Subject-oriented Business Process Management (S-BPM) is different from current BPM approaches. Inthis chapter we want to explain what processes and Business Process Management are about and onwhich hidden paradigms current BPM approaches are based. Then we show how S-BPM is different to mostof these approaches.
1.1 Business Processes and Business Process Management
In modern days, no successful company without processes exists. Large companies may even havehundreds of different processes. These processes can be remarkably simple with only one or twoparticipants or highly complex with a dozen or even hundreds of participants. Processes use thecompanys resources to produce a desired output that is of value for the company or its stakeholders(i.e., customers). This output, for instance, can be a service or a product (technical orotherwise). It is very important for companies to keep their processes as effective and efficient aspossible; this is ensured through the use of Business Process Management (BPM). BPM uses manydifferent methods and tools to identify, control, and improve a companys processes.
A process is a structure consisting of logically connected tasks, operators, material expenses, andinformation. This includes a chronological, geographical, and quantitative definition. A process hasa defined launch event (input) and result (output) with the goal of producing something of value forcustomers. The sum of all processes is the process organization.
Processes must be continuously adapted to changing business environments. This should be done ina structured and well-defined way. This activity is called business process management which is,according to Fischermanns,a process in itself. This process has to be managed and controlled, to ensure continuous improvementof the organizations performance (and therefore success). In Business Process Management thefollowing activity bundles have to be executed:
Analyze a process
Model a process
Validate a process
Optimize a process
Embed a process into the organizational structure
Embed existing IT-Solutions into a process
Run and monitor instances of a process
Normally these activities are not strictly executed in that order. If deficiencies are discovered ina process model you can go back either to analyzing a process or modeling a process .
Current BPM approaches are still heavily influenced by Scientific Management proposed by F.W. Taylor.In the following sections we want to show that Taylorism and Fordism are still the unspokenparadigms underlying modern business process management.
1.2 Taylorism, Fordism, and Post-Fordism
Taylor began by analyzing work systematically. He wanted to replace the rules of thumb used fororganizing work with a systematic scientific approach. The major aspects of Taylors ScientificManagement are described in his article The Principles of Scientific Management (seefootnote 4):
Under the old type of management success depends almost entirely upon getting the initiativeof the workmen, and it is indeed a rare case in which this initiative is really attained. Underscientific management the initiative of the workmen (that is, their hard work, their good-will,and their ingenuity) is obtained with absolute uniformity and to a greater extent than is possibleunder the old system; and in addition to this improvement on the part of the men, the managersassume new burdens, new duties, and responsibilities never dreamed of in the past. The managersassume, for instance, the burden of gathering together all of the traditional knowledge which in thepast has been possessed by the workmen and then of classifying, tabulating, and reducing thisknowledge to rules, laws, and formulae which are immensely helpful to the workmen in doing theirdaily work. In addition to developing a science in this way, the management take on three othertypes of duties which involve new and heavy burdens for themselves. These new duties are groupedunder four heads:
First. They develop a science for each element of a mans work, which replaces the old rule-of-thumbmethod.
Second. They scientifically select and then train, teach, and develop the workman, whereas in thepast he chose his own work and trained himself as best he could.
Third. They heartily cooperate with the men so as to ensure all of the work being done in accordancewith the principles of the science which has been developed.
Fourth. There is an almost equal division of the work and the responsibility between the managementand the workmen. The management take over all work for which they are better fitted than theworkmen, while in the past almost all of the work and the greater part of the responsibility werethrown upon the men.
Taylors scientific management is a business process management system which means he is describinga way to identify effective and efficient production steps or sequences of productionprocesses. These work plans are developed and described by management (white-collar workers) andexecuted by blue-collar workers. Taylor does not elucidate how the sequences of actions aredescribed or how their execution is supported generally.
Independently of Taylor, the Ford Motor Company focused on the aspect of how succeeding work stepsexecuted by different blue-collar workers could be organized in an effective and efficient way. Forthis purpose Henry Ford introduced assembly lines.
The first step forward in assembly came when we began taking the work to the men instead of the mento the work. We now have two general principles in all operationsthat a man shall never have totake more than one step, if possibly it can be avoided, and that no man need ever stoop over. The principles of assembly are these:
Place the tools and the men in the sequence of the operation so that each component part shalltravel the least possible distance while in the process of finishing.
Use work slides or some other form of carrier so that when a workman completes his operation,he drops the part always in the same placewhich place must always be the most convenient placeto his handand if possible have gravity carry the part to the next workman for his operation.
Use sliding assembling lines by which the parts to be assembled are delivered at convenientdistances.
In the 1970s several market changes occurred. A general saturation of consumer markets had majorimpacts on mass production. Increased competition from new markets (especially Southeast Asia) dueto globalization, made the old system of mass producing identical, cheap goods through division oflabor uncompetitive. Additionally, more individual and specialized products were required byconsumers. The development of information and communication technology allowed work to be organizedin a totally new way. This period of time is called Post-Fordism. According to S. Hall Post-Fordism is characterized by the followingattributes:
