Integration of BPM systems

Ma, Chaoying, Caldera, Andrea, Petridis, Miltos, Bacon, Liz and Windall, Gill (2010) Integration of BPM systems. In: Process Management. Intech, Vukovar, Croatia, pp. 197-222. ISBN 978-953-307-085-8

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Abstract

New technologies have emerged to support the global economy where for instance suppliers, manufactures and retailers are working together in order to minimise the cost and
maximise efficiency. One of the technologies that has become a buzz word for many businesses is business process management or BPM. A business process comprises activities
and tasks, the resources required to perform each task, and the business rules linking these activities and tasks. The tasks may be performed by human and/or machine actors.
Workflow provides a way of describing the order of execution and the dependent relationships between the constituting activities of short or long running processes.
Workflow allows businesses to capture not only the information but also the processes that transform the information - the process asset (Koulopoulos, T. M., 1995). Applications which involve automated, human-centric and collaborative processes across organisations are
inherently different from one organisation to another. Even within the same organisation but over time, applications are adapted as ongoing change to the business processes is seen as the norm in today’s dynamic business environment. The major difference lies in the specifics of business processes which are changing rapidly in order to match the way in which businesses operate. In this chapter we introduce and discuss Business Process Management (BPM) with a focus on the integration of heterogeneous BPM systems across multiple organisations. We identify the problems and the main challenges not only with regards to technologies but also in the social and cultural context. We also discuss the issues that have arisen in our bid to find the solutions.

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