ABACUS for Business

Process Management

Business Process Management (BPM) is one of the most popular

methods for retaining business viability in a competitive market.
ABACUS supports practitioners in managing the complexities of
BPM, helping the business to hit its goals.

Version 1.4

Published April 2016

 ABACUS for Business Process Management

ABACUS gives BPM Practitioners the ability to:

Model and analyze current business process using a variety of

> notations

Configure constraints so that users are restricted or allowed

> from making changes inconsistent with the chosen meta-model

Perform simulations to identify bottlenecks and other areas

> where improvements can be made

Design and evaluate new business processes using multiple

> scenarios

Design dashboards that display real-time information about

> business processes and other entities

> Store all data in one convenient centralized repository

> Exchange data easily with applications including Excel, Visio

and SharePoint

Business Process
Management (BPM) is
one of the most popular
methods for retaining
business viability in a Developing IT Governance through
competitive market.
ABACUS helps to manage Business Process Management
the complexities of BPM
throughout its entire
lifecycle. Unlike more traditional hierarchical management practices, BPM (also
known as Business Process Improvement or BPI) focuses first and
foremost on the needs of the customer and how effectively your
organization is at addressing these needs.

It is an approach which has been demonstrated to improve efficiency,

deliver higher product quality, decrease time to market and ultimately
provide greater customer satisfaction. In an age where customer
needs are constantly changing, BPM is an agile approach that allows
organizations to adapt rapidly in a manner which boosts the quality
of the customer’s experience.

Although BPM is an important practice in its own right and can be

used in isolation to deliver business value, it is increasingly playing a
crucial role in the governance of modern IT programs. New
technologies are constantly emerging that enable business process
improvements that were not previously possible on the same
magnitude.

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 ABACUS for Business Process Management

(ABACUS BPM in the context of wider IT Governance goals)

“How a business does Using ABACUS for BPM

processes is defined by
how employees actually
perform customer service.
A game is defined by BPM is only effective if it is done in a consistent and methodical
what players do and not manner. Without the right tool it is difficult to orchestrate who is
by strategy or plans.” managing what and how various team members collaborate.
In this sense ABACUS puts the M into BPM.
Max J.Pucher
ABACUS supports BPM throughout its entire lifecycle, helping users to
identify, analyze, engineer, measure, review and maintain business
processes. Using ABACUS, teams can work across the organization to
attain higher quality, lower costs and increase customer satisfaction
though continuous process improvement.

ABACUS also supports a wide range of techniques and roles in a

company’s IT governance. Because of this, a business optimization
process or BPM can be integrated easily into other programs
including Enterprise Architecture or Portfolio Management. Each
approach can leverage the results of the other.

Support for Notations

ABACUS Architect supports all of the major business process

modelling notations that are popular today including Business
Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) 1.x and 2.0 and Event-driven
Process Chains (EPC) – all out of the box and at no additional cost.
ABACUS also supports the Unified Modeling Language (UML) as well
as basic flowcharting and other related business frameworks,
including Business Motivation Model (BMM).

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“Optimization and simulation
allow you to run the process
as if it were running in the
real world. However unlike
processes running in the real
world, if the optimized and
simulated process breaks, no
one gets hurt.”
Gartner
Page 4
ABACUS for Business Process Management
(Modeling using BPMN)
With the ABACUS Designer add-on, users are able to fully configure
the notation that they wish to use or even build a framework from
scratch if that is their preferred approach. It is also possible to combine
notations by simply dragging and dropping the desired elements from
each notation into your meta-model.
Flexible Meta-Model
ABACUS Designer allows you to adjust your meta-model with its
simple point and click interface so that entities not traditionally
modeled in common business process notations can be seamlessly
integrated into your model. These do not have to be included in your
diagrams, but by storing them in a centralized ABACUS repository
you can ensure that all users have the latest and most accurate
information.
This flexibility is a feature exclusive to ABACUS users. Other modeling
tools will allow you to design business process diagrams in isolation.
However, they do not provide a mechanism for linking your business
processes with processes at different levels of granularity or other
important elements you may wish to model, such as stakeholders and
technologies.
Constraints to ensure teams model consistently
The frameworks that ship with ABACUS Architect include constraints.
These can be used to prevent or warn users from making changes
that are not consistent with their chosen notation.
(For example, in ABACUS users will be alerted if they are drawing a
sequence flow originating from an End Event if using BPMN.)
Constraints are fully configurable. Using ABACUS Designer,
constraints can be added or removed for hierarchical relationships,
connections and properties.
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 ABACUS for Business Process Management

With this approach it is possible to ensure all users are modeling in a

consistent manner.

This ability to add and control constraints is key to avoiding the

frustration caused by every team-member “doing their own thing.”

Process Simulation and Analytics

Using ABACUS Simulator, you will be able to run a complete

end-to-end simulation of the processes in your BPM project. This
allows you to identify bottlenecks and areas of questionable
reliability.

In ABACUS Simulator you can select and run simulations metrics

including reliability, performance, cost, modularity and openness.
These metrics can then be used to produce powerful views allowing
you to calculate and demonstrate the trade-offs involved as you of
make adjustments to your business processes model.

This ability to run an end-to-end simulation of your model draw on

the tool’s powerful analytics engines including algorithms which are
exclusive to ABACUS. These analytics options go well beyond the
“map-drawing” capabilities of standard BPM tools.

Best-Practice Reference Models

BPM as a practice has been proven over decades. It has stood the test
of time and over the years a number of best practices have emerged
that are in use in leading organizations across all sectors.

ABACUS Architect ships with numerous reference models that

demonstrate industry best practices and can serve as templates for
your own process models.

(Reference Model using APQC’s Process Classification Framework)

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 ABACUS for Business Process Management

A Centralized Repository for Data Consistency

Simply having great artefacts is not enough in the world of

management, the right stakeholders must be able to access the
information they need, when they need it. These stakeholders must
be able to ensure they are working with the latest up-to-date data
and have a consistent view of that data from multiple perspectives.
The only way to ensure that this happens is with a centralized data
store.

ABACUS Enterprise Edition provides a repository in which all BPM

data and artefacts that use that data can be stored in the one
convenient location. Furthermore, the ABACUS repository is
structured in a way that ensures all artefacts are kept consistent.
Subversion (SVN) based conflict resolution ensures any incompatible
changes can be managed sensibly.

Quick and Easy Data Interchange

ABACUS provides open access to its data and can be easily integrated
to receive and publish data with other tools.

ABACUS Architect can import and export from a number of common

formats including Excel, Visio and SharePoint out of the box. Its open
scripting environment allows for data interchange in virtually any
format.

Additionally, any data that is in ABACUS can be exported into a HTML

format that can be freely shared on a company intranet using
ABACUS Publisher

Reporting and Dashboarding BPM

Typically the last and arguably the most important step in BPM is to
continually monitor new business processes once they have been
implemented. This involves measuring key metrics of the
process relating to quality, cost, time and customer satisfaction. These
metrics are often best represented graphically in the form of a
dashboard.

ABACUS Intelligence On-Demand™ allows users to access powerful

web-based dashboards containing a variety of charts and diagrams.
This cloud-based module reads data directly from the Enterprise
Repository, ensuring the most up to date information is always
displayed, and displays it in an easily digestible format to the desired
stakeholder – without the need to install software.

ABACUS Architect also supports a flexible dashboard model that

allows you to create dashboards using rich visuals including heat
maps, treemaps, diagrams and a variety of charts.

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 ABACUS for Business Process Management

If you would to try ABACUS for yourself, please sign up for a free
30-day trial by visiting www.avolutionsoftware.com

If you would like a demonstration from one of our expert

consultants, email demo@avolutionsoftware.com

Or contact one of our offices to discuss ABACUS or for pricing.

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