Making the Case for BPM: A Benefits Checklist
Includes:
• The types of benefits you can expect from BPM as a checklist that you can review for each of your candidate processes or to get a general sense of:
Efficiency: Eliminate Manual Data Entry, Reduce Process Cycle Time, Reduce Manual Analysis/Routing.
Effectiveness: Handle Exceptions Faster and Better, Make Better Decisions, Consistent Execution.
Agility: Faster Regulatory Compliance, Support New Business Models.
• Comparing the Alternatives to BPM:
Buying an Application: There are four problems with buying applications to solve process problems: time to value, risk of adoption, responding to change, and expanding scope.
Extending an Existing Application: There are three problems with taking this path: cost, complexity and immaturity.
Custom Traditional Application Development: There are two areas where traditional application development is a poor fit for driving process improvement: requirements and time to market.

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The Three Faces of BPM
Three distinct types of BPM software in use today:
• system-to-system.
• person-to-systen.
• person-to-person.
Whichever definition one chooses to use, it makes sense to think of BPM as an approach to, rather than an application for, managing work. In this conceptual framework, business process management systems (BPMS) codify the sequence of activities needed to:
• Move data between applications to change status in "systems of record" (system-to-system packages).
• Present documents to clerical workers along with a predetermined set of rules to assure completeness and accuracy before taking actions (Person-to-system packages).
• Facilitate interactions between knowledge workers as they use their expertise and judgment to decide upon actions in uncertain situations (person-to-person packages).

Gartner-Starting Up the Business Process Competency Center
Key Findings
• Implementing a BPCC unifies BPM approaches for broader benefits across the organization.
• The initial organizational implementation of the BPCC will depend on the scope of the projects that are undertaken.
• The initial BPCC must be staffed with the right mix of resources, and be built to scale.
Recommendations
• Implement a BPCC to standardize BPM approaches in order to leverage resources.
• Clearly define the services offered and the engagement model.
• If other competency centers exist, define the interfaces and ensure the BPCC is integrated. Future research will address this topic

Bruce Silver-Manufacturing BPM with APRISO
BPM as a management discipline is a new way of conceptualizing the business.
It means:
• Viewing the business from end-to-end process perspective, cutting across the various business systems, functions, and organizations involved in the process.
• The process model or map is a unified end-to end description of process activities and flows. It describes the flow logic explicitly in a graphical manner, from which it can be readily understood, analyzed, and possibly improved, even though the technical implementation of that logic may be hidden inside disparate business applications, in programmable logic controllers and machines, or worse, in the minds of key personnel.
• BPM as a discipline also advocates an end-to-end perspective in measuring business performance. The process is only as good as its weakest link, so metrics of time, cost, and quality must be based on end-to-end measures. Those are the measures your customers and suppliers judge you by, and the ones most affecting your financial bottom line. BPM technologies provide simple mechanism to monitor these metrics in dashboards, drill down to root cause analysis, and remediate problem in real time.
• BPM as a management discipline anticipates change. In fact, the major reason for modeling the process-extracting the flow logic inside the applications, machines, and human participants-is to be able to change it more easily, and to understand the impact of those changes

Previous discussions applies to BPM as it is usually applied – in the back office or front office, but rarely on the shop or warehouse floor. Nevertheless, the opportunities to apply those features and benefits to manufacturing operations are numerous. In a manufacturing enterprise, the three key value chain functions of planning, designing, and building are typically supported by distinct IT systems : Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) supports transactions related to product planning, sourcing, sales, and other business matters. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) supports product definition and structure. Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) support factory production on the shop floor. A more complete view of manufacturing operations, such as that taken by Apriso FlexNet, extends MES with support for labor, quality, warehouse and maintenance operations. This enlarged scope may be called an Operations Execution System (OES), part of a larger discipline of Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM).