Business Process Modeling is a technique tailored for creating graphical models of business process operations. It is a notation that is readily understandable by all business users, from the business analysts that create the initial drafts of the processes, to the technical developers responsible for implementing the technology that will perform those processes, and finally, to the business people who will manage and monitor those processes.
Business Process and Modeling the Business Process
A business process is a collection of activities designed to produce a specific output for a particular customer or market. It implies a strong emphasis on how the work is done within an organization, in contrast to a product's focus on what a process is.Modeling the business process is an essential part whenever we think of implementing a solution. It allows the analyst to capture the broad outline and procedures that govern what it is a business does. This model provides an overview of where the proposed software system being considered will fit into the organizational structure and daily activities. It may also provide the justification for building the system by capturing the current manual and automated procedures that will be rolled up into a new system, and the associated cost benefit.
A business process model typically defines the following elements:
1. The Goal or reason for the process;
2. Specific inputs;
3. Specific outputs;
4. Resources consumed;
5. Activities that are performed in some order;
6. Events that drive the process.
The business process:
1. May affect more than one organisational unit.
2. Have a horizontal organisational impact;
3. Creates value of some kind for the customer. Customers may be internal or external
Process Information in Models
The below mentioned wiki link provides an introduction to the terminology and elements used in the Business Process Model. Here i have explained the elements of business process modeling.
http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/wiki
The path is: My Home > Business Process Expert > Main > Process Information in Models in the child nodes
Example Online Book Selling
The example below is an example of the kind of model that may be built up to represent a business process. In this model, the goal of the business process is to take customer orders and to ship those orders out. A user starts the process with an inquiry, which leads to the involvement of the Book Catalogue, Shopping Cart, On-line pages and warehouse inventory. The output of significance to the business is a customer order.
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