Enterprise Architecture and Management

Function vs Process Orientation ⌘

Focus on work process
- Quality problems are mostly dependent on the work processes that designed and manufactured the products and services
Analysis of variability
- Uncontrolled variances are the primary causes of quality problems, and these variances should be analyzed and controlled by the front-line workers
Management by fact
- Quality improvements programs should be based on systematic data collection, analysis and experimentation for solution implementation
Learning and continuous improvement
- Quality improvement is never-ending and employee learning is a major part for carrying out quality improvements

A highest level unique approach to problems solving and managing the complexity.
It views certain 'problems' as a part of the overall system so focusing on these outcomes further develops the undesired element or problem.
E.g. Instead of optimizing how to print invoices (focusing on a single function), we can simply send them electronically to the buyer system (thinking in terms of the whole process and impact of the system)

Management philosophy to enhance corporate competitiveness
M. Hammer – he believed corporation were simply automating processes design prior to the wide usage of computers
The key enabler for BPR is IT
IT serves as the disruptive technology that allows generalists to do the work traditionally performed by specialists, enables everyone to make decisions
"Don't automate, obliterate"
Illogical business activities are there because nobody dares to challenge them

Michael Martin Hammer (1948 - 2008)
American engineer
Management author (has he ever managed something?)
Professor of computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Known as one of the founders of the management theory of Business process reengineering (BPR)

Lean Principles

Waste in Lean

A BPM based system might create a tight coupling between integration technology and individual business applications
This tight coupling increases the operational cost. Why?
As a business process changes, the integration technology also changes
BPM without services is:
- Complex and brittle, because the process layer is required to access the underlying business applications directly
- The SOA provides the ideal platform for the business process layer for the following reasons:
A line of business services provides coarse-grained business functionality that map the business tasks in a business process
Business process is not responsible for knowing any details of the underlying application and technology platforms
- Service contracts for the line of business services provide well-defined and unambiguous interfaces for accessing the services