| Oracle® Business Process Architect Quick Start Guide Release 10.1.3.3 E10030-01 |
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| Oracle® Business Process Architect Quick Start Guide Release 10.1.3.3 E10030-01 |
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Business Process Management (BPM) technology enables companies to design, simulate, automate, integrate, monitor and optimize repetitive critical business processes to achieve business process excellence. This helps to reduce costs, improve productivity and enhance the overall performance of the business. This Quick Start Guide introduces you to the BPM concepts and to the Oracle BPM lifecycle. This documentation also includes a case study that describes modeling, simulation, implementation and deployment of business processes.
To understand BPM further, here are some key terms and definitions used in this technology area.
A business process is a set of related activities and tasks that create value by transforming an input into a more valuable output. Business processes are linked into a process flow, and the activities in the process can be either automated or performed by a human. A business process can reference other sub-processes and can, in turn, be referenced from other processes as well. A business process consists of management processes (e.g. compliance, strategic management), core processes (e.g. purchasing, manufacturing, sales, marketing), and supporting processes (e.g. human resources).
Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) is the graphical model for creating business process operations that enable generation of executable BPEL. BPMN bridges the gap between business process modeling, implementation and monitoring.
The BPMN specification was developed by Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI) to provide a notation readily understandable by all business users, from the business analysts who are responsible for the creation and design of the processes, to the technical developers responsible for implementing the technology that will perform those processes, and finally, to the business people who will manage and monitor those processes.
Event Process Chain (EPC) is another graphical representation of business process models. This is a proprietary IDS Scheer model notation. Both EPC and BPMN are supported comprehensively in Oracle BPA Suite. EPC represents business processes as a chain of functions and events.
Business Process Diagram (BPD) is a graphical representation of a business process and uses different shapes to represent the tasks, activities, connections, and events that constitute a business process. BPMN is one of the standard modeling notations used to represent a business process diagram.
Business Process Management (BPM) has the following benefits:
BPM provides clarity around the processes that drive the business and provides tools to rapidly design the business process models. This makes it easier to create and change the business process models which create new business value or increase operational efficiency.
BPM leads to business innovation and optimization by implementing business strategy through modeling, developing, deploying and managing business processes through their entire lifecycle.
It enables businesses to obtain business information faster, respond more quickly to market trends and competitive threats and improve operational efficiency.
BPM establishes common business terminology and a common process repository, making sure all the business stakeholders are in agreement with the modeling methodology and speak the same language, and enables business and IT collaboration for continuous process improvement.
When any business model is envisioned it has to go through an implementation phase before it gets realized and affects the customers and partners. There is a gap between business and IT, and the ability to bridge that gap to implement new business models is a challenge. BPM allows collaboration between business and IT so that the executable business processes meets the business requirements conveyed in the business process model.
In today's environment, compliance is an ongoing initiative. Manually documenting business processes is both costly and expensive to maintain. BPM tools automatically generate documentation and reports needed for governance.
Where the same business process is performed with slight differences in various departments, BPM can identify and reduce variations in both these business processes, and supporting processes.
The ARIS modeling methodology is used for business process modeling in Oracle BPA. For information on this modeling methodology, see the Oracle BPA Suite 10.1.3 Method documentation.
Organizations wanting to stay competitive must manage their business processes effectively. This requires a systematic approach to the entire business process management (BPM) lifecycle. Business Process Analysis (BPA) that includes process modeling and simulation, is a key component of the BPM lifecycle. BPA, together with process execution and monitoring tools, enables complete lifecycle management of business processes.
The typical BPM lifecycle consists of 3 phases:
Business Process Analysis involves Modeling and Simulation. Modeling is the first step and is used to capture and design business process models. This is a business driven activity and has its own iterative life-cycle. The business people collaborate on process design to capture what matters to businesses such as processes and policies, key performance indicators, and business events and activities. This is followed by simulation and analysis of the models in order to optimize them for reduced risk and increased flexibility. With Simulation, you can measure current performance for as-is models by using heuristic or representative data for cost and time. You can also analyze "what if" scenarios.
Implementation and execution is the next phase. The Business Process Models are abstract and they have to be converted to concrete executable processes that can then be deployed and executed on a run-time platform. BPM allows collaboration between business and IT so that the executable business processes meets the business requirements conveyed in the business process model.
Monitoring and management is the third phase. This activity provides real-time visibility and captures business metrics in real-time from business processes, systems and other sources to gain visibility and analyze performance. This enables you to do contextual based decision making. You can also act (design-time at run-time) at the right time and change the way your process behaves at run-time without having to re-implement the solution.Finally, for continuous business process improvement, you need to feed in thebusiness metrics back into the model to do real-data simulation and further optimize and re-engineer the business process models.
There are both business and IT stakeholders in the BPM lifecycle. They need to collaborate continuously to achieve business process excellence.
Table 1-1 Describes Figure 1-2:
Table 1-1 Descriptions of the BPM Stakeholders
| Stakeholder | Description |
|---|---|
|
LOB Process Owner |
Own the business process and establish goals and business requirements. |
|
Business Analyst |
Responsible for creation and analysis of business process models. They run simulations to identify the optimum business process model. |
|
Business End User |
Day-to-day users of the business processes. |
|
IT Developer |
Responsible for conversion and QA of abstract process models to executable processes that can be deployed and monitored. |
|
Process Administrator |
Responsible for managing and monitoring the executable processes in production. |
|
Process Architect/Business Analyst |
Intersection of Business and IT organizations, and is responsible for ensuring that business and IT are effectively colloborating. |
This section describes how to install Oracle BPA Suite and Oracle JDeveloper. This section contains the following topics:
Installing Oracle BPA Suite
Installing Oracle JDeveloper
Installing the Oracle BPEL Extension to Oracle JDeveloper
Importing a Schema into Oracle BPA Suite
See the Oracle BPA Suite Installation Guide 10g (10.1.3.3) for your operating system for instructions on installing Oracle BPA Suite.
To install Oracle JDeveloper 10.1.3.3 Studio:
Unzip Oracle JDeveloper into a location on your host.
Start Oracle JDeveloper by double-clicking <JDev_Oracle_Home>\jdeveloper.exe.
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Note: Do not install Oracle JDeveloper into a directory path that includes a space (for example,C:\Program Files\JDev). If you do, you receive an error when you compile BPEL processes. |
For more information on installing JDeveloper 10.1.3.3 Studio Edition, see the Oracle JDeveloper Installation Guide.
To install the Oracle BPEL Process Manager Extension for JDeveloper.
Unzip pcbpel_bundle.zip into the <JDev_Oracle_Home> folder.
Restart JDeveloper, if already running.
For more information on installing the Oracle BPEL Extension for JDeveloper, see the Oracle BPEL Process Manager Installation Guide.
To install Oracle Business Process Architect:
Unzip the file CD1-10.1.3.xxxxxx.zip.
Install Oracle Business Process Architect from OracleBPA.exe.
Select the default installation options.
For more information on installing Oracle Business Process Architect, see the Oracle Business Process Architect Installation section of the Oracle BPA Suite Installation Guide.
To restore a model (e.g. QuoteToCash_Quickstart.adb) in Oracle Business Process Architect:
In the Modules bar, click on Administration and then on the name of the server on which you want to restore the database. The connection is established.
Right-click on the server and select Restore.
Log in as a database administrator, if necessary. If you entered the password in the Options/Log in dialog box and enabled the Use defaults check box, you will not be prompted to enter your password.
Select the folder where the database backup file (.adb) is stored.
Select the backup file (e.g. QuoteToCash_Quickstart.adb) you want to restore and click on Restore.
The database is restored on the selected server.
For more information on restoring models in Oracle Business Process Architect, see the Oracle BPA Suite Installation Guide.
