Fundamentals of Business Process Management

Marlon Dumas • Marcello La Rosa •

Jan Mendling • Hajo A. Reijers

Fundamentals of
Business Process
Management

Second Edition

123
Marlon Dumas Marcello La Rosa
Institute of Computer Science School of Computing and Information
University of Tartu Systems
Tartu, Estonia The University of Melbourne
Melbourne, Australia

Jan Mendling Hajo A. Reijers

Institute for Information Business Department of Computer Sciences
Vienna University of Economics Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
and Business Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Vienna, Austria

ISBN 978-3-662-56508-7 ISBN 978-3-662-56509-4 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-56509-4

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To Inga and Maia – Marlon
To Chiara, Lorenzo, and Valerio – Marcello
To Stefanie – Jan
To Maddy, Timon, and Mayu – Hajo
Foreword

Business processes represent one of the core assets of organisations for many
reasons. They have direct impact on the attractiveness of products and services,
influence customer experiences and ultimately revenue in case of corporations.
Processes orchestrate corporate resources to fulfil these external demands and
therefore are a key factor determining the cost-to-serve and operational efficiency.
In particular, they determine tasks, jobs, and responsibilities and by this, shape the
future work of every employee and machine along a business process. Processes
are the arterial system within organisations and in inter-organizational supply
networks. Consequently, any process failure can bring corporate life and the entire
process ecosystem to a standstill. Processes determine the potential and speed of
an organization to adapt to new circumstances and to comply with a fast-growing
number of legislative requirements.
However, unlike other corporate assets such as products, services, workforce,
brand, physical or monetary assets, the significance of business processes had not
been appreciated for a long period. Despite the fact that processes are the lifeblood
of an organization, they did not develop the status of a primary citizen in boardroom
discussions and managerial decision-making processes until the very end of the
twentieth century.
The growing demands for globalization, integration, standardization, innovation,
agility, and operational efficiency, coupled with the opportunities raised by digital
technologies, have finally increased the appetite for reflecting on and ultimately
improving existing as well as designing entire new business processes.
In response, a comprehensive body of tools, techniques, methods, and entire
methodologies to support all stages of the business process lifecycle has emerged
over the past two decades. It is called Business Process Management (BPM), and
it consolidates a plethora of tools and approaches coming from diverse disciplines,
including Industrial Engineering, Operations Management, Quality Management,
Human Capital Management, Corporate Governance, Computer Science, and Infor-
mation Systems Engineering.
“Fundamentals of Business Process Management” takes on the challenge
of distilling the current landscape of BPM methods and tools succinctly and

vii
viii Foreword

pedagogically. It brings meaningful order and consistency into approaches that

often have been developed, discussed, and deployed in isolation. It derives its
merits from its firm foundation in the latest applied BPM research. Relying on
scientifically sound practices means capitalizing on evidence rather than depending
on confidence. This clearly differentiates this much-needed publication from many
of its predecessors. In particular, it gives BPM the credibility that a still growing
discipline requires.
The book itself is also a compelling showcase for the importance of a new
class of processes, i.e. internationally distributed, complex, and flexible business
processes. In this case, it is the process of jointly writing a book involving four
authors in four different countries. The team has addressed this challenge brilliantly
and the outcome is an impressive compilation of the individual strengths of each
author grounded in a shared understanding of the essential BPM fundamentals and
a common passion for the topic.
It has been no surprise that the first edition of the book had a tremendous uptake
and gained rapid adoption worldwide. The hundreds of institutions that have adopted
the book in their teaching, and the tens of thousands of students and professionals
who have taken the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) developed on the basis
of this book, are a testimony of both the growing demand for BPM education and
the technical and pedagogical value of the book.
As the field evolves and matures, a second updated and extended edition is
most welcome. The second edition significantly expands the reach of the first one
with a more in-depth coverage of process architecture, process discovery, process
innovation, process analytics, BPM strategic alignment, and governance, all of
which are essential ingredients in a sustainable BPM program.
I have no doubts that this second edition will contribute to shaping the toolset, and
even more the mindset, of the current and future generations of BPM professionals.
The book will continue to be the standard reference for everyone who is keen to
learn more about and to embrace the fascinating discipline of Business Process
Management.

Brisbane, Australia Michael Rosemann

February 2018
Preface

“Get the fundamentals down and the level of everything you do

will rise.”
Michael Jordan (1963–)

Almost 5 years ago, we decided to join forces and deliver a textbook on Business
Process Management (BPM). Since then, BPM has grown more important than
ever. Businesses around the world are carrying out BPM initiatives with the aim to
outperform their competitors or meet the demands of regulatory authorities. At the
same time, a lively academic community is pushing the boundaries of the discipline:
computer scientists, management scientists, and engineers add new elements to
its repertoire, which are eagerly being picked up by practitioners. We felt that
having a textbook available that organizes the broad spectrum of the topic would
help us teaching at our institutions about the fascinating concepts, methods, and
technologies behind BPM. What is more, we hoped that a textbook on BPM would
also enable a broader audience beyond the students in our own classrooms to learn
about its marvels.
When the first edition of the book hit the shelves in early 2013, it became clear
to us that our textbook met an unsaturated demand. The book quickly became the
basis for BPM courses at around 200 universities across the continents. Lecturers
around the world reached out to us to discuss the material and a community of
BPM educators evolved from these interactions. We traveled to various institutions
ourselves to deliver guest lectures on the basis of the book and, from time to time,
also stepped into the corporate world to preach the BPM gospel. The demand was
such that we were compelled to produce a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)
based on the textbook, which brought together over 7,500 participants in its first
delivery and over 25,000 in total after several deliveries. In a sense, our mission
seemed to be accomplished. But then again, we knew it was not.
After all, BPM is a cross-disciplinary field that is continuously evolving. The
boundaries of what we previously saw as the fundamentals of the discipline have
moved in the five years since the first edition of our book appeared. On the positive
side, we could see the emergence of new methods, the evolvement of important
standards, and a maturation of BPM technology. However, we also saw how difficult
some organizations found it to successfully apply BPM, as accentuated by a number

ix
x Preface

of failed BPM projects. In other words, it was time to carry out a major update to
our book to reflect on such developments and insights. The result of our efforts in
this direction is this second edition.
Compared to the first edition of the book, the new edition incorporates a range of
extensions and improvements. The highlights are as follows:
• The roots of BPM are more thoroughly discussed, in particular the relationship
with the concept of Adam Smith’s division of labor;
• Major rework took place to better illustrate the design of a process architecture
and the way performance measures can be integrated in such an architecture;
• We extended our treatment of process modeling with the modeling standards
CMMN and DMN;
• We enhanced the coverage of process discovery and modeling methods;
• To the wide range of process analysis techniques already present in the first
edition, we added waste analysis, stakeholder analysis, capacity analysis, and
the critical path method;
• The treatment of redesign methods has been vastly expanded with a range of
methods, both old and new, that were not covered in the previous edition;
• A new chapter has been added to provide an overview of both domain-specific
(ERP, CRM) and domain-agnostic process-aware information systems;
• The overview of process monitoring techniques has been substantially revised
and enhanced to incorporate recent developments in the field of process mining;
• A new chapter has been added to introduce BPM as an enterprise capability. This
chapter expands the scope of the book to encompass topics such as the strategic
alignment and governance of BPM initiatives.
Some things have not changed. Every chapter of the textbook still contains a
number of elaborated examples and exercises. Some of these exercises are spread
throughout the chapter and are intended to help the reader to incrementally put
into action, via concrete scenarios, concepts and techniques exposed in the chapter.
These “in-chapter” exercises are paired with sample solutions at the end of the
chapter. In addition, every chapter closes with a number of further exercises for
which no solution is provided. Instructors may wish to use these latter exercises for
assignments. We are happy to announce that through the various extensions, over 40
additional examples and exercises have become part of this second edition.
The reader will also note that most chapters contain “highlighted boxes” that
provide complementary insights into a specific topic, some of them brand new in
comparison to the first edition. These boxes are tangential to the flow of the book
and may be skipped by readers who wish to concentrate on the essential concepts.
Similarly, every chapter closes with a “Further Readings” section that provides
external pointers for readers wishing to deepen their understanding of a specific
topic. These sections have been updated to include the most recent developments in
the various areas.
What is also still around is our website, which has the primary aim to collect
course materials: http://fundamentals-of-bpm.org. This website includes slides,
lecture recordings, sample exams, links to related resources, and additional
Preface xi

exercises. The interested reader can also find in the website a list of institutions
where the book is used in class. There is an active community of instructors who
have adopted the book and who regularly share their insights via a message forum.
New instructors who adopt this book in their classes can request to be added to
this community. By joining the community, instructors get access to a wealth of
instructors-only material.
This book draws from the work of many of our colleagues in the BPM field. We
would like to thank Han van der Aa, Wil van der Aalst, Adriano Augusto, Thomas
Baier, Saimir Bala, Wasana Bandara, Alistair Barros, Anne Baumgraß, Boualem
Benatallah, Jan vom Brocke, Cristina Cabanillas, Fabio Casati, Raffaele Conforti,
Claudio Di Ciccio, Gero Decker, Remco Dijkman, Boudewijn van Dongen, Dirk
Fahland, Avigdor Gal, Paul Harmon, Arthur ter Hofstede, Henrik Leopold, Fabrizio
Maria Maggi, Monika Malinova, Fredrik Milani, Michael zur Muehlen, Markus
Nüttgens, Fabian Pittke, Johannes Prescher, Artem Polyvyanyy, Manfred Reichert,
Jan Recker, Stefanie Rinderle-Ma, Michael Rosemann, Stefan Schönig, Matthias
Schrepfer, Priya Seetharaman, Sergey Smirnov, Andreas Solti, Lucinéia Heloisa
Thom, Peter Trkman, Irene Vanderfeesten, Barbara Weber, Ingo Weber, Matthias
Weidlich, Mathias Weske, and J. Leon Zhao, who all provided constructive feedback
on drafts of earlier versions of this book or inspired us in other ways while we
were writing it. Last but not least, we are grateful to the numerous instructors and
students who reported errata in the first edition of the book and who made useful
suggestions. Our thanks, in particular, go to Ahmad Alturki, Anis Charfi, Dave
Chaterjee, Manfred Jeusfeld, Worarat Krathu, Ann Majchrzak, Shane Tomblin,
Phoebe Tsai, Inge van de Weerd, and Chris Zimmer.

Tartu, Estonia Marlon Dumas

Melbourne, Australia Marcello La Rosa
Vienna, Austria Jan Mendling
Amsterdam, The Netherlands Hajo A. Reijers
February 2018
Contents

1 Introduction to Business Process Management . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1 Processes Everywhere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Ingredients of a Business Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 Origins and History of BPM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.3.1 The Functional Organization . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.3.2 The Birth of Process Thinking.. . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.3.3 The Rise and Fall of BPR . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.4 The BPM Lifecycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.5 Recap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
1.6 Solutions to Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
1.7 Further Exercises.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
1.8 Further Readings .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2 Process Identification.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.1 The Context of Process Identification .. . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.2 Definition of the Process Architecture . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.2.1 Process Categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.2.2 Relationships Between Processes . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.2.3 Reuse of Reference Models.. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
2.2.4 Process Landscape Model . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
2.2.5 The Example of SAP’s Process Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
2.3 Process Selection.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
2.3.1 Selection Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
2.3.2 Process Performance Measures .. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
2.3.3 Process Portfolio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
2.4 Recap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
2.5 Solutions to Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
2.6 Further Exercises.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
2.7 Further Readings .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

xiii
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3 Essential Process Modeling .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

3.1 First Steps with BPMN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
3.2 Branching and Merging.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
3.2.1 Exclusive Decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
3.2.2 Parallel Execution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
3.2.3 Inclusive Decisions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
3.2.4 Rework and Repetition .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
3.3 Business Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
3.4 Resources.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
3.5 Process Decomposition .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
3.6 Process Model Reuse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
3.7 Recap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
3.8 Solutions to Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
3.9 Further Exercises.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
3.10 Further Readings .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
4 Advanced Process Modeling .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
4.1 More on Rework and Repetition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
4.1.1 Parallel Repetition .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
4.1.2 Uncontrolled Repetition . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
4.2 Handling Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
4.2.1 Message Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
4.2.2 Temporal Events.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
4.2.3 Racing Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
4.3 Handling Exceptions .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
4.3.1 Process Abortion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
4.3.2 Internal Exceptions .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
4.3.3 External Exceptions .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
4.3.4 Activity Timeouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
4.3.5 Non-Interrupting Events and Complex Exceptions .. . . . . 133
4.3.6 Event Sub-processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
4.3.7 Activity Compensation.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
4.3.8 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
4.4 Processes and Business Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
4.5 Recap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
4.6 Solutions to Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
4.7 Further Exercises.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
4.8 Further Readings .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
5 Process Discovery .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
5.1 The Setting of Process Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
5.1.1 Process Analyst Versus Domain Expert .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
5.1.2 Three Process Discovery Challenges .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
5.2 Process Discovery Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
5.2.1 Evidence-Based Discovery . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
5.2.2 Interview-Based Discovery . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Contents xv

5.2.3 Workshop-Based Discovery . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

5.2.4 Strengths and Weaknesses . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
5.3 Process Modeling Method .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
5.3.1 Step 1: Identify the Process Boundaries.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
5.3.2 Step 2: Identify Activities and Events .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
5.3.3 Step 3: Identify Resources and Their Handoffs .. . . . . . . . . 179
5.3.4 Step 4: Identify the Control Flow . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
5.3.5 Step 5: Identify Additional Elements.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
5.3.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
5.4 Process Model Quality Assurance . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
5.4.1 Syntactic Quality and Verification .. . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
5.4.2 Semantic Quality and Validation . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
5.4.3 Pragmatic Quality and Certification . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
5.4.4 Modeling Guidelines and Conventions.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
5.5 Recap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
5.6 Solutions to Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
5.7 Further Exercises.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
5.8 Further Readings .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
6 Qualitative Process Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
6.1 Value-Added Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
6.2 Waste Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
6.2.1 Move .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
6.2.2 Hold .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
6.2.3 Overdo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
6.3 Stakeholder Analysis and Issue Documentation.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
6.3.1 Stakeholder Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
6.3.2 Issue Register .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
6.3.3 Pareto Analysis and PICK Charts . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
6.4 Root Cause Analysis .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
6.4.1 Cause-Effect Diagrams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
6.4.2 Why-Why Diagrams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
6.5 Recap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
6.6 Solutions to Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
6.7 Further Exercises.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
6.8 Further Readings .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
7 Quantitative Process Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
7.1 Flow Analysis .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
7.1.1 Calculating Cycle Time Using Flow Analysis .. . . . . . . . . . 256
7.1.2 Cycle Time Efficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
7.1.3 Critical Path Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
7.1.4 Little’s Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
7.1.5 Capacity and Bottlenecks . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
7.1.6 Flow Analysis for Cost. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
7.1.7 Limitations of Flow Analysis . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
xvi Contents

7.2 Queues .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

7.2.1 Basics of Queueing Theory .. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
7.2.2 M/M/1 and M/M/c Models . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
7.2.3 Limitations of Basic Queueing Theory.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
7.3 Simulation .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
7.3.1 Anatomy of a Process Simulation . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
7.3.2 Input for Process Simulation.. . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
7.3.3 Simulation Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
7.3.4 A Word of Caution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
7.4 Recap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
7.5 Solutions to Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
7.6 Further Exercises.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
7.7 Further Readings .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
8 Process Redesign .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
8.1 The Essence of Process Redesign .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
8.1.1 Product Versus Process Innovation .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
8.1.2 Redesign Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
8.1.3 The Devil’s Quadrangle .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
8.1.4 Approaches to Redesign . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
8.1.5 The Redesign Orbit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
8.2 Transactional Methods.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
8.2.1 Overview of Transactional Methods .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
8.2.2 7FE .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
8.2.3 Heuristic Process Redesign . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
8.3 Transformational Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
8.3.1 Overview of Transformational Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
8.3.2 Business Process Reengineering . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
8.3.3 Product-Based Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
8.4 Recap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
8.5 Solutions to Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
8.6 Further Exercises.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
8.7 Further Readings .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338
9 Process-Aware Information Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
9.1 Types of Process-Aware Information Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
9.1.1 Domain-Specific Process-Aware Information
Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
9.1.2 Business Process Management Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
9.1.3 Architecture of a BPMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
9.1.4 The Case of ACNS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
9.2 Advantages of Introducing a BPMS . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
9.2.1 Workload Reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
9.2.2 Flexible System Integration.. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
9.2.3 Execution Transparency . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358
9.2.4 Rule Enforcement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
Contents xvii

9.3 Challenges of Introducing a BPMS . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360

9.3.1 Technical Challenges.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
9.3.2 Organizational Challenges .. . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
9.4 Recap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
9.5 Solutions to Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
9.6 Further Exercises.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
9.7 Further Readings .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
10 Process Implementation with Executable Models . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
10.1 Identify the Automation Boundaries .. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
10.2 Review Manual Tasks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
10.3 Complete the Process Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378
10.4 Bring the Process Model to an Adequate Granularity Level .. . . . . 381
10.4.1 Task Decomposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
10.4.2 Decomposition of Ad Hoc Sub-Processes with
CMMN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
10.4.3 Task Aggregation .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
10.5 Specify Execution Properties .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
10.5.1 Variables, Messages, Signals, Errors, and Their
Data Types .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
10.5.2 Data Mappings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388
10.5.3 Service Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389
10.5.4 Send and Receive Tasks, Message and Signal Events .. . 390
10.5.5 Script Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
10.5.6 User Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
10.5.7 Task, Event, and Sequence Flow Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . 394
10.5.8 Implementing Rules with DMN . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
10.5.9 Other BPMS-Specific Properties . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
10.6 The Last Mile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399
10.7 Recap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
10.8 Solutions to Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
10.9 Further Exercises.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
10.10 Further Readings .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411
11 Process Monitoring .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
11.1 The Context of Process Monitoring .. . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
11.2 Process Performance Dashboards .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
11.2.1 Operational Dashboards . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
11.2.2 Tactical Dashboards .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
11.2.3 Strategic Dashboards .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418
11.2.4 Tools for Dashboard Creation . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
11.3 Introduction to Process Mining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
11.3.1 Process Mining Techniques .. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420
11.3.2 Event Logs .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421
11.4 Automated Process Discovery.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427
11.4.1 Dependency Graphs .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428
xviii Contents

11.4.2 The α-Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432

11.4.3 Robust Process Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
11.4.4 Quality Measures for Automated Process Discovery .. . . 439
11.5 Process Performance Mining .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442
11.5.1 Time Dimension .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442
11.5.2 Cost Dimension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447
11.5.3 Quality Dimension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448
11.5.4 Flexibility Dimension .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450
11.6 Conformance Checking.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451
11.6.1 Conformance of Control Flow . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 452
11.6.2 Conformance of Data and Resources.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457
11.7 Variants Analysis.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458
11.8 Putting It All Together: Process Mining in Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461
11.9 Recap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
11.10 Solutions to Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464
11.11 Further Exercises.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470
11.12 Further Readings .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472
12 BPM as an Enterprise Capability .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475
12.1 Barriers to BPM Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 476
12.2 The Six Success Factors of BPM Maturity . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477
12.2.1 Strategic Alignment .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480
12.2.2 Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 484
12.2.3 People .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486
12.2.4 Culture .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488
12.3 Measuring Process Maturity and BPM Maturity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490
12.4 Recap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495
12.5 Solutions to Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495
12.6 Further Exercises.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 498
12.7 Further Readings .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499

A Redesign Heuristics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501

A.1 Customer Heuristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501
A.2 Business Process Operation Heuristics . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 502
A.3 Business Process Behavior Heuristics . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503
A.4 Organization Heuristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503
A.5 Information Heuristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505
A.6 Technology Heuristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505
A.7 External Environment Heuristics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506

References .. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509

Index . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 519
List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Ingredients of a business process . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Fig. 1.2 How the process moved out of focus through the ages . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Fig. 1.3 Purchasing process at Ford at the initial stage .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Fig. 1.4 Purchasing process at Ford after redesign . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Fig. 1.5 Job functions of a manager responsible for a process (a.k.a.
process owner), based on Rummler & Brache [153] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Fig. 1.6 Process model for the initial fragment of the equipment
rental process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Fig. 1.7 The BPM lifecycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Fig. 2.1 The balanced scorecard by Kaplan & Norton ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Fig. 2.2 Example of process categories of a production company . . . . . . . . . 42
Fig. 2.3 Value chain models for sequence, decomposition, and
specialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Fig. 2.4 A process architecture with three levels . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Fig. 2.5 The process architecture of British Telecom and its
different levels. © British Telecommunications (2005) . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Fig. 2.6 Process landscape model of Vienna’s public transport
operator Wiener Linien [168] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Fig. 2.7 Process profile of BuildIT’s procure-to-pay process,
adapted from [190] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Fig. 2.8 Process landscape model of BuildIT . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Fig. 2.9 The SAP process map describing the process landscape of
the company [139]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Fig. 2.10 Example of balanced scorecards with the cascading
definition and measurement of various process performance
measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Fig. 2.11 Process portfolio of a financial institution . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Fig. 2.12 Process portfolio of a university . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Fig. 3.1 The model of a simple order-to-cash process .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Fig. 3.2 Progress of three instances of the order-to-cash process . . . . . . . . . . 77

xix
xx List of Figures

Fig. 3.3 The Solomon R. Guggenheim building in New York (a),

its timber miniature (b) and its blueprint (c) . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Fig. 3.4 An example of the use of XOR gateways . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Fig. 3.5 An example of the use of AND gateways . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Fig. 3.6 A more elaborated version of the order-to-cash process
diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Fig. 3.7 A variant of the order-to-cash process with two different
triggers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Fig. 3.8 Modeling an inclusive decision: first trial . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Fig. 3.9 Modeling an inclusive decision: second trial . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Fig. 3.10 Modeling an inclusive decision with the OR gateway . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Fig. 3.11 What type should the join gateway have such that instances
of this process can complete correctly? . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Fig. 3.12 The order-to-cash process model with product
manufacturing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Fig. 3.13 A process model for addressing ministerial correspondence . . . . . 91
Fig. 3.14 The order-to-cash example with data objects and data stores . . . . 94
Fig. 3.15 The order-to-cash example with resource information . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Fig. 3.16 Collaboration diagram between a seller, a customer, and
two suppliers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Fig. 3.17 Identifying sub-processes in the order-to-cash process of
Figure 3.12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Fig. 3.18 A simplified version of the order-to-cash process after
hiding the content of its sub-processes . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Fig. 3.19 A process model for disbursing home loans, laid down over
three hierarchical levels via the use of sub-processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Fig. 3.20 The process model for disbursing student loans invokes
the same model for signing loans used by the process for
disbursing home loans, via a call activity . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Fig. 4.1 The process model for addressing ministerial
correspondence of Figure 3.13 simplified using a loop
activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Fig. 4.2 An example of unstructured cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Fig. 4.3 Obtaining quotes from five suppliers . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Fig. 4.4 Obtaining quotes from a number of suppliers determined
on-the-fly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Fig. 4.5 Using a multi-instance pool to represent multiple suppliers . . . . . . 121
Fig. 4.6 Using an ad hoc sub-process to model uncontrolled
repetition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Fig. 4.7 Replacing activities that only send or receive messages (a)
with message events (b) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Fig. 4.8 Using timer events to drive the various activities of a
business process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Fig. 4.9 A race condition between an incoming message and a timer . . . . . 126
List of Figures xxi

Fig. 4.10 Matching an internal choice in one party with an

event-based choice in the other party . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Fig. 4.11 An example of collaboration that can deadlock if the
decision is made for “already registered” . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Fig. 4.12 Using an event-based gateway to fix the problem of a
potential deadlock in the collaboration of Figure 4.11 . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Fig. 4.13 A collaboration diagram between a customer, a travel
agency, and an airline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Fig. 4.14 Using a terminate event to signal abnormal process
termination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Fig. 4.15 Error events model internal exceptions . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Fig. 4.16 Boundary events catch external events that can occur
during an activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Fig. 4.17 Non-interrupting boundary events catch external events
that occur during an activity and trigger a parallel
procedure without interrupting the enclosing activity . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Fig. 4.18 Non-interrupting events can be used in combination
with signal events to model complex exception handling
scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Fig. 4.19 Event sub-processes can be used in place of boundary
events and to catch events thrown from outside the scope
of a particular sub-process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Fig. 4.20 Compensating for the shipment and for the payment . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Fig. 4.21 A replenishment order is triggered every time the stock
levels drop below a threshold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Fig. 5.1 Organization chart of the Office of the DVC (Student
Affairs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Fig. 5.2 Extract of the UML class diagram of the student admission
system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Fig. 5.3 Organizational policies for student admission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Fig. 5.4 Phases of the interview method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Fig. 5.5 The activities and events of the order-to-cash process . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Fig. 5.6 The activities and events of the order-to-cash process
assigned to lanes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Fig. 5.7 The handoff of work between the seller, the customer, and
the supplier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Fig. 5.8 The control flow of the order-to-cash process .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Fig. 5.9 Process model quality aspects and assurance activities. . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Fig. 5.10 A structurally incorrect process model . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Fig. 5.11 Common behavioral anomalies in block structures .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Fig. 5.12 A process model with a deadlock (a) and one with
a livelock (b) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
Fig. 5.13 A process model with lack of synchronization (a) and one
with a dead activity (b) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
xxii List of Figures

Fig. 5.14 A process model for fulfilling special orders.. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Fig. 5.15 An unstructured process model (a) and its structured
counterpart (b). Acknowledgement This example is taken
from [40] .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Fig. 5.16 Extract of the order-to-cash process model: with bad layout
(a), with good layout (b) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Fig. 5.17 A process model for cost planning. Acknowledgement This
example is taken from [87] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Fig. 5.18 A process model for handling complaints, as found in
practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Fig. 5.19 The process model for fulfilling special orders,
syntactically and semantically correct, and of high
pragmatic quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Fig. 5.20 The reworked complaint handling process model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Fig. 5.21 A process model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Fig. 5.22 A process model for loan risk assessment . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Fig. 5.23 A process model for damage compensation.. . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Fig. 5.24 A process model for handling motor claims . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Fig. 5.25 A process model for handling claims. . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Fig. 5.26 A process model for organizing professional training
courses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Fig. 5.27 A sales campaign process model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Fig. 6.1 Process model for the initial fragment of the equipment
rental process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Fig. 6.2 Fragment of the equipment rental process from creation of
rental request up to creation of the PO . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Fig. 6.3 Pareto chart for excessive equipment rental expenditure . . . . . . . . . 234
Fig. 6.4 PICK chart visualizing the payoff and difficulty of
addressing each issue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Fig. 6.5 Template of a cause-effect diagram based on the 6 M’s . . . . . . . . . . 239
Fig. 6.6 Cause-effect diagram for issue “Equipment rejected at
delivery” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Fig. 6.7 Template of a why-why diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Fig. 6.8 Pareto chart of causal factors of issue “Equipment not
available when needed” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Fig. 7.1 Fully sequential process model (durations of tasks in hours
are shown between brackets) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Fig. 7.2 Process model with XOR-block . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Fig. 7.3 XOR-block pattern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Fig. 7.4 Process model with AND-block . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
Fig. 7.5 AND-block pattern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
Fig. 7.6 Credit application process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
Fig. 7.7 Example of a rework block . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
Fig. 7.8 Rework pattern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
List of Figures xxiii

Fig. 7.9 Situation where a fragment (task) that is reworked at most

once . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
Fig. 7.10 Credit application process with rework . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Fig. 7.11 Credit application process without XOR gateways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
Fig. 7.12 Process model of a call center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
Fig. 7.13 Structure of an M/M/1 or M/M/c system, input parameters
and computable parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Fig. 7.14 Histograms produced by simulating the credit application
process with BIMP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
Fig. 7.15 Cetera’s claim-to-resolution process . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Fig. 7.16 Request for handling a request for quote at MetalWorks . . . . . . . . . 293
Fig. 7.17 Mortgage process model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
Fig. 8.1 The waves of product and process innovation .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
Fig. 8.2 The Devil’s Quadrangle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
Fig. 8.3 The Redesign Orbit: A spectrum of business process
redesign methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
Fig. 8.4 A selection of redesign heuristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Fig. 8.5 The Process Model Canvas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
Fig. 8.6 The NESTT room . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
Fig. 8.7 A sample product data model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
Fig. 8.8 The intake process model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
Fig. 9.1 The spectrum of BPMS types .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
Fig. 9.2 The architecture of a BPMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
Fig. 9.3 The process modeling tool of Bonita BPM . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349
Fig. 9.4 The worklist handler of Camunda BPM. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
Fig. 9.5 The monitoring tool of Perceptive .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
Fig. 9.6 Model of the claims handling process at ANCS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
Fig. 10.1 The order-to-cash model that we want to automate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
Fig. 10.2 Admission process: the initial (a) and final (c) assessments
can be automated in a BPMS; the assessment by the
committee (b) is a manual process outside the scope of the
BPMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
Fig. 10.3 The order-to-cash model of Figure 10.1, completed with
control-flow and data-flow aspects relevant for automation . . . . . . 380
Fig. 10.4 The sales process of a B2B service provider . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
Fig. 10.5 Excerpt of an order-to-cash process model (from
out-of-stock product to product provided) captured in CMMN . . . 383
Fig. 10.6 Structure of the BPMN format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
Fig. 10.7 The XSD describing the purchase order (a) and one of its
instances (b) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
Fig. 10.8 Example of a decision table for loan applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
Fig. 10.9 Another decision table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
Fig. 10.10 Loan application process with task markers . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
xxiv List of Figures

Fig. 10.11 The automated prescription fulfillment process.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403

Fig. 10.12 Completed version of the loan application model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
Fig. 10.13 The model for the sales process of a B2B service provider,
completed with missing control-flow and data relevant for
execution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
Fig. 10.14 FixComp’s process model for handling complaints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409
Fig. 10.15 Claims handling process model.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409
Fig. 11.1 Example of operational dashboard produced by Bizagi’s
BAM component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
Fig. 11.2 Cycle time histogram of cases completed during a 1-year
period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417
Fig. 11.3 Categories of process mining techniques and their inputs
and output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420
Fig. 11.4 Example of an event log for the order-to-cash process . . . . . . . . . . . 423
Fig. 11.5 Metamodel of the XES format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424
Fig. 11.6 Example of a file in the XES format . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425
Fig. 11.7 Definition of a workflow log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427
Fig. 11.8 Event log and corresponding dependency graph .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428
Fig. 11.9 Example of a full dependency graph and an abstracted
version thereof. (a) Full dependency graph. (b) Filtered
dependency graph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430
Fig. 11.10 Simple control flow patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
Fig. 11.11 Footprint represented as a matrix of the
workflow log L = [a, b, g, h, j, k, i, l,
a, c, d, e, f, g, j, h, i, k, l] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435
Fig. 11.12 Process model constructed by the α-algorithm from log
L = [a, b, g, h, j, k, i, l, a, c, d, e, f, g, j, h, i, k, l] . . . . . . . . . . . . 437
Fig. 11.13 Examples of two short loops, (b) and (c), that cannot be
distinguished from model (a) by the α-algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437
Fig. 11.14 Models discovered from a sample log using three discovery
techniques. (a) Heuristics miner (ProM v6). (b) Inductive
miner (ProM v6). (c) Structured heuristics miner (Apromore) .. . . 441
Fig. 11.15 Dotted chart of log data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443
Fig. 11.16 Example of timeline chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444
Fig. 11.17 Performance view of the BPI Challenge 2017 event log in
Disco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445
Fig. 11.18 Handoff view of the Sepsis event log in myInvenio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446
Fig. 11.19 BPMN model with a token on the start event for replaying
the case a, b, g, i, j, k, l . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453
Fig. 11.20 Replaying the non-conforming case a, b, i, j, k, l . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
Fig. 11.21 Result of replaying cases in the process model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456
Fig. 11.22 Visualization of a model-log discrepancy in Apromore . . . . . . . . . . 457
List of Figures xxv

Fig. 11.23 Operational dashboard for pharmacy prescription process.

(a) Segmented bar chart of unfulfilled prescriptions. (b)
Bar chart of demand (required processing time) vs. capacity . . . . . 465
Fig. 11.24 Process model constructed by the α-algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468
Fig. 11.25 Model discovered by the inductive miner from the Sepsis log .. . . 468
Fig. 11.26 Model discovered by Apromore’s split miner from the
Sepsis log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468
Fig. 12.1 The BPM Maturity Model, adapted from [33, 150] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479
Fig. 12.2 Patterns of BPM maturity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492
Fig. 12.3 Example of BPM maturity assessment for an insurance
company . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493
List of Tables

Table 2.1 Level 1 and Level 2 of the APQC Process Classification

Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Table 5.1 Relative strengths and weaknesses of process discovery
methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Table 5.2 Summary of strengths and weaknesses per discovery method.. . . . 176
Table 6.1 Classification of steps in the equipment rental process . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Table 6.2 Issue register of equipment rental process . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Table 7.1 Cycle times for credit application process . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
Table 7.2 Processing times for credit application process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
Table 7.3 Task cycle times and processing times for ministerial
enquiry process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Table 7.4 Analysis of cycle times in white-collar processes [21] . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Table 7.5 Cost calculation table for credit application process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
Table A.1 Performance dimensions for the redesign heuristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507

xxvii
List of Acronyms

6M Machine, Method, Material, Man, Measurement, Milieu

4P Policies, Procedures, People, Plant/Equipment
7PMG Seven Process Modeling Guidelines
ABC Activity-Based Costing
ACM Adaptive Case Management
API Application Programming Interface
APQC American Productivity and Quality Center
ATAMO And Then, A Miracle Occurs
B2B Business-to-Business
BAM Business Activity Monitoring
BOM Bill-of-Material
BPA Business Process Analysis
BPE Business Process Excellence
BPEL Web Service Business Process Execution Language
BPM Business Process Management
BPMN Business Process Model & Notation
BPMS Business Process Management System
BPR Business Process Reengineering
BTO Build-To-Order
BVA Business Value-Adding
CEO Chief Executive Officer
CEP Complex Event Processing
CFO Chief Financial Officer
CIO Chief Information Officer
CMMI Capability Maturity Model Integrated
CMMN Case Management Model and Notation
CNC Coefficient of Network Connectivity
COO Chief Operations Officer
CPIO Chief Process and Innovation Officer
CPM Critical Path Method
CPN Colored Petri Net

xxix
xxx List of Acronyms

CPO Chief Process Officer

CRM Customer Relationship Management
CSV Comma Separated Values
CT Cycle Time
CTC Cost-To-Company
CTE Cycle Time Efficiency
DBMS Database Management System
DCOR Design Chain Operations Reference (product design)
DES Discrete-Event Simulation
DMN Decision Model and Notation
DMR Department of Main Roads
DMS Document Management System
DRG Decision Requirements Graph
DUR Drug Utilization Review
DVS Deputy Vice Chancellor
EDI Electronic Data Interchange
EF Early Finish
EHS Environmental Health and Safety
EPA Environment Protection Agency
EPC Event-driven Process Chain
ERP Enterprise Resource Planning
ES Early Start
eTOM Enhanced Telecom Operations Map
FIFO First-In-First-Out
HR Human Resources
IDEF3 Integrated Definition for Process Description Capture Method
ISP Internet Service Provider
IT Information Technology
ITIL Information Technology Infrastructure Library
JSON JavaScript Object Notation
KM Knowledge Management
KPI Key Performance Indicator
LF Late Finish
LS Late Start
NESTT Navigate, Expand, Strengthen, and Tune/Take-off
NRW Department of Natural Resources and Water
NVA Non-Value-Adding
OASIS Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information
Standards
OMG Object Management Group
OS Operating System
PAIS Process-Aware Information System
PCG Productivity Consulting Group
PCF Process Classification Framework
PD Product Development
List of Acronyms xxxi

PDCA Plan-Do-Check-Act
PDF Portable Document Format
PICK Possible, Implement, Challenge, Kill
PLM Product Lifecycle Management
PMBOK Project Management Body of Knowledge
PO Purchase Order
POS Point-of-Sale
PPI Process Performance Indicator
PPM Process Performance Measurement
PRINCE2 Projects in Controlled Environments
RBAC Role-based Access Control
REST Representational State Transfer
RFID Radio-Frequency Identification
RFQ Request for Quote
ROI Return-On-Investment
RPA Robotic Process Automation
RPH Reference Process House
SCAMPI Standard CMMI Appraisal Method for Process Improvement
SCM Supply Chain Management
SCOR Supply Chain Operations Reference Model
S-FEEL Simple Friendly Enough Expression Language
SIPEX Siemens Processes for Excellence
Smart eDA Smart Electronic Development Assessment System
SOA Service-Oriented Architecture
SPICE Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination
STP Straight-Through-Processing
TCT Theoretical Cycle Time
TOC Theory of Constraints
TPS Toyota Production System
TQM Total Quality Management
UIMS User Interface Management System
UEL Universal Expression Language
UML Unified Modeling Language
UML AD UML Activity Diagram
URI Uniform Resource Identifier
VA Value-Adding
VCH Value Creation Hierarchy
VCS Value Creation System
VOS Voice of the Customer
VRM Value Reference Model
WIP Work-In-Process
WfMC Workflow Management Coalition
WfMS Workflow Management System
WS-BPEL Web Service Business Process Execution Language
WSDL Web Service Definition Language
xxxii List of Acronyms

XES Extensible Event Stream

XML Extensible Markup Language
XPATH XML Path Language
XSD XML Schema Definition
YAWL Yet Another Workflow Language