1 Product Overview Solutions Limited The Roller Mill, Teddesley Road, Penkridge, Staffs, ST19 5BD, UK Tel: +44 (1785) 715772 Fax: +44 (1785) 712541 Web: www.uk.co.uk Email: ask@uk.co.uk (from here on referred to as ) is a Business Operations Management (BOM) package that supports and coordinates the management of work, resources, and performance measurement. It provides intimate support for the principles of production management, a fully developed operations management methodology that intrates the management of work with the supporting organizational resources and necessary skill competencies. This is delivered with mature Quality and Compliance modules that automate sampling (for audit purposes) and tracks related Customer Events. Alongside that, provides sophisticated capabilities in performance forecasting services, progress monitoring, and historical reporting. The product concentrates on the needs of managers running teams of people, helping them ensure that they continuously improve productivity. Effectively, accepts work from any third party source, including major BPM engines (a bundled engine is available, if needed), or work can be entered into it as the primary receptor. It applies a tightly intrated set of business rules for how that work is to be prioritized and assigned to individuals, taking into account the available resources, varying skill levels and efficiency, and service level and performance objectives. also provides critical support for firms quality and compliance objectives, automatically supporting the enforcement of rulatory controls and gathering the evidence to support compliance submissions. can be used as a stand-alone package, and/or linked to Line of Business (LOB) systems, and/or intrated with other BPM applications. Either way, it is designed to provide effective management information for a wide range of audiences, from Team Leaders to Senior Executives. work manager provides a single intrated view of all work, monitoring items from any source paper, telephone calls, BPM engine, e-mail, and so on to provide an intrated approach to work and resource management. As a result of this coordination, all work is managed, tracked, and reported on, enabling an optimal utilization of available resources. combines a wide range of generic and custom Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), measures, and management information into one system, providing a clear indication of the impact that a change in one measure (e.g., staff skills) has upon another (e.g., customer service). It provides real-time and automatic management information at any level by individual, team, department, division, location, process, channel, or customer group across any time frame hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly; past, present, or future. links IT and business operations to the delivery of these KPIs. Immediate and measurable performance improvements derive from employing the system as part of a proactive management discipline. When customers use the product and packaged performance improvement methodology, solutions are able to guarantee productivity improvements (minimum ROI in 12 months) with cost reductions of 15-50% achieved within 4-6 months. This is a true USP in this market. Customers typically describe productivity improvements in excess of 20%, over and above that achieved through the introduction of a BPM engine. Moreover, customers also point to the ability of the methodology and product to support a fundamental change in the culture of the organization. Copyright (c) 2005 Business Process Trends. www.bptrends.com 1
Critical components of the Production Management methodology include accurate capacity planning, short interval scheduling of resources against work, and load balancing of the available resources. The production management methodology underpins the development of a detailed understanding of the precise information required for work, resource, and performance management, based on effective management information. It acts as the basis for all Team Leader and Operations Management development, providing them with the underlying skills required to manage people and processes in an intrated way, achieving high quality delivery and fast customer service while, at the same time, reducing unit costs. The methodology is based on a sophisticated knowledge of business processes and the factors that affect their performance 2 BPM Engine Business Operations Management Operational Work Intelligence Management Forecasting Resource & Prediction Services Management Consolidation Performance & Summaries Management Reporting Dashboards (Performance, KPIs, Process Customers, Organizational) Quality & Compliance Customer Event Mgt Production Planning Methods User Interface & Channel Business Processes BPM Engine & Intration Lacy Applications Traditional BAM Applications Figure 1. Business Operations Management provides an operational framework and management system (in the wider sense) within which all other tools/systems are controlled As outlined in Figure 1, the functionality of is spread across several areas. Where needed, it intrates with external BPM Engines or other LOB Applications. (A bundled BPM Engine is also available.) However, the primary focus is on Business Operations Management (BOM). This enables the firm to intrate business processes, resources, and customer requirements holistically to underpin achievement of business driven KPIs, and then to monitor these on an ongoing basis with the aim of improving organizational performance. BOM functionality encompasses the following: Production Management represents the proprietary methodology that underpins the technology components. It is primarily designed to provide knowledge and skills for first level managers/team managers in how to use the various tools and reporting mechanisms to get the most out of their people, processes, and technology. The Principles Of Production Management is a 7 step method encompassing Measurement, Planning, Communication, Allocation, Monitoring, Analysis, and ongoing Improvement disciplines. Work Management is a component that calculates how work is deployed to the human resources involved in the process. The focus here is on work distribution, leveraging the established operational rules to ensure resource availability/expertise, service standards, and prioritization. not only uses the rules stored in the organizational directory server (on skills, team membership, etc), it also captures and then leverages how well individuals carry out their work. It also factors in information on the customer/channel and product. Resource Management is where the structure, skills, and competencies of the organization are modeled and reflected. The Resource Management component reflects the formal reporting Copyright (c) 2005 Business Process Trends. www.bptrends.com 2
structures of the organization and of any work groups, teams, or matrix structures, as well as the skills of individuals. Performance Management provides the management information necessary to monitor the performance of the organization at many levels individual, team, department, whole business function or even summarizing performance across disparate locations. Performance can also be summarized by process or customer group to support process improvement or customer focused performance management. Quality Functionality is used to define exactly how Quality is delivered and how it is recognized. The product supports any number of Quality checks, whether at Process Start, In Process, or End-Of Process, linked to sampling rules based on individual resource skill competencies and past performance or compliance requirements. It also includes the automated sampling mechanisms required to support this functionality. Compliance focuses on ensuring that work items are distributed to suitably qualified and trained members of staff (important to Financial Services firms). Managers also establish sampling criteria for Compliance purposes. Sampling often involves collecting additional contextual data from other LOB applications, third party BPM engines, or call centre applications. A full audit trail for Compliance Reports is automatically generated with evidence gathered in real-time. Customer Event Management capabilities support the capture and tracking of customer requirements for a given type or work or individual case. When intrated with the rest of the suite, it enables a highly refined approach to customer relationship management. operational intelligence provides forecasting and prediction services, as well as the consolidation of management information into higher level reports, supported by OLAP style data warehousing. It also includes a variety of Performance Dashboards to support managers as they track their defined KPIs, customers, individual processes, and activities across the organization and at any level of abstraction. ASP.NET UI LOB Apps BPM Engine(s) Third Party Work Sources IIS Data Connector SQL Stored Procedures SQL Server Call Centre LDAP, AD, etc Figure 2. The underlying technology architecture of is centered on a core database application 2.1 Platforms The servers supported are NT4 and Windows 2003, with SQL Server 7.0 & SQL Server 2000. Copyright (c) 2005 Business Process Trends. www.bptrends.com 3
2.2 User Interface ASP.NET-based user interface is used for system set-up and reporting (management information for team leaders and managers). A set of dashboards and an extensible set of reports are also provided. Figure 3, Work allocation takes into account resource skill levels and work already assigned 2.3 Scalability Based on a recent benchmarking test, proved scalability to 6000+ users on a single 16- way Intel box. Typically, it will support up to 2000 users per SQL database for both the system and webbased operational intelligence modules. 3 Processing Modeling When intrated with an external BPM Engine, process steps are imported from that system. However, if operating in stand-alone mode, or intrated with a LOB application, steps are defined directly in the database. Processes are modeled at the task level to support reuse in other processes. This approach provides for consistency in the process model as well as allowing for best practice comparisons. 3.1 Subprocesses When reporting on processes, the product supports nested subprocesses. 3.2 Shared Data Space is not concerned with the underlying data structure of the application; the SDS of the process is inherited from the process engine. 3.3 Forms does not concern itself with the eventual user application that is still delivered via the third party BPM engine or LOB application. The forms that are used by the product are designed to support the BOM functionality delivered. 3.4 Time Time is used in many ways. Clearly, Activities (tasks) have allocation times set against them for how long things should take, and set benchmarks for the typical elapsed time required to process a case. Turnaround times can be set to measure the time from initial receipt of the case or from completion of the previous task. Time is also used to support service definition and work allocation cycles for Copyright (c) 2005 Business Process Trends. www.bptrends.com 4
employees. (In the production management discipline. short interval scheduling is used to drive productivity.) From a reporting point of view, these targets are then used to calculate achievement against previously established SLAs. Across the system, time may be set from minutes to calendar years, or within a specific date range. 3.5 Process Optimization & Simulation The core system does not include any simulation capabilities in the strict interpretation of the term. Instead, it focuses on optimizing existing processes based on clearly stated operational rules and knowledge of how much work is in the system, building a realistic picture of work to do and work in progress. then delivers a sophisticated planning capability to calculate the amount of work coming down the pipe and the resources required to carry it out if the firm is to meet customer requirements. Alternatively, given a current workforce, it can calculate how much a team or organizational unit can realistically handle. A separate forecasting module allows the business to simulate the impact of change and plan accordingly. 4 Business Rules In one sense, is a focused business rules engine. Rather than attempting to offer generic extensible rules capabilities, the product delivers a custom set of business rules that work together to drive the effective operations of the business. In, business rules are really operational rules and involve setting standards for customer service (i.e., turnaround times), quality, resources (availability and skills), as well as time. And, of course, it provides capabilities to refine those rules to suit the needs of individual firms. From a work allocation point of view, rules are used to define (re-assign) work to the most appropriate employee. When establishing definitions of quality and compliance, one is developing rules about how those concepts are interpreted in the business. Rules are used to expose information to managers (at different levels of the business), to provide them with relevant performance metrics on the processes and teams under their control. 5 Intration is relatively agnostic with rard to intration. As it is not delivering the end-user application, it is really an issue for the third party BPM engine or LOB application. In terms of picking up and gathering information from third party work sources, it uses either a message queue type infrastructure (MQ Series), Web Services, or the native API of that external application. (See Figure 4 on page 6,) When intrated into the business process systems architecture of an organization, gathers items of work from external sources (via XML messages over Web Services or MQ), applies the established set of rules to the work (to define/re-assign who/when, etc.) and then passes work back to that third party environment for it to be carried out. When completed, the external application posts a message back to. From the work management at the runtime point of view, work manager refines the relatively crude work allocation routines of major BPM engines to support shades of grey, leveraging a more accurate representation of how well work is done alongside the skills and competencies of the employees. All of the core business and data logic is encapsulated in stored procedures in the database. Intration Services consume and distribute messages from and to other application via pre-defined XML message formats. Alternatively, third party applications are intrated directly via their API set. Management Copyright (c) 2005 Business Process Trends. www.bptrends.com 5
Information and Operational Intelligence capabilities are delivered via the ASP.NET user interface. Along with the ASP.NET user interface, a thick client version is also available. By its very nature, is highly data intensive. At the moment, the product is available, based on SQL Server, although an Oracle version could be made available (depending on customer demand). The supporting database structure contains two types of schema OLTP and OLAP reflecting the two sides of the product, work distribution and reporting. operational intelligence app work manager client app BPM/LOB app BPM/LOB admin app XML XML MQ Messaging or Web Services operational intelligence Reporting Services ASP.NET IIS.NET XML MQ or Web Services Work Manager Intration Services.NET XML MQ or Web Services BPM or LOB Engine/Server Figure 4. intrates with external LOB applications & BPM Engines 6 Organizational Structure builds on top of any existing investments in Directory Services via LDAP or Active Directory. Against each individual, the business will need to build up an accurate picture of their skills and competencies. itself also tracks and calculates how well individuals carry out their work (based on quality metrics). As part of the methodology, individual skill development is tracked and supported. 7 Process Adaptability is not concerned with the structure of the process and, as such, is agnostic to the nature of tasks being delivered by external BPM Engines or LOB applications. Where necessary, work can be allocated to alternative resources to help load-balance the organization. 8 Processes Lifecycle Reporting Database SQL Server Application Database SQL Server BPM Process Database LOB Application Database and BOM is primarily focused on the lifecycle management of the process in the context of all the operational factors that affect its performance. The product enables firms to see more clearly how their processes perform under load conditions (i.e., it is not how a process looks when mapped that is important, but how it performs in terms of service, quality, and cost). When processes Copyright (c) 2005 Business Process Trends. www.bptrends.com 6
are more effectively managed, using, end-to-end service times are normally dramatically reduced and accuracy increased. The focus of the product is not on the lifecycle management of the process object itself, although that is still important. is all about the management of the people who work within the process what their collective efforts can achieve, where they are struggling, how much work is coming down the pipe, and what they have to get out the door today, tomorrow, this week, or by the end of the month. 9 Monitoring, Measurement, and Management Information Work in the system is monitored and measured in real time. stores that data in order to provide effective management reporting as needed at the time (rather than on a purely historical basis). Management Information for team managers is delivered to the user by a suite of dedicated reports that are designed to deliver the correct level of detail to each type of end-user, eliminating information overload and the necessity to continually generate ad-hoc reports (common in most management information solutions). The separate Operational Intelligence capabilities also provide for user customization, with slice and dice capabilities and enhanced export facilities (e.g., to Microsoft Excel). Information can also be delivered to other high-end business intelligence applications using Intration Services to distribute XML formatted messages. Figure 5. The operational intelligence component provides a management dashboard 10 Templates and Frameworks No application templates are provided. One could think of the entire product as a sophisticated framework for the management of work, resources, and performance. Copyright (c) 2005 Business Process Trends. www.bptrends.com 7
11 Vendor Solutions Limited is a privately owned company based in the UK. Formed in 1988, the firm has focused on the financial services industry offering pragmatic services and products that improve Operations Management using, Production Management, and Continuous Improvement methodologies. Solutions is the largest firm specializing in BOM tools. Based in the UK, the company has clients in the UK, Europe, Middle East, and India. As a product, is used in over 20 major financial services institutions by around 20,000 people. 12 Cost The pricing model is based on the numbers of licensed users and implementation fees related to the methodology. A user is a named member of the staff involved in the processing of work (i.e., every individual for whom performance data is held). Implementation fees are based on the extent of Production Management skills/knowledge that already exists and the work involved in establishing the appropriate disciplines. provides a fixed cost quotation based on an upfront on-site assessment that is conducted on a free of charge basis (depending upon the scale of the assessment, there may be some cost if a more extensive assessment is required). The company aims to provide a 2:1 ROI within 12 months (as a minimum), although this can be difficult in clients of less than 250 users where the ROI is usually around 1:1 in 12 months. Over 1000 users, the ROI can increase exponentially where 4 or 5:1 is typical. With each customer engagement, Solutions guarantees to achieve certain levels of benefit and defers a percentage of its fees pending satisfactory delivery. The benefits to be achieved are identified during the assessment and agreed upon with the client during the contracting stage. Copyright (c) 2005 Business Process Trends. www.bptrends.com 8
Overview BPM Engine Eg Solutions Limited: Business Operations Management package that links business processes, IT & operations to the delivery of KPIs; based on sophisticated production management capabilities & superior management information Intrates with third party BPM engines, or a bundled engine is supplied where necessary Platforms NT & Windows Server 2003, SQL Server 2000 & SQL Server 7 User Interface Scalability Processing Modeling Subprocesses Shared Data Space Forms Time Optimization & Simulation Business Rules Intration Organizational Structure Process Adaptability Process Lifecycle Monitoring & Measurement Templates & Frameworks Vendor Cost ASP.NET for reporting & work allocation 6000+ users on a single 16-way Intel box Typically inherited from third party BPM engine, otherwise modeled at the Task level & processes composed from that basis Nested subprocesses supported Inherited from process engine LOB application or 3 rd party engine related Used at the task or case level to set benchmarks & SLAs; Service definition & work allocation cycles Based on operational rules, builds a realistic picture of work to do a& work in progress; Sophisticated planning capability around work resources required; calculate how much a team or organizational unit can handle; Separate forecasting module to assess impact of change Operational rules related to standards for customer service, quality, resources (availability and skills) as well as time Intration Services component talks to either MQ or Web Services Re-use of LDAP or AD information, extended to cover skills & other organizational structures Not concerned with process adaptability (inherited from BPM Engine) Entire methodology & product set oriented to support continuous optimization of organizational performance Sophisticated reports pre-defined for Managers and Team Leaders, Operational Intelligence component for dashboards & dice/slice OLAP based data None applicable (in a sense the whole environment is a template for management of process related businesses) (UK); +44 (1785) 715772; www.uk.co.uk Licensed users & implementation fees, firm guarantees results based on organizational assessment carried out beforehand Copyright (c) 2005 Business Process Trends. www.bptrends.com 9