What a July week for BPM!
Last week saw a series of announcements come out in the BPM sector. Rather than writing separate pieces on them all I felt it would be useful to watchers to see an overall look at these announcements.
Visible Analyst Workbench to support OMG’s BPM standard
On July 18th 2007, Visible Systems Corporation announced that it had joined a growing list of vendors that include IBM, Proforma, Telelogic, Sparx Systems and others who support the Object Management Group (OMG) Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN). Visible System’s Visible Analyst Workbench v8.0 offers an enterprise architecture modelling environment that now includes modelling support for BPMN which can lead companies to true SOA governance.
Why is BPMN important? BPMN is a visual business process-modelling notation designed for easy adoption by business analysts, technical developers and business people to manage and monitor processes. It is able to represent complex process (or event) semantics. The core diagram type created is called a Business Process Diagram (BPD) that depicts the activities within a business process and the flow controls that determine when the processes are performed. A BPD is made up of four interconnected constructs: Actors, Activities, Events and States.
Information from BPDs are automatically captured and catalogued into Visible Analyst’s data repository. Beyond BPMN, Visible’s modelling tools open the door to many other popular modelling notations that can be used in conjunction with the new BPD. Visible Analyst is supported by a comprehensive and automated central repository; offering trace-ability across all objects and artefacts stored in the repository.
Metastorm named to Supply & Demand Chain Executive 100
On July 19th 2007, Metastorm announced it has been selected by Supply & Demand Chain Executive Magazine, the executive’s user manual for successful supply and demand chain transformation, in this year’s Supply & Demand Chain Executive 100 listing.
Metastorm earned the award for its expertise in BPM and by demonstrating how companies are using Metastorm BPM® to improve their most critical business processes. Supply & Demand Chain Executive has identified leading providers of supply chain services and technologies who are at the forefront of innovation.
Lombardi and Gordian Transformation Partners ally to provide BPM solutions to Fortune 500 firms
On July 18th 2007, Lombardi and Gordian Transformation Partners, a management consulting company that provides BPM solutions to Fortune 500 and mid-market companies, announced a strategic alliance to jointly market and sell the advisory and consulting services from Gordian combined with Lombardi’s BPM products.
As part of the agreement, Gordian will utilize Lombardi products, including Blueprint™ and Teamworks®, within its service offerings. Blueprint is an on-demand collaborative process planning tool that enables companies to map processes, identify problems and prioritize improvement opportunities. Teamworks is the BPM software for designing, executing, and improving business processes. Using Lombardi’s BPM suite of products, Gordian and Lombardi have co-developed a rapid process transformation analysis (RAPTA) solution. RAPTA is a 7–10 day assessment that defines the pathway of a process transformation effort, including a transformation roadmap, proof of concept, and the operational and financial benefits, as well as targeted return on investment (ROI). Targeted at consumer products, energy, financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, and transportation industry sectors, the transformational analysis helps companies achieve success very quickly by laying out a clear course of action, aligned with defined business objectives.
As part of the agreement, Gordian Transformation Partners has joined Lombardi’s Certified Partner program. The program assists Lombardi partners in developing their BPM skills and revenue opportunities.
TIBCO new product release
TIBCO has just released TIBCO Business Studio™ 2.0, the newest version of their business process modelling and simulation software. The new version has significant enhancements, including:
- Two distinct but unified views of the process model, one for business and one for IT
- Full support for BPMN 1.0
- Ability to create services and introspect service registries
- Version control
- Support for import from Aris and Visio
- Ability to create custom simulation reports
- Concept modelling
By providing IT and business users with role-specific views and tools to interact with the same process model, Business Studio 2.0 fosters collaboration between groups and establishes a strong foundation for building out BPM initiatives.