As was the case at First American, accomplishing this process orchestration at Chester Hospital meant integrating various systems and their data. And it also meant identifying, optimizing, modeling, testing and finally deploying the desired business processes.

Secrets to BPM Success
Fewer companies take BPM to the next lev­el. “The real value is realized when you go beyond cost reduction and look at how human-to-human interaction can be systematized and lead to innovation,” says consultant Sheesley.

But there’s a problem with how business usually defines its processes, says consultant Hurwitz. “Even if people on the business side use business process modeling tools to come up with a new process, what they build is not related to the execution. The effort stops at the model, and the business people go to IT and say, ‘We need X, Y and Z,’” she says. IT has no insight into the metadata—the process context and business logic—and gets essentially requirements-based requests.

Fortunately, modeling tools from vendors such as IDS Scheer and Tibco Software are increasingly able to store a metadata layer, which IT can use to understand the process, what it’s actually meant to do and how it’s actually meant to work, she says. Some tools can also prototype a process without requiring coding, so business staff can show IT what they mean by their requirements.

Another issue is technological maturity. A few years ago, BPM tools couldn’t hope to address such a wide scope, notes Hurwitz. “But they have changed dramatically, with APIs for common applications, more use of standards and new architectures.” It’s time to look at them again, she says. (In some areas, BPM standards are still lacking—especially around handling the complexity of human-system interactions—but vendors and standards organizations are working to fill these holes. CIOs should not use such holes as an excuse not to apply BPM where it is capable, says AMR’s Swanson.)

Motorola and AmerisourceBergen have taken it to the next level—by focusing on the business processes themselves, rather than merely automating specific functions. Motorola emphasizes the work done by business managers and analysts involving process definition and optimization that happens before IT gets involved. Then business and IT staff spend much time together modeling the processes as they are developed, to test them out, says CIO Morrison. For example, after Motorola acquired Symbol Technologies, “We found BPM to be incredibly powerful to do scenarios of integration,” she says.

Some modeling tools can generate executable code that lets business staff essentially reprogram their processes without IT involvement. But this doesn’t mean IT is out of a job, says Charles Soto, Motorola’s senior director for enterprise platforms and integrated solutions. Motorola does generate code from its business process modeling tool, but not for production. This code serves as a reference for the business analysts.