Operations Needs Business Process Monitoring

"Much of what Business Process Management offers is hard to measure, but incredibly valuable: process consistency, process sharing and process innovation."

                                                                                    Gartner Top View, AV-14-9243, 20 November 2001

In the running of operations, it is important that you measure and control all critical variables in real time to ensure the smooth functioning of your core processes as designed. Processes are configured to work as per design, but due to multiplicity in the variables that goes to it, they eventually get a mind of their own. Business Process Monitoring (BPM) is the answer to keep that in track.

There are many tools that has rich out of features for this. In an SAP estate, BPM is integral to Solution Manager. This tool help documents the business process, define the business and technical KPI (Key Performance Indicator), handle alerts and events, provides guided procedures to take actions and escalate, continuously monitor and control, continuous innovation and adaptations, speed deployment by predefined catalogs and templates, out of box reporting and integration.

Implementation Journey for a BPM Life-cycle is mentioned below. It starts with a system preparedness, followed by a cyclical realization and operations. Process Monitoring has always been there since the industrial revolution. Still Business Process Monitoring as a standard way to operate in software engineering has not been realized to its fullest. One of the observation is that business’s appreciation for this is low as they do not see immediate value realization. It is thus recommended to roll out process monitoring in small groups of two to three processes per cycle. To measure realized value, it is important that process be monitored for three cycle (or a quarter) and improvement measured. One of the most critical aspect is the command center, that will be the backbone of the operation and working continuously to fine tune business and technical Indicators. The Operations Command Center (OCC) will integrate with the Business, IT, Support Organizations and Service Desk to facilitate actions and escalations.

In SAP’s Solution Manager, BPM is an integral solution built on Monitoring and Alerting Infrastructure (MAI). The below infographics shows how various components interact. Solution Manger ensure reliable business process flow and throughput by using various tools which helps in increased transparency in the business process flow; Increased efficiency in daily operations due to monitoring automation and faster exception handling. This also reduced the number of incidents by early detection of errors handled by alerts. The solution is sustainable as it reuses the monitoring infrastructure for future expansion.

The below graphics shows the key components of the design workshop for a BPM looks like. There could be variants to this, but most would cover all the five key component. The last component is the readiness of the monitoring component, which is mentioned as Solution Manager, but could be any other selected architecture.

One of the most important aspect of sustaining process monitoring is to set up an operations command center. This is a physical location, with digital display and a team of operators manning it 24X7. This is a capital expenditure and need to be planned upfront as it involves civil work and should be extendable to support future roll outs.

The BPM Lead Manager is accountable for Monitoring, Measure and Control by his operators. She track and report Benefit and Value Realization. She is responsible for Continuous Improvement initiatives and Continuous Adaptation of newer process monitoring. She is the coordinator between Business and IT. She would be the Subject Mater Expert.

Command Center Operators are responsible for Monitoring the implemented KPIs, execute operations 24X7, tracking and monitoring alert events. They would follow Guided Procedure and Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). They need to review and periodically update SOP documents. They would adapt new monitors and changes seamlessly into the support organization after every cycles of deployment. That they would escalate and communicate with help desk / responsible teams for service restoration

Business Process Monitoring is required to be part of all business operations, and by defining the right strategy, one ensures reliable flow in core business processes. Early detection of alerts and issues definitely help reduce cost, saves time, bring in efficiency and greater user satisfaction. This eventually helps reduce operations costs and bring stability to the business process landscape.

The article has been compiled by Trijoy Saikia and Kapil Pandey. There has been references made from SAP and other internet sources. The MAI diagram is made from SAP Solution Manager standard material.