BPI encompasses defining, enabling and managing the exchange of business information within the organization and beyond organizational boundaries. It is a strategy that strengthens your organization and its relationships with other organizations by integrating entire business not only within your organization but also with your customers, suppliers and business partners (e.g. logistics providers).
There is also another point that should be mentioned about BPI. Business Process Integration (BPI) is shifting from a tactical to a strategic issue. According to statistical data of the market research firm Forrester Research 2002, there were only 78% of the companies, which were successful in providing good stuff according to the needs of the technological market.
BPI systems will not make current software technology obsolete. Organizations that have already implemented a componentization strategy will find BPI an almost natural fit. BPI systems will happily coexist with components, such as Java Beans and Enterprise Java Beans. The business process execution engine just appears as an additional integration layer. Also, the move to thin clients plays well with BPI systems.
XML is a key factor in the advancement of BPI technology. XML offers a method for integrating business processes by providing an open, extensible structure for data exchange. XML can be used for defining processes, the user interfaces of applications, and business documents. Beyond that, messages exchanged between two logical partners (e.g. client and business process engine) can be XML documents. Yet, XML documents can be used to transport Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs).
BPI takes a top-down approach, rather than the bottom-up approach of application integration. It comprises three core elements:
- Business Process Modeling
- Business Process Execution
- Business Process Management
- Business Process Modeling
Today, business process modeling is an integral part of the software process. However, companies experience difficulties as they try to bring business process modeling and object-oriented analysis and design together. In general, business process models are semantically poor, making it difficult to derive user cases. Apart from that, companies use different tools from different vendors. Tool integration also remains a problem.
However, business process modeling is an area where significant productivity advances are possible. A new generation of business process modeling tools has the potential to eliminate existing technical gaps. The iterative and incremental design and development approach requires business process modeling and CASE tools to provide integration.
Business process modeling tools can generate analysis and design information that can be further refined using a CASE tool. Later on, as object-oriented design progresses, it might turn out that design decisions affect business processes and require process adjustments. Impact analysis indicates which processes and process steps are affected.
There is no general-purpose business process modeling syntax that has the backing of an international standards body. UML is a contender, of course, but only if extended. Business process modeling tools usually use proprietary syntax. As a consequence, it is not easy to do away with a business process-modeling product and replace it with some other tool set after it is in use. Therefore, a business process-modeling tool should be selected with great care.
E-Business operations in the Internet require semantic interoperability. Several organizations are currently working on meta-models, which describe business semantics, as roles, rules, interactions, messages, and data. The Meta model is used to build business process models, so that these can help to construct compliant models. The dream would be that some day there is a unified Meta model. Chances are that this dream becomes reality.
Business Process Execution
Process execution (process brokering) involves the execution of discrete steps (tasks) within a business process. A business process engine (BPE) is required to manage the finite state of a business process.
The BPE is at the core of a process execution environment. It is responsible for moving the right work item to the right person at the right time. Thus, the BPE provides flow over the business process. If a process step has failed or is delayed, compensating actions can be enacted as an alternative process execution branch. This compensating action may be as simple as an e-mail notification, or it may invoke another process to perform corrective action.
At process execution time, there are many cases that require immediate changes of process instances. Dynamic binding and releasing of process elements, such as sub processes and activities, is required. Also, users may decline work items assigned to them, reassign work items, or accept work items originally not assigned to them. These features are well received by users that participate in less structured processes, such as knowledge workers. They require the capability to adapt processes to their dynamic needs, in essence modifying them at will.
Business Process Management
In e-business environments, automatic interpretation and routing of online information about the status of business process execution will become a routine. Messages automatically created inside an organization will seamlessly integrate with those from business partners.
