Aula 8 21032013 sii-vfinal

Sistemas de Informação para Indústria
© António Grilo 2013Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica e Industrial
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Class 8
Business Process Modelling
Ano 2013
Sistemas de Informação
para a Indústria
António Grilo, Izunildo Cabral
Prof. Auxiliar FCT-UNL,

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Content
• What is Business Process?
• Examples of Business Process
• Why modelling Business Process?
• Business Process Modelling Standards (Approaches)
• Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN)
• BPMN core elements
• Description of BPMN core elements
• BPMN: types of models/diagrams
• Business Process Diagram (example)
• Some considerations
• References

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What is Business Process
Process is defined in the dictionary as ―a series of actions, changes, or functions
bringing a result‖ (Mili et al., 2010). There are so many other definitions but in
essence all are the same: processes are relationships between inputs and
outputs, where inputs are transformed into outputs using a series of
activities, which add value to the inputs (Aguilar-Savén, R. S., 2004).
Business process is is ―a set of one or more linked procedures or activities which
collectively realize a business objective or policy goal, normally within the context
of an organizational structure defining functional roles and relationships (Workflow
Management Coalition, 1999).
Business process modelling (BPM) is a group of techniques that allow to model
the business aspects necessaries for a correct performance and comprehension of
the business process applications (Fernández et al., 2010). BPM is a flowchart of a
business process, representing the flows or progression of activities and how they
are linked toward some business goal.

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Examples of Business Process
There are several types of business process depending on the business
area which can be classified in marketing, customer service, quality
control, logistic, product design, tourism, etc:
 Make order
 Check inventory
 Prepare invoice
 Send invoice
 Select supplier
 Define production plan
 Request transportation
 Generate report
 Reserve Hotel
 Cancel Reserve

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Why modelling Business Process?
Business process modelling is important due to the following reasons:
 Enable the capturing of existing processes by structurally representing their
activities and inter-related elements.
 Facilitate the compression and understanding of organisational or cross-
organisational processes.
 Improve process efficiency (cost and time) and quality by improving the
business process (business process reengineering).
 Allow the description of who performs each task or function, and where in the
organisation (functionally or physically).
 Provides sequencing and control information about process (main
data/information associated to each process/activity).
 Identify the systems requirements before their development (alignment of the
systems with the underlying business processes).
 Enable the identification of the cross-functional/organisational interfaces
(interoperability issues).

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Business Process Modeling standards/approaches
 Data Flow Diagram (DFD)
 System Flowcharts
 Resource-event-agent (REA) modelling
 IDEF0/IDEF3 models
 Extended Event-driven Process Chain Diagrams (EPC)
 Unified Modelling Language (UML) activity diagrams
 Business Process Diagram (Business Process Modelling Notation
– BPMN)
 Role Activity Diagrams (RADs)
For more detail, see: Carnaghan, Carla (2006). Business process modeling approaches in the context of
process level audit risk assessment: An analysis and comparison , International Journal of Accounting
Information Systems, Vol. 7.

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Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN)
 The BPMN is a standard notation for capturing and designing business
processes in the phases of systems design or systems
redesign, especially at the level of domain analysis.
 The first goal of BPMN is to provide a standard notation that is easily
understandable by business analysts and users (its primary goal is
human understanding).
 Provides a set of standard notations (BPMN) elements for modelling
business process.
 Focuses on the dynamic aspects of business process.
 Allows the creation of end-to-end business process in the form of
Business Process Diagram (BPD).

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BPMN core elements
Source: Rodriguez et al., 2007

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BPMN core elements
Source: http://www.bpmn.org/Samples/Elements/Core_BPMN_Elements.htm - 28-02-2011

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Description of the BPMN core elements
Event – something that ―happens‖ during the execution of a business
process and starts, ends, delays, or interrupts the flow.
 Start (starting point of a BPD) – in a supplier-customer relationship, the
process can start with the customer contact.
 Intermediate (occur between a Start event and an End Event, or more
precisely, between two sequenced processes).
 End (indicates the end of a BPD) – in a supplier-customer
relationship, the process can end with the order delivery (close order).

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Activities – is a work that an organisation (actor) performs via business
processes.
 Task (atomic) – procedure carried out by an actor in order to achieve
an objective. Is used when the work in the process is not broken down
to a finer level of process model detail.
 Sub-process (non-atomic) – set of activities, gateways, and its
sequence flow. Is a compound activity in that it has detail that is defined
as a flow of other activities.
 Process (non atomic, no notation) – is a sequence of activities that are
supported by one or more participants (actors).

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Sub-process
There are two notation forms for sub-processes: expanded and collapsed.
The interior of an expanded sub-process diagrams its detailed flow.
Incoming and out-going sequence flow must never be connected with the
internal elements, but only with the boundary of the sub-process.

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Activities

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Collapsed and Expanded Sub-process

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Connecting objects
Sequence flow – shows the order of execution of activities within a BPD,
from start to end event.
Message flow – symbolises the information that is exchanged between
participants (actors). Participants use messages to communicate with one
another.
Association – An association connects a data object with a flow object
(activity, gateway, or event), a message flow, or a sequence flow.

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Message flow (some considerations)
A message flow is used to show the flow of messages between two
participants (pools) that are able to send and receive them.
The following connection rules for message flows must be taken into
account. Message flows are permitted:
 Between two separate pools
 Between pool and flow object
 Between two flow objects

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Association(some considerations)
Information, such as text annotations and data objects, can be appended
to the model elements to be documented using the association.
Associations can be directional or non-directional and are modelled with a
dotted line:

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Message flow (example)

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Connecting objects (some errors)

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Connecting objects (some errors)
 Error 1: Sequence flow between pools is not permitted.
 Error 2: The direction of the message flow is incorrect. It must lead from
the throw to the catch event.
 Error 3: Flow objects must never be on the boundary of a pool or a
lane.
 Error 4: Message flows between lanes are not permitted.
 Error 5: Flow objects must never be on the boundary of a pool or a
lane.

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Connecting message flows

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Artifact – is a graphical object that provides supporting information about
the process or elements within the process. However, it does not affect the
flow of the process.

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Artifacts
Group – is a visual mechanism to group elements of a diagram informally.

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Artifacts
Text annotations – are a mechanism for a modeller to provide additional
information for the reader of a BPMN diagram.
Data object – is a business object that can be
generated, required, changed, or destroyed by an activity. Moreover, a
data object can have a specific state.

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Associations vs data objects/ message/sequence flows
Directional associations between data objects and message or sequence
flows are not permitted. Associations have no direction in sequence or
message flows.

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Gateway – depicts the control of divergence and convergence of the
sequence flow of the elements in a BPD. Thus, it will determine branching,
forking, merging, and joining of paths. Can be parallel (AND), exclusive
(XOR), inclusive (OR) or complex.
 Parallel – splits the sequence flow into two or more parallel flows and
joins the parallel flows again.
 Exclusive – restricts the sequence flow in such a way that exactly one
alternative is selected from a set of alternatives at runtime.
 Inclusive – sequence flow continues along one or more alternative
pathways, depending on branch conditions.

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Parallel gateway

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Exclusive gateway

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Inclusive gateway

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Complex gateway

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Swimlanes – frequently, different roles, such as customer, organisation
units, or an IT system participate in the handling of a business flow.
Swimlanes structure a process according to organisational aspects. A
swimlane is a graphical container for partitioning a set of activities from
other activities.
 Pool – represents a participant in a process and acts as the container
for the sequence flow between activities (suppliers, focal
firm, distribution centre, final customers, or a supply chain).
 Lanes (within a pool) – is a sub-partition within a pool. Lanes are used
to organise and categorize activities (internal organisation units or
roles.

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Pools and lanes (some considerations)
Pools can be aligned vertically or horizontally. Every process is always
located in a pool. A pool can contain multiple lanes, but each lane must
always be completely within a single pool. Lanes can be further subdivided
into more lanes too. All activities are always completely within a pool or
within a lane.

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BPM: types of models/diagrams
 Private (internal) business processes – internal to an organisation.
Source: Mili et al., 2010

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 Abstract (public) business processes – represents the interaction
points between a process that is internal to an organisation and the
outside world.

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 Collaboration (global) business processes – describe the interaction
between two or more business entities, each of which has its own
internal processes.

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Examples of Business Process Diagram
Source: Cabral, I. F. 2011

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Some considerations
Business analysts vs business users
- The business analysts are the unique capable of modelling the
business process because they are the unique users that know and
understand the notations because of their technical capability. On
the other hand some business users can understand the notation
but they are not able to model their own business processes.
- Other problem is the impossibility of business analysts to model all
aspects of business because they do not have the sufficient
knowledge of the business processes to be modelled.

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References
- Cabral, I. F. (2011). An Information Model for Lean, Agile, Resilient and Green
Supply Chain Management. Master thesis, FCT/UNL
- (OMG), O. M. G. (January 2011). Business Process Model and Notation
(BPMN) (version 2.0)
- Curtis, B., Kellner, M. I., & Over, J. (1992). Process modeling. Communications
of the ACM. 35(9), 75 - 90
- Mili, H., Tremblay, G., Jaoude, G. B., Lefebvre, E., Elabed, L., & El Boussaidi,
G. (2010). Business Process Modeling Languages: Sorting Through the
Alphabet Soup. [Article]. Acm Computing Surveys, 43(1), 56.
- Hammer, M., & Champy, J. (1993). Reengineering the Corporation. New York:
Harper Business

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References
- Rodriguez, A., Fernandez-Medina, E., & Piattini, M. (2007). A BPMN extension
for the modeling of security requirements in business processes. Ieice
Transactions on Information and Systems, E90D(4), 745-752. doi:
10.1093/ietisy/e90-d.4.745
- Fernández, H. F., Palacios-González, E., García-Díaz, V., Pelayo G-Bustelo, B.
C., Sanjuán Martínez, O., & Cueva Lovelle, J. M. (2010). SBPMN — An easier
business process modeling notation for business users. Computer Standards &
Interfaces, 32(1–2), 18-28. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.csi.2009.04.006
- http://www.bpmn.org/Samples/Elements/Core_BPMN_Elements.htm - 28-02-
2011

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