Anderson Consulting

AT&T Bell Laboratories

CoGenTex

EDS

Hewlett-Packard

HoloSoFx (formerly Active Management Inc.)

McKesson Water Products Co.

Naval Air Warfare Center (China Lake, CA)

Northrop(-Grumann) B-2 Division

SUN Microsystems Computer Corp

Perceptronics

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The process/capability life cycle follows.

Meta-Modeling

Constructing and refining a process concept vocabulary and logic (an ontology) for representing families of capabilities, processes, and their instances in terms of object classes, attributes, relations, constraints, control flow, rules, and computational methods.

Experience: key to achieving process-level interoperability.

Image files that show user interface displays of (a) a meta-model class hierarchy we use, and (b) a meta-model schema for the "task-force" class can be viewed when selected.

A paper providing a more detailed description of meta-modeling can be found at http://cwis.usc.edu/dept/ATRIUM/Papers/Process_Meta_Model.ps.

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Definition and Modeling

Eliciting and capturing of informal process descriptions, and their conversion into formal process models or process model instances.

Experience: Most "as-is" processes are ill-defined and not well understood.

Experience: Most process redesign efforts want to primarily focus on "to-be" alternatives, without baselining as-is processes.

Image files that show views of the NAWCWPNS Procurement Process Architecture can be found at the following locations:

• Organization: The generic organizational capability for Procurement differs considerably across a range of organizations; however, nearly every organization shares common aspects of procurement activities.

• Product: The procurement product decomposition reveals the source of substantial variety within the NAWCWPNS Procurement Capability.

• Technology: The technology decomposition reveals some of the information systems employed in the NAWCWPNS Procurement Process, including APADE (which is being superseded/upgraded), and for EDI, SPEDI. We also suggest that the emerging Internet-based electronic commerce capability of FAST at USC-ISI, which might be adopted for future use.

• Process: The process decomposition outlines some of the important process elements of procurement at NAWCWPNS, including BankCard (which involves outsourced procurement), SPEDI (which involves electronic data interchange between NAWCWPNS and its vendors), and Large Negotiated Procurement (LNP) (which contains both the request for proposal (RFP) and Justification and Approval (J&A) as lower-level subprocesses).

Image files that show views of the NAWCWPNS Justification and Approval (J&A) Process can be found at the following locations:

Level 1: The process includes five activities or task chains and one quality feedback loop.

Level 2 - Customer Assistance: The Customer Assistance process includes three activities and one quality feedback loop.

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Level 2 - Approvals: The Approvals process includes five task chains, one branch, and five quality feedback loops; each of the five task chains contains a nested quality feedback loop.

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RFP Process

Image files that show views of the NAWCWPNS Request for Proposal (RFP) Process can be found at the following locations:

Level 1: This process includes seven activities or task chains, one branch, and one quality feedback loop.

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Level 2: This RFP Synopsis process includes four activities or task chains and one quality feedback loop.

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Level 2: This RFP Draft process includes five activities or task chains, one branch, and one quality feedback loop.

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LNP Process

Image files that show views of the NAWCWPNS Large Negotiated Procurement (LNP) Process can be found at the following locations:

Level 1: This process includes four activities or task chains.

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Level 2: This LNP PrePalt process includes two activities or task chains, including the ARP subprocess, within which the J&A can be found.

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Level 2: This LNP PreAward process includes four activities or task chains, including the RFP subprocess.

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Analysis

Evaluating static and dynamic properties of a process model, including its consistency, completeness, internal correctness, traceability, as well as other semantic checks.

Experience: Best source of high-value, short-term results and payoffs.

Experience: Easy to produce management reports or presentation materials.

Image files that show user interface displays of (a) a sample of process model analysis checks, (b) process model analysis statistics, and (c) process model analysis view, can be viewed when selected.

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Simulation:

Knowledge-Based

Symbolically enacting process models in order to determine the path and flow of intermediate state transitions in ways that can be made persistent, replayed, queried, dynamically analyzed, and reconfigured into multiple alternative scenarios.

Experience: High-value technology is infrequently used.

Experience: Can produce narrative summaries of simulation runs.

Image files that show user interface displays of (a) a process model simulation interaction, and a subsequent (b) a process model simulation interaction can be viewed when selected.

A paper describing the initial design and implementation of this simulation mechanism can be found in, P. Mi and W. Scacchi, "A Knowledge-Based Environment for Modeling and Simulating Software Engineering Processes," IEEE Trans. Knowledge and Data Engineering, Vol. 2(3), 283-294, (1990). Reprinted in Nikkei Artificial Intelligence, Vol. 20(1), 176-191, (1991, in Japanese).

Discrete-Event

Computationally enacting a sample of process models as network flows with hueristic or statistical arrival rates and service times so as to determine the overall process performance envelope, throughput, systematic behavior, and resource bottlenecks.

Experience: Although less flexible, easy to use to discover process optimizations.

Experience: Visual interactions and presentations always impress.

Image files that show user interface displays of a discrete-event process model workflow simulation for the Baseline J&A Process can be displayed on this link.

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Visualization

Providing users with graphic views of process models and instances that can be viewed, navigationally traversed, interactively editted, and animated to convey process statics and dynamics.

Experience: Process visualizations enable intuitive analysis and discovery.

Experience: Visualization appears key to acceptability.

Image files that show user interface displays of (a) visual process model editor, (b) spreadsheet-like process browser, (c) graphical process model browser, and (d) graphical process object browser can be viewed when selected.

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Prototyping, Walkthrough, and Performance Support (Training On Demand)

Incrementally enacting partially specified process model instances in order to evaluate process presentation scenarios to end users, prior to performing tool and data integration.

Experience: Process prototyping and walkthrough is effective enabler for eliciting user feedback.

Experience: Can provide a basis for user empowerment in controlling design and improvement of local processes.

Experience: Generation of performance support materials in response to process improvements or changes is well-received.

Image files that show user interface displays of (a) a process prototype or walkthrough display, and (b) a web of automatically generated (in HTML format) process performance support materials that document the J&A capability can be browsed when selected.

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Process Measurement and Diagnosis

Process measurement is central to knowledge-based process redesign. The following tables pertain to the Baseline J&A Process.

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Process Redesign and Evaluation

Process measurements and domain-independent (re)design heuristics can be used to envision a number of redesign alternatives. The following chart outlines a few of the potential redesigns for the J&A Process.

The development and application of domain-dependent and instance-specific measures and heuristics is expected to produce more specific redesign alternatives, such as those shown here.

A simulation interface screen depicting one redesign alternative for the J&A Process - R1: Joint Review Meetings, can be seen here.

A paper describing our approach to process measurement as the basis for guiding process redesign can be found at http://cwis.usc.edu/dept/ATRIUM/Papers/Process_Measurement.ps.

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Integration: Data, Tool, User Interface

Encapsulating or wrapping selected information systems, repositories, and data objects that are to be invoked or manipulated when enacting a process instance.

Experience: Can entail a lot of difficult technical work, but its relatively easy to construct "concept demo's."

Experience: Growing interest in providing support for integration of wide-area heterogeneous information repositories using the Internet.

Image files that show user interface displays of (a) multiple tools bound to process actions that are integrated with underlying object manager (not shown) via software broadcast message server (not shown).

A paper describing the mechanisms support data repository integration can be found at http://cwis.usc.edu/dept/ATRIUM/Papers/Integrating_Software_Repositories.ps.

A paper describing the strategy and mechanisms supporting process integration can be found in the paper, P. Mi and W. Scacchi, "Process Integration for CASE Environments," IEEE Software, Vol. 9(2), 45-53 (1992). Reprinted in Computer-Aided Software Engineering, 2nd. Edition, E. Chikofsky (ed.), IEEE Computer Society, (1993).

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Target Support Environment Generation

Automatically transforming a process model or instance into a process-based computing environment that selectively presents prototyped or integrated information systems to end-users for process enactment.

Experience: Considered a unique capability, not available in other process environments.

Experience: Simplifies or eliminates low-level process programming via "application generator" techniques.

Image files that show user interface displays of (a) process-encapsulated tool environment that was generated via automated transformation of the modeled and integrated process.

A description of this mechanism can be found in the paper P.K. Garg, P. Mi, T. Pham, W. Scacchi, and G. Thunquest, "The SMART Approach to Software Process Engineering," Proc. 16th. Intern. Conf. Software Engineering,, IEEE Computer Society, Sorrento, Italy, 341-350, (1994).

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Instantiation and Enactment

Performing the modeled process using the environment by a process engine that guides or enforces specified users or user roles to enact the process as planned.

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Enactment History Capture and Replay

Graphically simulating the re-enactment of a process, in order to more readily observe process state transitions or to intuitively detect possible process enactment anomalies.

Experience: Visualizing and replaying process enactment histories is well-received by managers and executives.

Experience: Supports "organizational drill-down" when process anomalies are observed.

An image file that shows a user interface display of (a) process enactment event history and timing measurements can be viewed when selected.

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Conclusions

Business process engineering in general, and procurement process engineering in particular, is a dynamic team-based endeavor that can only lead to mature processes through rapid process prototyping, incremental development, iterative refinement, and the reengineering of ad hoc process task instances and models.

Process/capability engineering may be most likely to succeed when focused on high frequency, short duration cycle time, or high velocity processes.

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This interactive presentation page is maintained by Walt Scacchi who can be reached at the e-mail address noted above. This page was last updated on 30 January 1996.