Structure Figure 9.7: The structure of the Time-To-Customer pattern. Participants Inquiry is an object that represents an inquiry. This object initiates the Available process. Delivery is the product delivered from the Available process. Note that the delivery doesn’t have to be a physical product; it can be a service, information, and so on. Available process is responsible for making a delivery after an inquiry. The process is supplied with Resource X, which can be people, knowledge, concepts, or a sales prospectus. The resources that supply the Available process are produced by the Enable process. Resource X is the resource that supplies the Available process. Enable is the process that equips the Available process by supplying Resource X. Information, knowledge, and predictions about the market are the input to the Enable process. Consequences Applying the Time-To-Customer pattern should result in shorter lead-times and reduced restricted equity. With an efficient enabling process in place, businesspeople can stay one step ahead of the market demand, which in turn shortens the lead-times. Not buying and procuring items before selling and marketing them can reduce the restricted equity. Example The example shown in Figure 9.8 presents a business that’s modeled with the two important processes: product-to-market and product-to-customer, in this case, a pharmaceutical company, Pharmatica. Pharmatica develops it prescription drugs based on predictions for customers’ future needs. For quite some time, it has been working on a drug called Sniftron, for the common cold. Although Sniftron was planned several years ago, and Pharmatica was certain that there would be a large demand for it, the company waited to release it to the public because production wasn’t possible at a cost that would result in a product that could be priced at an amount the customers would be willing to pay. Figure 9.8: Using the Time-To-Customer pattern. Later, however, Sniftron was put into the product stage, and marketing and sales processes were initiated. Still, production was kept on hold until the first orders for the product were placed. As orders started to come in, Pharmatica managers saw that the demand for Sniftron was large, and so they gave the go-ahead to production to buy the raw materials necessary to manufacture Sniftron on a large scale. (Of course, Pharmatica could not manufacture Sniftron based only on orders placed; it also makes predictions based on orders received and on raw material inventories.) The purchasing and manufacturing departments must also cooperate so that the purchasing department doesn’t buy raw materials at too high or too low a rate in terms of what the manufacturing department actually needs. Pharmatica then delivers drugs, such as Sniftron, and performs a quality assurance check for any defects and informs manufacturing. Once a product has been moved into the product stage, and sales and marketing processes have been launched, the products will be further developed, until they are replaced by newer and better drugs. And where the products that Pharmatica develops are medical equipment of some sort, the maintenance and spare parts handling is also part of the process. The product-to-customer process comprises marketing, selling, purchasing raw materials, manufacturing, and delivery. This process has the goal to sell as much product as possible with as high a profit, while ensuring that customers get quality products in a timely manner. The product-to-market process is concerned with market predictions, the development of new products, and the handling of maintenance and spare parts. The purpose of the product-to-market process is to make sure that the right products reach the market at the right time, while preventing the development of products that might never sell. Pharmatica’s two processes, product-to-market and product-to-customer, show how the company can succeed in launching the right products at the right time, with low development and production costs. Related Patterns The Time-To-Customer pattern is related to the Process Layer Supply pattern, described next, which is the more general idea behind this pattern. Source/Credit This pattern is documented in the book, Process Management by Gösta Steneskog, published in Liber, Sweden, 1990. Process Layer Supply Intent The Process Layer Supply pattern is a Process Modeling pattern that organizes the structure of complex organizations into primary and supporting business processes. Breaking the organization down into primary and supporting processes allows for a better understanding of the entire organization and provides a stable foundation for future reengineering efforts. Motivation To state the obvious: A business must create value for its customers or it will not survive. Customer value is created by performing a series of activities that the customer perceives as valuable. These activities are called a value chain. The customer will be in direct contact with some value chain activities, while others will be invisible to the customer. Typically, the activities that the customer sees are sales activities, the delivery of products, product support, and so on. They are called primary activities. Examples of activities with which the customer has no direct contact include planning, recruitment, purchase of raw materials, and so on. These are called support activities. In his book, Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance, New York: Free Press, 1985, 1998), Michael E. Porter looks at an organization’s chief business as a single process and then divides it into several subprocesses. He then examines how each subprocess contributes value to the overall process. To help establish value chains in complex organizations, Porter has defined these two key activity categories as follows: § Primary activities. Inbound and outbound logistics, operations, marketing and sales, and service. § Support activities. Procurement, technology development, human resource management, maintenance of infrastructure for planning, accounting, finance, legal matters, government liaison, and quality. As discussed in the Time-To-Customer pattern, many businesses can be described with a product-to-market process and a product-to-customer process, where the product-to- market process supplies the product-to-customer process with a product set. The product-to-market process is a support activity to the product-to-customer process, which is the primary activity. These two processes are both supplied with knowledge, people, machinery, and so on. But there must be another process that supplies them, a process that maintains the infrastructure, called the maintain infrastructure process. This means that the product-to-market process supplies the product-to-customer process, but the new process supplies both. As you can see, it is possible to divide processes into primary processes that are supplied by supporting processes. The division can be made in several layers where one process can supply and be supplied at the same time. There are several layers of processes; among them are primary activities and supporting activities. The intent of this pattern is to clearly identify and organize the primary and supporting business processes. By structuring the organization into primary and supporting processes, you can achieve a better understanding of the entire organization and establish a solid foundation for the future. Figure 9.9 illustrates this discussion. Note that the maintain infrastructure process is a supporting activity to the other processes—product-to-market and product-to-customer. Product-to-market and product-to-customer are primary activities in relation to the maintain infrastructure process. The relationship between product-to-market and product-to-customer is that product-to-market is a supporting activity to product-to- customer, which is a primary activity. Figure 9.9: The maintain infrastructure process supplies the product-to-market and product- to-customer processes while the product-to-market process supplies the product-to-customer process. Here, the product-to-market process can be considered as both a primary and supporting process. Applicability The Process Layer Supply pattern can be used wherever the business being modeled is complex and must be structured or understood before building information systems, such as sales automation and product-data management systems. Structure Figure 9.10: The structure of the Process Layer Supply pattern. Participants Input A and Input B are the objects that are refined to output. Output A and Output B are the objects delivered from the processes supplied by Resources B and C. Resource A is supplied to some other process, not described here because the structure is recursive—there can be any number of layers of processes. P1 and P2 are both processes supplied with resources—Resources B and C. Both processes deliver resources to supply some other process. Resource A, Resource B, and Resource C are objects used to supply the processes; they can be people, machines, or information. Consequences Applying the Process Layer Supply pattern reorganizes a business into a target-oriented enterprise that is motivated by goals, and where the business processes are layered in a hierarchy in which each layer creates the conditions required for the layer above. Example The boat appliances business Sailor Inc. sells appliances to pleasure boats and commercial boats. It quickly established itself on the West Coast, then wanted to expand both in the United States and internationally. The Sailor Inc. concept is to create networks with partners; and through these partners, establish a brand name for its line of appliances. Sailor Inc. also sells directly to the end customer, but makes sure to keep the list prices and by that give their partners the opportunity to look like they are a bit cheaper or at least not more expensive. Sailor Inc. discovers that it is difficult to expand, in particular because management hasn’t formalized how to create a network of partners, how to get to know and understand their partner’s customers, how to create a brand name through their partners, and so on. In a simple business or manufacturing process, it is easy to identify what is valuable to a customer—product characteristics, good service, the sales environment, and so on. It’s more difficult in a business such as Sailor Inc. that rarely meets its end customer. How can they ensure that the end customer recognizes that Sailor Inc. products provide higher value? To scale up and become more global, this knowledge must be formalized in order to spread it to new managers, personnel, and partners. Sailor Inc. uses the Process Layer Supply pattern to identify which of its processes can provide value directly to their end customer and which processes provide value by supplying resources to the processes that directly create customer value. The end customer directly relates to the selling and delivery process, which starts with outlining customers’ needs and leads to delivery of products to the end customer. The goal of the selling process is to maximize the return of invested capital. To sell and deliver, the product set must continuously be developed, in part through working with current partners but also by getting in touch with new partners—or, in some cases, by ending some partnerships. The establishment process handles the sales network and the product set. Its purpose is to enable selling and delivery. The establishment process starts with customer profiles and partner profiles. To establish the business and build a network, a product set based on goodwill in the market is needed. This is achieved through the marketing operation process, whose purpose is to enable the establishment process. The marketing operation process influences the market and delivers goodwill to the end customer to support the establishment process. To influence the market, an infrastructure is needed, one that comprises the Internet; an intranet and extranet; and fax, telephones, videoconferences, and other technological capabilities. This infrastructure is developed and maintained in the keep-up-infrastructure process. The infrastructure provided by this process is also used by the establishment and selling and delivery processes. Figure 9.11 illustrates Sailor Inc.’s main processes. Selling and delivery, establishment, marketing operation, and keep up infrastructure correspond to the P1, P2, processes and so on in the generic structure of the pattern. The infrastructure in the figure corresponds to Resource C; goodwill corresponds to Resource B; and the product set and sales network correspond to Resource A. Demand, customer profiles, partner profiles, and market are all input to the processes. Delivered products are output from the process. Figure 9.11: An example of the Process Layer Supply pattern. Related Patterns The Process Layer Supply pattern is related to the Process Layer Control pattern, up next, which is also organized in a hierarchy of layers. In the latter pattern, each layer controls the layer below, whereas each layer in the Process Layer Supply pattern supplies the layer above. We show how to use these patterns together next. Source/Credit Early adopters of this pattern were Björn Nilsson (Astrakan), C.G. Lövetoft (Astrakan), and Gösta Steneskog (Institute V, in Sweden). The pattern is used in some of the largest Scandinavian companies in the electrical power industry, as well as retail chain stores. It is also frequently used in the Astrakan method. The international standard language IDEF0 is also built upon these theories and principles. In addition, the paper “Dependent Demand: A Business Pattern for Balancing Supply and Demand” (PLoP’97 conference) deals with patterns in supply change management, which is a special case of the Process Layer Supply pattern. Process Layer Control Intent Process Layer Control is a Process Modeling pattern that helps to structure complex businesses for the purpose of reengineering or understanding them. The fundamental principle is that all businesses can be layered into processes, where each layer controls the layer underneath. Motivation A business can be considered a system, motivated by one or more goals that activate the processes. Typically, the overriding goal is to improve profitability, return on capital, or political and social efforts. A business can be studied and modeled from several perspectives, two of which are very useful when modeling business processes: § Target-oriented perspective. Layers the processes for organizing the business into a hierarchy. Each process enables the process above it; the process at the top is motivated by the overall goals of the business. This perspective is used in the Process Layer Supply pattern previously described. § Control-oriented perspective. Leads to a layered business with a process hierarchy. The difference is that the process on top, which is directly motivated by the overall goal, controls the process underneath, which in turn controls the next process, and so on. These perspectives either focus on enabling the process above or on controlling the process below. The Process Layer Control pattern focuses on controlling the process below. The business development process shown in Figure 9.12 is an example of a process that is directly motivated by the overall goal. This process results in strategies. The strategies control the management process, which results in goals, tactics, incentives, and so forth. The output from the management process controls the execution (the operative work), which results in effects that are in accordance to the overall goal. The effects are normally expressed in terms of customer satisfaction. Figure 9.12: A business development process. If a business and its processes are not well structured, the company management will lose control of the business. The Process Layer Control pattern is a way of describing businesses or parts of businesses from a control-oriented perspective. (Note: This pattern should not be used to describe businesses from a target-oriented perspective. For that, the Process Layer Supply is recommended. Applicability The Process Layer Control pattern is suitable for modeling control-oriented businesses, e.g., where the top business processes control the processes underneath, which in their turn control the next processes, and so on. Typical situations are when building control systems, such as CAM (computer-aided manufacturing), quality control, and accounts receivable and invoicing systems. Structure Figure 9.13: The structure of the Process Layer Control pattern. Participants Input A and Input B are the objects that are refined to output. Output A and Output B are the objects delivered from the processes controlled by the directives. Directive A and Directive B are objects that contain directives to the processes to which they refer. Process P1 and P2 are controlled by Directive A and Directive B. Consequences Applying the Process Layer Control pattern reorganizes a business as a control-oriented business, one governed by goals and directives, and whose business processes are layered in a hierarchy in which each layer controls the layer below it. Example The example in Figure 9.14 uses the Process Layer Control pattern together with the Process Layer Supply pattern. It is built based on the principles of the Process Layer Control pattern. This means that the entire business is controlled in several layers. Market development (a process in the pattern structure) is the top-level process, which takes a market analysis as input (Input object in the pattern structure) and delivers a market plan (Directive in the pattern structure). The market plan controls the business development process (a process in the pattern structure) for the entire business, which is concerned with creating the business plan (directive). The business plan controls management , product development , production development, and subcontractor development processes (all processes in the pattern structure). The management process controls the production via the key ratio (Directive in the pattern structure; for example, production targets and allowed quality variance). The production process is supplied with a product set (not the actual products but design and material requirements and so on), production facilities (robots, turning lathes, and so on), and suppliers that deliver raw material, electricity, and so on. The supply is called resources in the process layer supply pattern. The production process delivers the manufactured products (Output object in the pattern structure). The supplier is delivered from the subcontractor development process; the production facilities are delivered from the production development process; and the product set is delivered from the product development process. The supplier, the production facilities, and the product set are all called resources in the Process Layer Supply pattern structure. Figure 9.14: The Process Layer Control pattern in use. Related Patterns The Process Layer Control pattern is related to the Process Layer Supply pattern; it is their respective focus that distinguishes them. Source/Credit Early adopters of this pattern were Björn Nilsson (Astrakan), C.G. Lövetoft (Astrakan), and Gösta Steneskog (Institut V, in Sweden). The pattern is used in some of the largest Scandinavian companies in the electrical power industry, as well as retail chain stores. It is also frequently used in the Astrakan method. The international standard language IDEF0 is also built upon these theories and principles. Action Workflow Intent The Action Workflow pattern is a tool for analyzing communication between parties, with the purpose of understanding and optimizing this communication. Motivation Communication refers to how two or more parties transmit and receive information and how they react to this information. Whether the parties are people or computers is of no importance in this context. Customers have various needs, such as the need for products. Depending on the need, one organization plays the role of a customer by ordering a product to satisfy a specific need, while another organization plays the role of a supplier. The customer and the supplier interact with each other, as shown in Figure 9.15. Figure 9.15: A customer places an order that results in the production and delivery of a product. What Figure 9.15 does not reveal however, is the real interaction—the preparation, the negotiation, the deal, and the acceptance. Very few customers, for example, would place an order without going through a bidding procedure or a negotiation. The point is, actual interactions between the customer and the supplier are rarely documented or detailed in systems or process descriptions. For instance, many e-mail systems cannot automatically confirm that a recipient has actually received and opened a message; this should be an obvious part of the process, to preclude the need for the sender to confirm whether the mail reached its destination. A great deal of study has been done in the area of communication that directly affects how we model interchanges. In the early ‘80s, F. Flores, M. Gaves, B. Hartfield, and T. Winograd introduced the Action Language perspective, based on Searle’s Speech Act theory; it has proven to be a new paradigm for information systems analysis and design. In contrast to the traditional views of data flow, the Action Language perspective emphasizes what people do while communicating, that is, how they create a common reality by means of language, and how communication brings about a coordination of their activities. F. Flores, M. Gaves, B. Hartfield, and T. Winograd’s work resulted in a wave of software applications, called action workflow systems; examples include Coordinator and many other workflow systems such as Lotus Notes and Metro. One of the most popular models in the area of action workflow is the repeatable four-phase Flores model for interaction, outlined here: 1. Preparation. Consists of two activities: prepare inquiry and send inquiry. 2. Negotiation. Consists of these activities: prepare offer, send offer, prepare counterbid, send counterbid, send offer until the customer prepares order, send order, and fulfill obligation. 3. Accomplishment. Consists of these activities: confirm, accomplish, send notice of delivery, and make delivery. 4. Acceptance. Consists of these activities: confirm delivery, accept delivery, prepare invoice, send invoice, prepare payment, and pay. Flores’s four-phase model is very helpful when structuring interactions like the one shown in Figure 9.15, because it is an established way of structuring communication. Figure 9.16 shows an interaction analysis based on the Flores model; in particular, note the interaction between the customer and the supplier, which is not shown in Figure 9.15. By basing the interaction analysis on the Flores model, a more detailed process description that shows how both the delivery process (labeled supplier process in Figure 9.15) and order process (labeled customer process in Figure 9.15) can be created (see Figure 9.17). Figure 9.16: An interaction analysis of the organizations involved in the process model shown in Figure 9.15. Figure 9.17: Detailing activities and organization (supplier and customer); the delivery process intersects both the supplier’s and the customer’s organizations. Notice that the two main business processes have been renamed during the interaction analysis. Both the delivery process and the order process have an explicit goal and a clear customer value. The goal of the delivery process is to deliver the product agreed upon. The goal of the order process is to order the correct product, at the correct price, and deliver it on the correct delivery date. The interaction analysis based on the Flores model also verifies that the activities performed in each process are carried out by the parties involved (the supplier organization and the customer organization). Applicability The Action Workflow pattern is helpful during the process of structuring and for understanding interactions among organizational units, people, or processes. It can be used with interaction analysis to specify exactly how objects interact, why they interact, and when they interact, in order to detail the description of the studied objects. Typical [...]... and Peter Sommerlad’s Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture: A System of Patterns Note that software architectural patterns are different from the business patterns presented in Chapters 7 to 9 Software architectural patterns address the structure and organization of software systems, whereas the business patterns in Chapters 7 to 9 describe common structures in the modeling of businesses Myths about... a business modeling activity) Typically, business modeling and software modeling use different languages, techniques, and concepts, making integration of the two models difficult This is a primary reason that this book shows how to use UML for business modeling UML is a well-known technique for modeling software systems; consequently, many companies that today use UML for software modeling can use UML. .. Layers pattern in which a certain functionality is handled through a layered set of subsystems, each handling the functionality at a more detailed level A system is rarely designed with just a single pattern, rather with a combination of patterns, and a subsystem that is part of one pattern can be designed internally with another software architectural pattern For more on software architectural patterns, ... known Process Instance State This pattern is also known as the State Design pattern Our intent here is to show how a well-known design pattern can be used to improve the quality of business modeling not to reinvent the pattern wheel, so to speak Intent The Process Instance State pattern is a Process Support pattern that shows how the state of a process instance can be used to create both well-designed... experiences from previ ous iterations or, in some cases, suggestions from users who have tested earlier iterations Business modeling should be done separately from the development iterations, so that a stable business model exists before these iterations begin (The business model in itself can also be produced in iterations, but not in conjunction with the development iterations.) Running through the... or patterns, that is, the definition of well-proven architectural constructions that have worked well in the past Architectural patterns typically show a specific set of subsystems, relationships between the subsystems, and the interaction or communication between the subsystems Experienced architects have several patterns that they reuse in their architectural designs A well-known example of a pattern... various forms The book, Design Patterns, by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, John Vlissides, Grady Booch, (Addison-Wesley, 1994) refers to it as the State pattern Summary The process patterns are packaged knowledge about frequently used and high-quality structures in process modeling There are several kinds of process patterns: Process Model patterns are concerned with how to model processes... Negotiation, Accomplish, or Acceptance; at the same time, it can be Abandoned, Suspended, Proposed, or Started The product development state thus has two parallel states Figure 9.24: Using the Process Instance State pattern Related Patterns The Process Instance State pattern uses the Process Instance pattern to define the concept of process and process instance Source/Credit This pattern is well known, but goes... the products are made from raw material This in turn helps to specify the purchasing process For example, it would be very cost-ineffective to purchase at a low cost material that that is to be refined, if the material consumed to refine the cheap material is very expensive The point is, it may be more cost-effective to buy expensive material that is cheaper to work with and refine Take electricity... product development process; and in order for that process to work, it is important to define the steps the process entails Modeling a product development process without communicating with customers and internal organizational units will result in a process that fails in practice Again, product development is about communication, and so the Action Workflow pattern can be used to model it A product development . Supply pattern. Related Patterns The Process Layer Supply pattern is related to the Process Layer Control pattern, up next, which is also organized in a hierarchy of layers. In the latter pattern,. thus has two parallel states. Figure 9.24: Using the Process Instance State pattern. Related Patterns The Process Instance State pattern uses the Process Instance pattern to define the concept. reason that this book shows how to use UML for business modeling. UML is a well-known technique for modeling software systems; consequently, many companies that today use UML for software modeling