both be easy to use for business process developers and be based on a sound formal method. Business process management systems are often based on semiformal modeling techniques such as event-driven process chains (EPC) or UML. Unlike semiformal modeling techniques, the process calculus CSP comes with mature verification sup- port. Surprisingly little work has been done on using CSP for business process modeling and management. In this paper, we present our approach to business process management, which is based on the observation that CSP is well suited not only for specifying business processes and verifying work???ows but also for executing work???ows using our CSP4J framework. We report on a work???ow server, which is specified in CSP and implemented using our CSP4J framework. The server accepts work???ows that are modeled in CSP and also implemented using CSP4J. This allows us to integrate the mature verification support of CSP into both the management system itself and the development process of the end users’ business process definitions.

Business process management (BPM) is a well-established discipline comprising a set of principles, methods, techniques, and tools to continuously improve the performance of business processes. Traditionally, most BPM decisions and activities are undertaken by business stakeholders based on manual data collection and analysis techniques. This is time-consuming and potentially leads to suboptimal decisions, as only a restricted subset of data and options are considered. Over the past decades, a rich set of data-driven techniques has emerged to support and automate various activities and decisions across the BPM lifecycle, particularly within the process mining field. More recently, the uptake of artificial intelligence (AI) methods for BPM has led to a range of approaches for proactive business process monitoring. Given their common data requirements and overlapping goals, process mining and AI-driven approaches to business process optimization are converging. This convergence is leading to a promising emerging concept, which we call (AI-)augmented process execution: a collection of data analytics and artificial intelligence methods for continuous and automated improvement and adaptation of business processes. This article gives an outline of research at the intersection between process mining and AI-driven process optimization, classifies the researched techniques based on their scope and objectives, and positions augmented process execution as an additional layer on top of this stack.

Introduction. In the context of modern challenges and needs of the global business environment, effective management of business processes and ensuring economic security are extremely important for the success of IT enterprises. This article examines the key aspects of economic security and business process management in the context of information technology, enabling analysis, evaluation, and optimization of enterprise activities in this sector. Research Objective. Studying key aspects of economic security and business process management in the context of their optimization in the IT sector, as well as researching methods of business process management and providing practical recommendations that can be useful for IT enterprises to improve their efficiency and competitiveness. Method (methodology). The research methodology involves literature analysis, empirical studies, and the use of analytical, synthesis, modeling, and forecasting methods to gain a deeper understanding of economic security and business process management in the IT sector. General scientific techniques have been utilized, including the analysis of scientific literature addressing issues of economic security and business process management. Empirical studies include the analysis of practical situations in the IT sector, allowing for the examination of specific cases of success or challenges in the field of economic security and business process management. This combination of methods will enable a comprehensive analysis and provide recommendations for improving practices in the IT sector. The results. The research methodology encompasses literature analysis, empirical studies, and the utilization of analysis, synthesis, modeling, and forecasting methods to gain a deeper understanding of economic security and business process management in the IT sector. Empirical research involves analyzing practical situations in the IT sector, allowing for the examination of specific cases of success or challenges in the realm of economic security and business process management. This combination of methodologies enables a comprehensive analysis and provides recommendations for improving business process management practices within the context of economic security in the IT sector Conclusions. The issues of achieving economic security status by IT businesses have been studied and summarized, taking into account their specificities. Methods for assessing the effectiveness of business process management through the use of indicator systems adapted to the IT industry have been generalized. Suggestions have been made for developing performance indicators for IT enterprise business processes to enhance management practices and ensure stability and competitiveness of IT companies within the context of economic security.

In the modern business scenario, organizations are vesting high efforts in managing process sustainability as part of their operations management practices. The global environmental concerns for the welfare of the society have facilitated this change. Research studies have reported Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as one of the prerequisites in developing and maintaining efficient business processes. The process sustainability related initiatives and various processes related regulatory compliances have created the need for sophisticated IT tools like BPM (Business Process Management) and BI (Business Intelligence) in organizations. Thus with the advancement of ICT, a strong desire to enhance the business process performance through BPM and BI applications is felt across organizations. However, there is scant research available on leveraging the advantages of these applications in sustainability development. Therefore, this paper aims to present a conceptual architecture framework using an integrated BPM and BI solution to develop an orientation among practitioners and academicians towards the inclusion of ICT in attaining a sustainable, energy efficient business operations or processes. The framework is based on the literature pertaining to the role of BPM and BI in process sustainability as well as from the inputs of practitioners involved in the field of BPM and BI.

Digital transformation is forcing companies to rethink their processes to meet current customer needs. Business Process Management (BPM) can provide a means to structure and address this change. However, most BPM approaches face limitations on the number of processes they can optimize at the same time, due to complexity and resource constraints. The article is devoted to data mining as a tool for modeling and improving the company's business processes. Process Mining is a collection of data-driven diagnostic and business process improvement methods that combine machine learning and BPM. Among the advantages of Process Mining is more efficient management decision making. The possibility of introducing Process Mining methods into the work of a telecommunications company for the automatic collection of information about business processes and building a map of business processes is analyzed. The use of Process Mining methods will allow a telecommunications company to optimize the work of its departments and increase customer satisfaction. In addition, the implementation of this system contributes to a better analysis of the results of the execution of business processes for providing access to the Internet. This will improve the regulations for these processes, control of their compliance and the procedure for making managerial decisions at a higher quality level.

Acknowledgements. Foreword. Chapter 1. Introduction. Chapter 2. What is Application Integration? 2.1. The economy: the engine of integration. 2.2. The history and the issues of application integration. 2.3. Consequences for IT. 2.4. Integration typologies. 2.4.1. Classifying the integration problem types. 2.4.2. Classifying the applications. 2.5. EAI: Integrating enterprise applications (A2A). 2.5.1. Accounting interpretation: EAI precursor. 2.5.2. EAI today. 2.6. Integrating inter-enterprise exchanges (B2B). 2.7. Coupling A2A and B2B: A2B (or Business Collaboration). 2.8. Managing business processes (BPM). 2.9. Service-oriented architectures (SOA). Chapter 3. Levels in Integration Services. 3.1. Transport and connectivity. 3.1.1. Defining partners. 3.1.2. Data transport. 3.1.3. Connectivity. 3.1.4. Supervising transport. 3.2. Adapting the information. 3.2.1. Transformation. 3.2.2. Routing. 3.2.3. Storage. 3.2.4. Defining the rules. 3.2.5. Supervising exchanges. 3.3. Automating business processes. 3.3.1. Modeling business processes. 3.3.2. Executing business processes. 3.3.3. Supervising business processes. 3.4. Business process and integration: mediation and exchange. 3.4.1. Business process level and integration level. 3.4.2. Mediation process sub-level. 3.4.3. Exchange process sub-level. 3.4.4. Interaction between the sub-levels. 3.4.5. Interaction between integration and business process (BPM). 3.5. Choosing the exchange architecture. 3.5.1. Synchronous/asynchronous communication. 3.5.2. Architecture: centralized or distributed? Chapter 4. Types of Integration Projects. 4.1. Integrating a single application. 4.1.1. Exchange cartography. 4.1.2. The integration platform. 4.2. IT infrastructure projects. 4.2.1. Urbanization of information systems. 4.2.2. IT exchange infrastructure. 4.3. Integrating inter-enterprise exchanges. 4.3.1. Exchanging electronic documents (EDI). 4.3.2. XML standards. 4.3.3. Inter-enterprise spaghetti system. 4.3.4. Inter-enterprise exchange platforms. 4.3.5. Single Window initiatives. 4.4. Managing business processes. 4.4.1. Points of departure. 4.4.2. BPM project opportunity: choosing the processes. 4.4.3. The approach. 4.4.4. Expected results. 4.5. Implementing a service architecture. 4.5.1. Characteristics of an SOA. 4.5.2. Elements of an SOA infrastructure. 4.5.3. Applicable norms and standards. Chapter 5. Application Integration Tools. 5.1. Brokers. 5.2. Application servers. 5.3. Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). 5.4. BPM tools. Chapter 6. Understanding Integration Failures. 6.1. High failure rates. 6.2. The technological approach. 6.2.1. New technology or new packaging? 6.2.2. Technology confronts reality. Chapter 7. Integration Myths. 7.1. The mirage of the single tool. 7.1.1. A conservative choice: example and consequences. 7.1.2. Modern architectural choice: example and consequences. 7.2. XML: miracle format. 7.3. Business adapters: simplifying the implementation. 7.3.1. Business adapter: implementation - maintenance - problem. 7.3.2. By way of a conclusion on business adapters. 7.4. Java: the proof of a modern solution. 7.4.1. The real reason for Java. 7.4.2. Limitations of an all-Java integration solution. 7.5. Files: the poor cousins of application integration. 7.6. Process and services are everything. 7.6.1. BPM and SOA: top-down approach - from business to IT. 7.6.2. EAI and B2B: bottom-up approach - from IT to business. 7.6.3. Complementary approaches. Chapter 8. Integration and IT Urbanization. 8.1. IT urbanization review. 8.2. Limits of urbanization without an integration solution. 8.3. How do integration solutions support IT urbanization? 8.4. Limits of integration solutions without IT urbanization. 8.5. How does IT urbanization support integration solutions? 8.6. The need to correlate integration solutions and urbanization. Chapter 9. Choosing an Application Integration Solution . 9.1. General approach. 9.2. Methodology for calculating return on investment (ROI). 9.2.1. Introduction to the method. 9.2.2. Equations: maintaining the language of integration. 9.2.3. Operational workload gains through centralized supervision. 9.2.4. Quality of service improvements. 9.3. Opportunity study. 9.3.1. Analyzing the real needs of the enterprise. 9.3.2. Real needs and the state of the art. 9.3.3. Identifying possible business benefits. 9.4. Go/NoGo from General Management. 9.5. The search for a candidate: Request for Information (RFI). 9.5.1. Why issue an RFI? 9.5.2. Key points in an integration RFI. 9.6. Request for Proposal (RFP) or specifications document. 9.6.1. Interest and spirit of an RFP. 9.6.2. Myths: standard questionnaire + one-stop supplier. 9.6.3. Key points in an RFP for application integration. 9.7. Presentations from the candidates. Chapter 10. Deployment Methodology. 10.1. Introduction to the method. 10.2. Deployment methodology: general principles. 10.3. Special case: deploying BPM and SOA. 10.4. Economic models of cost allocation. 10.4.1. Cost allocation linked to usage. 10.4.2. Cost allocation linked to usage and services (developed model). Chapter 11. Operational Examples of Implementation . 11.1. Rationalizing bonds purchase order management (banking). 11.1.1. The context. 11.1.2. The choices. 11.1.3. The solution. 11.1.4. The results. 11.2. An EAI hub (telecommunications). 11.2.1. The context. 11.2.2. The choice. 11.2.3. Implementing the pilot: first difficulties. 11.2.4. Integration tests: disturbing results. 11.2.5. How did we end up here? Consequences of architectural choices. 11.2.6. Performance tests: catastrophic results. 11.2.7. Report card: final decision. 11.2.8. The lesson: what we could have done. 11.3. A2A and B2B (retail). 11.3.1. The context. 11.3.2. The choice. 11.3.3. The solution. 11.3.4. The results. 11.4. BPM and SOA in service delivery. 11.4.1. The context. 11.4.2. The choice. 11.4.3. The solutions. 11.4.4. The results. 11.4.5. Points to watch for this type of solution. Conclusion . Bibliography. Index.

This paper critically assesses Business Process Management (BPM) education in Poland and provides evidence-based recommendations for improvement. Through a survey of 44 BPM educators, the study evaluates BPM lifecycle coverage, IT tool utilization, and incorporation of the Six Core Elements of BPM. The findings reveal a focus on process modeling and analysis, identifying gaps in the way the entire BPM lifecycle is addressed. Despite the utilization of various IT tools, there is a notable absence of coverage for emerging topics such as process mining, AI, and Robotic Process Automation. Only 12% of courses cover all Six Core Elements of BPM, and there is a critical gap in student education, which is the underrepresentation of the People and Culture elements. The paper concludes with a manifesto for greater alignment between academic education and industry needs through comprehensive BPM curricula, dedicated software tools, and more robust coverage of the strategic and governance aspects of BPM. This will bridge the gap between academic education and real-world BPM applications, so that graduates can be better prepared for the challenges of the modern business landscape, which can enhance the quality and effectiveness of BPM education, thereby aligning it with the evolving demands of the business environment and contributing to the growth and competitiveness of organizations in Poland.

This paper is about business process management (BPM) and business activity monitoring (BAM) using processing. We will show why the management of business processes is important for all further steps towards an event-driven and real time enterprise. That is process automation using workflow engines and standards like the Web Service Business Process Execution Language (BPEL). As an underlying middleware platform we use the service oriented platform SOPware of Deutsche Post AG.Events are emitted from all layers, the middleware platform layer and the business process layer, and figuratively build event clouds. Event processing functionalities will correlate both event clouds and feed business activity monitoring. There, enterprise performance cockpits and dashboards depict the performance of the enterprise and of its processes.

One of the key issues in corporate management is business process management. That is why the greatest interest for company analysts is the issue of effective forecasting of business processes. In today's digitalization of the economy, integration and automation of business processes have become the main priorities for achieving efficiency and effectiveness of companies, and especially for effective management decisions. This problem can be solved with the help of integrated systems, which are tools for effective management decisions, modeling and optimization of business processes. The article provides an analytical review of known forecasting methods and identifies the features of their application, analyzes the advantages and disadvantages that will take them into account in modeling the company and promote economic development, competitiveness and optimize business processes.

Business process management (BPM) is an approach focused on the continuous improvement of business processes, providing for this a collection of best practices. These best practices enable the redesign of business processes to meet the desired performance. IT service management (ITSM) defines the management of IT operations as a service. There are several ITSM frameworks available, consisting in best practices that propose standardizing these processes for the respective operations. By adopting these frameworks, organisations can align IT with their business objectives. The constant need for change, competitiveness and innovation in organisations compels managers to analyse its business processes and find improvement opportunities. Therefore, the objective of this research is to understand how BPM can be used to improve of ITSM processes. An exploratory case study in a multinational company based in Lisbon, Portugal, is conducted for the improvement of the time performance of an incident management process. Data were gained through documentation, archival records, interviews and focus groups with a team involved in IT support service. The results of this study demonstrate how BPM highlighted the current incident management process incongruences. The preliminary evidences of this research indicate that with the application of the remain BPM lifecycle phases may be possible to improve incident management process. During the next months the authors intend to identify the main problems and simulate the appropriate BPM heuristics to understand the impact in the business organisation.

The aim of the article is to present a framework enabling the quick and practical assessment of the nature of business processes, necessary to select business process management (BPM) tools and methodologies in accordance with the actual nature of BPs in the organization. The lack of such compliance reduces or delays the results, or it can even cause the failure of BPM implementations. To avoid this risk, organizations should be aware of the nature of their processes prior to planning and implementing BPM. The article summarizes extensive literature studies and experiences resulting from the practical implementation of business process management in organizations with diverse types of business processes. Developed in accordance with the Design Science Research (DSR) methodology, the Business Process Nature Assessment Framework (BPNAF) uses an approach that combines business process management with the management of the knowledge used and created in the course of the process execution. The article presents the concept of the business process space and the Business Process Nature Assessment Framework (BPNAF) based thereon, which enables the quick and efficient assessment of the nature of business processes in an organization in terms of their unpredictability and knowledge intensity. The presentation of the results enables the objective recommendation of the selection of implementation methodologies, HRM policies, or IT systems supporting BPM in line with the real nature of business processes implemented in the organization, in a way that is understandable to both specialists and non-specialists. The article is dedicated to researchers, but above all to practitioners using BPM. The application of the presented BPNAF allows managers to choose the methodology and tools supporting the management of business processes, but also human resources or knowledge, in accordance with the objective nature of the processes and the needs of the organization. The simplicity and speed of analysis, as well as the ability to directly use its results in the initial implementation of business process management, mean that the benefits of using the BPNAF are much greater than the effort or preparation costs involved. An important limitation of the work is the fact that the analysis of the business process space and, consequently, the BPNAF are limited to only two dimensions: unpredictability and knowledge-intensity. The article presents the original concept of the business process space and the author's model of the BPNAF framework based on its two-dimensional version. The supplement of BPM implementation methodologies with the use of the results of this work is of key importance for the success or failure of implementations.

In order for enterprises to collaborate at the business-process level, they must deal with two kinds of processes: the public conversation processes specifying inter-enterprise document flows, and the private business processes specifying local workflows of document manipulation and other related tasks. The provisioning, interaction and integration of conversation management and business process management, have become the common interest of the e-business (electronic business) industry. We discuss the relationship and interaction between conversation management and business process management; point out the difference between public conversation processes (e.g. BPSS processes) and peer-conversation processes (e.g. BPEL4WS processes). We then illustrate our collaborative process management system that has functionally separated conversation manager and business process manager. The conversation manager is based on the ebXML (Extensible Markup Language) BPSS (Business Process Execution Language) standard; it is used for validating document exchange at run-time and for activating corresponding process tasks. We have also proposed the conversation model driven asynchronous task activation mechanism for interaction between a conversation process and the coupled business process dynamically. With this mechanism, generic APIs (application program interfaces) between the conversation manager and the business process manager can be easily defined and used by multiple plugged-in conversation managers.

Business process management (BPM) systems provide a broad range of facilities to enact and manage operational business processes. Ideally, these systems should provide support for the complete BPM life-cycle: (re)design, configuration, execution, control, and diagnosis of processes. However, based on an extensive evaluation of the FileNet P8 BPM Suite, we show that existing BPM tools are unable to support the full life-cycle. There are clearly gaps between the various phases (e.g., users need to transfer or interpret information without any support) and some of the phases (e.g., the redesign and diagnosis phases) are not supported sufficiently. This chapter shows that techniques for process mining and intelligent redesign can be used to offer better support for the (re)design and diagnosis phases and, thus, close the BPM life-cycle. We also briefly report on the work done in the context of the ProM tool, which is used as framework to experiment with such techniques.Request access from your librarian to read this chapter's full text.