analystview quick start guide 3.0
TRANSCRIPT
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analystView Quick Start Guide
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analystView Quick Start Release 3.0.3
A Quick Start to Configuring, Running, and Optimizing Visio 2010 Simulation Models
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Table of Contents 1 Introduction to analystView ........................................................................................... 4
1.1 Overview of analystView ......................................................................................................................... 4
1.2 Quick Start Overview .............................................................................................................................. 4
1.3 About Global 360 .................................................................................................................................... 4
2 analystView Prerequisites ............................................................................................. 5
2.1 Software .................................................................................................................................................. 5
2.2 Hardware ................................................................................................................................................. 5
2.3 Skills ........................................................................................................................................................ 5
2.3.1 For novice and first-time users of simulation software and BPMN ..................................................... 5
2.3.2 For business analysts leading process discovery initiatives ............................................................... 5
3 Six Steps to Running Simulations with analystView ................................................... 6
3.1 Using the analystView Insurance Claim Processing Simulation Examples ............................................ 6
3.2 Define the simulation scenario ................................................................................................................ 7
3.2.1 What is a scenario? ............................................................................................................................. 7
3.2.2 Building your scenario ......................................................................................................................... 7
3.2.3 The Setup Assistant ............................................................................................................................ 8
3.2.4 General Settings ............................................................................................................................... 10
3.2.5 Data Fields ........................................................................................................................................ 11
3.3 Define resources, including roles, people, systems and time ............................................................... 12
3.3.1 Define Roles ...................................................................................................................................... 12
3.3.2 Define Participants ............................................................................................................................ 12
3.3.3 Define Schedules .............................................................................................................................. 13
3.3.4 Assign Participants to Roles ............................................................................................................. 13
3.3.5 Assign Participants to Schedules ...................................................................................................... 13
3.4 Define activities, including duration and performers ............................................................................. 13
3.4.1 Duration ............................................................................................................................................. 14
3.4.2 Performers ........................................................................................................................................ 14
3.4.3 Routes ............................................................................................................................................... 14
3.5 Define arrival patterns for work items, including frequency and volume .............................................. 15
3.5.1 What is an arrival? ............................................................................................................................ 15
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3.5.2 Adding arrivals information ............................................................................................................... 16
3.6 Run the simulation and review the results ............................................................................................ 17
3.6.1 Configuring Statistics ........................................................................................................................ 18
3.6.2 Running the Simulation ..................................................................................................................... 19
3.6.3 Interpreting Results ........................................................................................................................... 21
3.7 Adjust simulation values to optimize the results, then rerun the simulation ......................................... 21
3.7.1 Express Optimization ........................................................................................................................ 22
3.7.2 Custom Optimization ......................................................................................................................... 23
3.8 Summary ............................................................................................................................................... 25
4 Next Steps ..................................................................................................................... 25
5 Additional Information ................................................................................................. 26
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1 Introduction to analystView 1.1 Overview of analystView analystView dramatically simplifies the challenges of simulating existing (“as is”) processes. It then allows users to capitalize on insights derived from simulating the “as is” process in order to design and simulate future (“to be”) processes. Global 360 has drawn on our experience developing sophisticated business process automation solutions and dashboards to create a simple, powerful, desktop simulation solution.
analystView builds on the power and flexibility of Microsoft Visio Premium 2010 by leveraging its:
» Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) template and stencils
» Easy-to-use Ribbon interface
» Business process validation rules
» Powerful data graphics for enhancing business diagrams
The new ease of use, integration and lower cost of analystView brings sophisticated process analysis and simulation to a much broader audience.
1.2 Quick Start Overview The analystView Quick Start Guide was written for business analysts and process specialists who are responsible for managing and improving work processes. This Guide provides:
» A quick start to learn how to use analystView to configure and build a Visio BPMN simulation and optimization scenario
» A comprehensive feel for the analystView Visio add-in and its key features
» Tips and techniques that will allow users of analystView to enhance and optimize work processes by drawing on the power of Visio Premium 2010 and analystView.
In this Quick Start Guide, the sample simulation is an “as is” insurance claims processing scenario (one of two samples that are included with analystView). See Section 3.1 for additional information about the insurance examples. 1.3 About Global 360 For information about Global 360, see the last page of this document or visit our web site at www.global360.com.
At Global 360, we look forward to your feedback and experience with analystView. Feel free to contact us with support, sales or partnership questions:
Support [email protected]
Sales [email protected]
Partnerships [email protected]
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2 analystView Prerequisites To use analystView successfully you will need the products and skills described below.
2.1 Software » Microsoft Visio Premium 2010
a 60-day trial can be downloaded from www.microsoft.com/office/2010/en/visio/download.aspx
» analystView version 3.0 or later
a 60-day trial can be downloaded from www.global360.com/analystview
» A desktop or laptop PC running Windows 7, Vista or Windows XP
2.2 Hardware Hardware requirements for analystView match those for Visio 2010, as published by Microsoft:
» http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee624351%28office.14%29.aspx#section13
2.3 Skills 2.3.1 For novice and first-time users of simulation software and BPMN
2.3.1.1 Simulation Skills
A classic book that provides in-depth information on modeling and simulation is Simulation Modeling and Analysis, by Averill Law, available in both hardcover and paperback editions.
2.3.1.2 Process Analysis
To learn more about how to analyze processes, download the analystView Analysis Guide at www.global360.com/analystview-support
2.3.1.3 BPMN modeling skills
To use analystView you will need a basic understanding of BPMN and the ability to create process maps using Visio Premium 2010’s BPMN template and stencils. While understanding everything about BPMN is a significant undertaking, you can easily learn enough about BPMN to work effectively with analystView. Two of the top-selling BPMN reference guides are listed here:
BPMN Method and Style: A levels-based methodology for BPM process modeling and improvement using BPMN 2.0 (Paperback), by Bruce Silver
BPMN Modeling and Reference Guide (Perfect Paperback), by Stephen A. White, PhD, and Derek Miers.
2.3.2 For business analysts leading process discovery initiatives
Building “as is” and “to be” maps and simulation scenarios for any business process requires business process discovery. Business process discovery is a technique that is used to construct a representation of your organization’s existing business processes and its major process variations. Techniques will vary from organization to organization, but the evidence gathered through discovery is an important ingredient to configuring process maps and simulation models as discussed in this guide.
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For help with your own process discovery initiatives, Global 360 offers viewPoint Assessment services. For more information about these services, visit www.global360.com/services/service/viewpoint-assessment.
A popular white paper on business process discovery and methodologies is also available at: www.bptrends.com/publicationfiles/05-04 WP Process Discovery - Verner1.pdf.
3 Seven Steps to Running Simulations with analystView Before you begin entering simulation data, it is best to validate your process model. Once you have a valid BPMN process map, there are seven steps involved in creating and running a simulation scenario. The steps are shown in Figure 1 and are described in the remainder of this section.
Figure 1: Seven Steps to Successful Simulation
3.1 Using the analystView Insurance Claim Processing Simulation Examples With a broad range of providers available to consumers, delivering quick, reasonable and accurate claims processing, is key to customer retention. It is critical that the key areas in the organization, where work is backing up or utilization is too low, are quickly identified so that the organization is as productive as possible at delivering a great customer experience.
ACME Insurance Corporation is a large company located in the United States that has more than 6,000 employees across the country. The claims processing unit for a single region has 49 individuals in various teams. Satisfaction surveys consistently show that life insurance claims are problematic. The team has consistently had problems meeting their service level agreement (SLA) of 15-days to complete the resolution of a claim. Improvement of this process at ACME Insurance Corporation started with the organization defining these goals:
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95% completion rate of their 15-day SLA
No claim processing employees in excess of 80% utilization
Keep current staffing levels at 49 individuals
Improve the overall customer experience when processing claims
As a business process analyst at ACME Insurance Corporation, you first need to visualize the current insurance claims process, as it is today. You can use Visio to quickly visualize the current process (as-is) used to process insurance claims. For this exercise, this process map has already been created for you and is installed with analystView. You can open the analystView insurance industry simulation examples by clicking List of example models on the analystView welcome screen.
The sample maps are installed in the Program Files folder when you install analystView. Although the location of the Program Files folder is different on some systems, you will typically find the insurance examples in C:\Program Files\Global 360\analystView\Examples.
Both files were installed on your system in “read only” mode. If you want make changes to the samples, you will need to save it to a new location, such as your Desktop or Documents folder.
Next, you need to incorporate additional detail into the model, including: process activity, participants, resources, time requirements, costs, and so on. The details are paired to the model using analystView. The remainder of this document will step you through this process to allow you to simulate and report on the performance of a modelled business process.
3.2 Getting Started in analystView 3.2.1 What is a scenario?
Before you can run a simulation, you must define a scenario. An analystView simulation scenario consists of two things:
• A BPMN process map • A set of parameters that define “how and what” we want to analyze within the process
It is important to understand that you can use the same process model with different sets of analysis parameters to create multiple simulation scenarios.
3.2.2 Building your scenario
Creating a simulation scenario is not as complex as you might think. We will use the “as is” insurance claims processing scenario throughout this Guide.
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Figure 2: InsuranceClaim-AsIs BPMN process map
When the file opens, the BPMN model is displayed, as shown in Figure 2. In addition, note the Simulation Ribbon in the Visio 2010 Ribbon Bar. This is where you will launch most analystView functions as you analyze and simulate work processes.
The Welcome screen normally appears each time you open a BPMN-based drawing. You can prevent the welcome screen from appearing by checking the Don’t show this screen again option. You can also display the welcome screen at any time by clicking the Help button on the Simulation Ribbon and then selecting Welcome screen.
3.2.3 The Setup Assistant
analystView includes a Setup Assistant that appears whenever you launch a new map from the BPMN template or open an existing map that was created from the BPMN template. The insurance sample maps were saved with the Setup Assistant turned off so you will want to open it to follow the instructions in this Guide. To open the Setup Assistant, click the Panes button on the Simulation Ribbon. The Panes button is highlighted in Figure 2 and causes the Setup Assistant pane to appear on the right side of the screen as shown in Figure 3.
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Figure 3: The Setup Assistant pane with all configuration steps completed
The top part of the Setup Assistant pane shows the status of the configuration steps for building a simulation scenario. In the insurance example shown in Figure 3, the status indicators are all green, indicating that the simulation is ready to run.
Figure 4 shows an in-progress configuration. In addition to two green status indicators, you can see two other conditions:
» Items that are sufficiently complete for the simulation to run but that may still need some additional work, and items that are not complete but are not required for the simulation, are marked with a dash in a yellow circle; for an example, look at Setup Resources in Figure 4.
» Incomplete steps appear with an “X” in a red circle like Setup Resources in Figure 4.
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Figure 4: The Setup Assistant pane with mixed status indicators
You are almost ready to configure the parameters that will define our scenario. Before you dive into that, however, take a close look at the “as is” example on your screen that represents the processing of insurance claims. There are six tasks and one sub-process in the process and one decision point represented by the gateway (diamond) shape toward the right of the diagram. The sequencing of the tasks is shown by the sequence flow arrows between each pair of shapes. Understanding the flow of work through the process is important when you define the scenario for your simulation and analysis of this process.
3.3 Define the Simulation General Settings Your first step is to determine our goals for the scenario. For example, using the insurance claims process as the baseline, you may want to:
Determine throughput rates
Evaluate efficiency of the process
Identify bottlenecks and opportunities for improvement
Figure 5: Simulation Ribbon showing the General button
Given those goals, the scenario description is: Determine throughput, evaluate efficiency and identify bottlenecks in the current insurance claims process.
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3.3.1.1 Set the simulation time
» When the simulation should start
» When the simulation should stop, with these options:
When all the work is done
A certain time period after the start date and time
At a specific date and time
Based on evaluation of a condition
The idea is to set time attributes and conditions that best represent your scenario and allow the simulation to run long enough to capture meaningful statistics about the work being done.
3.3.1.2 Determine how and when simulation statistics should be collected
» Set the Update frequency so statistics collection will occur at specific times. For example, only at the end of the simulation, at every step in the process, or at a specific user-defined level.
» Select a breakdown field, which allows you to subdivide simulation statistics based on field values. For example, to evaluate results based on work type or a similar category.
After the general settings are complete, the Setup Assistant status indicator next to Setup General Settings displays a green “ready” indicator.
3.4 Defining Data Fields After defining the general settings, you can define the data fields associated with the process. As was true when defining the general scenario settings, understanding the elements in the process map is key to setting these fields.
Figure 6: Simulation Ribbon showing the Fields button
There are two types of data fields in analystView: process fields and global fields. Process and global fields provide variables that can be set and read during execution of a simulation scenario. Process fields are created with each item of work flowing through the process, while global fields are created with the simulation scenario and are accessible to every work item.
The insurance example includes two process fields:
» Claim Type This field identifies work types that will be handled by this process. In the insurance process, claim type can be Medical, Dental or Life.
» Amount The insurance example uses this field to track the value associated with each claim. You will see this field name used in various places throughout the claims process for purposes such as establishing routing paths and collecting processing statistics.
After the field configuration is complete, the Setup Assistant status indicator next to Setup Data Fields displays a green “ready” or yellow “acceptable” indicator. Next, define resources.
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3.5 Define resources, including roles, people, systems and time Resources in analystView include the roles, people, systems and time allocated to completing work in your process. For example, an individual may be assigned to the Claims Supervisor role and is responsible to processing work within specific schedules, timeframes and activities.
To get started, click the Resources button on the Simulation Ribbon to define Participants, Roles and Schedules.
Figure 7: Simulation Ribbon showing the Resources button
The best sequence for defining resources is to:
1. Define roles 2. Define participants 3. Define schedules 4. Assign roles to participants 5. Assign schedules to participants
3.5.1 Define Roles
A role is a defined job function to which participants will be assigned. Job roles are independent of individual participants or systems doing the work. This keeps the process independent of the individuals involved at a high level, making it easier to change, improve and assign work activities and sequencing.
3.5.2 Define Participants
Participants are the people, systems or machinery that complete the activities defined in your BPMN process model. Note that the insurance example happens to include only human participants.
After you create a participant you can define the characteristics of that participant. Participant characteristics include:
» Setting the quantity. You might set the quantity to more than one if there are multiples of a certain type of machine or system, or if you have multiple people performing identical work. This feature is quite helpful in large organizations where many people are capable of performing the same tasks. The insurance example includes a quantity of four for Bob’s Team. Whenever you expect to have multiple instances of a participant, it often makes sense to use a group name like “Bob’s Team” or “Electricians.”
» Setting the hourly rate. The hourly rate field is used to calculate process cost each time a participant completes an activity. While there are no units associated with this field, simulation statistics will reflect your Microsoft Windows currency settings.
Quick Tip
An alternative to manually entering data for a simulation scenario is to upload participant data from a comma-separated value (CSV) file. Many applications can create and read CSV files, including Microsoft Excel. For additional information, see the analystView User's Guide.
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3.5.3 Define Schedules
Schedules control when people and systems are available. Examples of schedules are: Work, Break, Holiday or Vacation. After you create the schedules, you can define the duration and time units. In the insurance example, the Work Shift is 9 hours long and the Lunch Break is 60 minutes.
After defining the duration of a schedule item, you can assign a start time. In the insurance example, the Work Shift starts 8 hours after the simulation begins.
3.5.4 Assign Roles to Participants
After creating participants, roles and schedules, assign roles to your participants in the simulation. You can assign roles to participants using either a role-centric view or a participant-centric view. The former allows you to assign a role to multiple participants in a single step; the latter allows you to edit advanced settings, such as schedules and performance of the role assignments for a single participant.
3.5.5 Assign Schedules to Participants
The final step in configuring simulation resources is to assign schedules to participants using either a schedule-centric view or a participant-centric view. The former allows you to assign a schedule to multiple participants in a single step; the latter allows you to fine-tune the schedule assignments for a single participant.
After configuring the resources, the Setup Assistant status indicator next to Setup Resources should show either a green “ready” or yellow “acceptable” indicator.
Next, define activities.
3.6 Define activities, including duration and performers The next task is to define how long it takes to complete each activity in your process, indicate who or what performs the work, and optionally define other characteristics of each activity. For Gateway activities and tasks that have multiple exit paths, you can also identify the conditions under which each exit path will be selected.
Click the Activities button on the Simulation Ribbon to set simulation parameters for the activities on your BPMN process map.
Figure 8: Simulation Ribbon showing the Activities button
You will configure each activity by defining Duration, Performers, and Routes.
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3.6.1 Duration
Indicates how long this activity should take. Most activities vary in length depending on the nature of the incoming work. One of the best features of analystView is the ease with which you can specify variable activity durations, either by using built-in functions or by designing your own.
The insurance claim examples use Uniform distributions for activity durations. The Uniform distribution produces random numbers that are evenly distributed between two values you specify. For example, uniform(5,8) will generate a uniformly distributed random number between 5 and 8, inclusive, so it might generate a 5 for one work item, 6.5 on the next, 8 for a third item, and 7.32 for the last item. You can specify any numbers you like with the Uniform distribution, but for an activity duration, the numbers must be positive. Negative numbers in the Duration field will cause runtime errors in the simulation.
The most commonly used distributions for activity duration are Uniform and Triangular.
3.6.2 Performers
In most cases, you will assign performers to activities by role. However, you can also assign specific participants as performers. 3.6.3 Routes
Routes tell analystView how to determine which of several exit paths to take from an activity. The route settings are critical to accurate simulation results and may require some experimentation so they reflect the nature of your work process.
You can route work by assigning weights. By assigning weight values, you are setting relative probabilities that any given output path will be chosen at the conclusion of the activity.
Alternatively, you can set conditions for each exit route. At the conclusion of the activity, analystView will start at the top of the list to determine whether each condition is true. The simulation will continue on the first path whose condition evaluates to true. If you use conditional routing you must identify one route as the default in case not of the conditions evaluates to true. See the Claim Type route in Figure 9.
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Figure 9: Selecting exit routes by condition
After configuring activities, the Setup Assistant status indicator next to Setup Activities should show either a green “ready” or yellow “acceptable” indicator.
3.7 Define arrival patterns for work items, including frequency and volume 3.7.1 What is an arrival?
An arrival in analystView represents the creation of one or more work packages within your process. When you define an arrival, you define where it starts in the process along with its arrival time, pattern and quantity. You can also indicate whether there are data fields associated with the arrival (see section 3.4 for information about data fields).
Figure 10: Simulation Ribbon showing the Arrivals button
To define an arrival, click the Arrivals button on the Simulation Ribbon as shown above, or click the Open Arrivals Settings link at the bottom of the Setup Assistant pane. At this stage of the scenario set up process, most of the configuration work is complete.
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3.7.2 Adding arrivals information
In the insurance claims example, the existing arrivals are called Claims - Life, Claims - Dental and Claims - Health. Each of these claim types originates at the Start activity, passes through Data Entry and arrives at Claims Review. By simulating the process, you could find a bottleneck at Data Entry or Claims Review if there are insufficient resources.
After creating an arrival you can define its arrival characteristics: Batch, Field Values, Pattern, and Pattern Repeat.
3.7.2.1 Batch
» Define when this type of arrival will start to happen and how many arrivals will occur in each batch. The start time is defined in one of three ways:
Start Indicates that the first arrival will happen as soon as the simulation begins.
Relative The default selection for arrival time is Relative, which tells analystView to initiate this arrival at a specified time interval after the simulation begins. In the insurance example, the first Claims - Life arrival happens 8 hours after the simulation begins.
Date/Time Or you can choose Date/Time to enter a specific date and time for the first arrival of this type.
» Specify the number of work packages in each batch.
After defining the start value and package size, you are ready to provide data field arrival information.
3.7.2.2 Field Values
Select data fields that you would like to associate with this arrival type. For numeric fields, it is highly likely that you will want to use one of the distribution functions to generate values for you.
In Figure 11 you can see the fields for the Claims – Life arrivals type.
Figure 11: Setting arrivals field values – Claim Type
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You can also enter a value for the Amount for auto insurance claim arrivals. For example, you can define a uniform function which generates random values greater than or equal to $200 and less than or equal to $10,000.
3.7.2.3 Pattern
In a typical work process, the Pattern determines how work is created during a work day or shift and the Pattern Repeat (see section 3.7.2.4) describes how this happens over multiple days.
A work pattern can take two forms: No Repeat (where work packages will only arrive once during each simulation run) and Repeat (determines how often arrivals occur and when they should stop).
3.7.2.4 Pattern Repeat
analystView provides an additional option to repeat the arrival patterns you have created. Similar to the pattern option, you can select No Repeat if you only want one batch of a particular work type to be processed. However, for most scenarios, you will select Repeat.
In the Insurance example, the Pattern Repeat for Claims - Life arrivals will continue to repeat every week day. The pattern repeats itself seven times with an hour interval.
After configuring arrivals, the Setup Assistant status indicator next to Setup Arrivals should show either a green “ready” or yellow “acceptable” indicator.
You are now ready to run the simulation!
3.8 Run the simulation and review the results In most cases, you could actually start your simulation at this point, however, there is one last thing to check – the configuration of the statistics that will be collected during your simulation run.
Figure 12: Simulation Ribbon showing the Statistics button
To configure statistics, click the Statistics button on the Simulation Ribbon, which opens the Timed Sequences tab shown in Figure 13.
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3.8.1 Configuring Statistics
3.8.1.1 Timed Sequences
Normally, analystView collects statistics about the entire process and about each activity within a process. Timed sequences allow you to track statistics for a specific sequence of activities instead, which is especially useful if you plan to optimize a process. Think of it this way – a timed sequence lets you zoom in on a particular part of a process so you can analyze it more effectively. Timed sequences are also useful for measuring performance against service level agreements; for more about this topic see section 3.8.1.3.
Figure 13: Configuring statistics
After selecting the beginning and ending activities, you can tell analystView whether to start and stop data collection when entering or exiting from each activity.
3.8.1.2 Logged Events
Logged events can be used to capture data about work passing through a specific point in your process.
The High amount research event in the insurance example is configured to log events only if the claim amount is greater than 50,000.
3.8.1.3 Service Level Agreements
The final optional activity in the Statistics category is to configure service level agreements (SLAs). This is helpful when you need to determine whether your current simulation scenario can meet service level targets that have been established between service providers and service consumers in your organization. Figure 14 shows an SLA from the insurance example that is based on the research activity.
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Figure 14: Configuring service level agreements
3.8.2 Running the Simulation
Figure 15: Simulation Ribbon showing the Run button
Now that the configuration is complete, you can run the simulation!
Normally at this point, all of the indicators in the Setup Assistant pane should be green, as shown in Figure 16 for the insurance example. However, you can run the simulation even if some are still yellow. (Yellow indicators will appear for items that still need additional work but are sufficiently complete for the simulation to run, and for items that are not complete but aren’t required for the simulation to run.)
Click the Run button on the Simulation Ribbon as shown in Figure 15 to launch your simulation.
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Figure 16: Insurance "As Is" scenario is ready to run
While your simulation is running, the screen will look like Figure 17. Notice that two additional window panes have appeared:
» Execution Located on top of the process map: this pane includes a progress indicator plus Start, Pause and Reset buttons.
» Simulation Results Located below the process map: this pane is split into two parts; the left side provides clickable links to various categories of data; the right side displays data for the selected category.
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Figure 17: Simulation in progress
3.8.3 Interpreting Results
Above each activity on the map are two blue numbers: the first is the number of work items that arrived at that activity; the second is the number of work items that were completed successfully. Although all of the work was completed for the activities shown here, it is important to look at the second number to identify tasks that are not completing all incoming work.
The default view in the Simulation Results pane displays the overall scenario statistics contained in the Status category.
3.9 Adjust simulation values to optimize the results, then rerun the simulation
Optimization may be the most important step in our seven-step process. It can identify bottlenecks, poor worker or resource allocation, inefficient sub-processes and other areas for improvement. The results you receive from running an optimization may suggest changes to your work processes that could have a direct effect on your business.
Now that you have the results of your first simulation run, you can see what the optimization wizard suggests for our insurance claims process. However, before you look at the optimization results for the insurance process, let’s review the options provided by analystView optimization.
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Figure 18: Simulation Ribbon showing the Optimize button
To launch optimization, click the Optimize button on the Simulation Ribbon as shown in Figure 18. The button is available after successfully completing a simulation run.
To help you identify areas for optimization, analystView has two options: Express Optimization and Custom Optimization.
3.9.1 Express Optimization
This is the simplest form of optimization because it runs automatically without requiring you to configure or change anything. Express Optimization targets the activity with the longest waiting time, and optimizes that activity by adding additional participants whose utilization levels were low during the simulation run. In effect, Express Optimization “cross trains” participants so they can fill in, when needed, in the activities with the heaviest workloads.
In the simulation results, each area in red shows a huge amount of wait time, and subsequent inefficiency within this process. When you run express optimization, the Optimization wizard reports the changes it has made and then reruns the simulation. After the simulation is run, there are still a lot of areas that need improvement, the reduction in red and yellow status bars and the increase in green status markers, shows that running the express optimization has improved some process completion issues.
Figure 19 shows the comparison between the optimized simulation (“Current run”) and the non-optimized results (“Previous run”). Notice that the completion ratio for life insurance claims has gone from 35% (marked with a red progress bar) in the previous run to 96.8% (marked with a green progress bar) after Express Optimization.
Figure 19: Express Optimization comparison with previous simulation run
While Express Optimization takes advantage of the “low hanging fruit” of process improvement, often by addressing resource utilization or lag time between activities in a process, you may be able to achieve even better results with Custom Optimization.
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3.9.2 Custom Optimization
Custom Optimization provides an intelligent wizard to help you through the process of improvement according to specific goals the organization is aiming to reach. This option allows control over optimization to achieve:
» Improved completion times
» Enchanced completion and wait ratios in and between activities
» Better resource utiliization
» Improved compliance with Service Level Agreements
» Identification of training and process improvement opportunties
Using custom optimization, you can attempt to optimize the entire process, a specific timed sequence within the process, or the activities involved with a Service Level Agreement. Selecting any option will display key statistics for each item in that category. When reviewing the key statistics, keep in mind that the longest wait times might not be for the busiest or most important activities, just the ones with the longest waits.
The following figure shows the Participant Cross Training statistics in the Optimizer. You can review the data for each participant and decide which participants that you would like to cross train. They will then be applied to the work of the target task selected in the Optimizer. Cross training is a simple and easy way to cut lag times and improve productivity.
Figure 20: Cross training opportunities with greatest wait times
The Optimizer also helps you to see participants who are over utilized. Very high utilizations are likely to cause real problems. Therefore, some reassignment of work or creation of additional resources is a good idea. You can use the Optimizer to “clone” a participant by increasing the Quantity. You can also increase the cost of a participant to make them less desirable for this work.
After you complete the optimization, the simulation run begins again, with the revised parameters. The optimizer always optimizes one activity at a time. You should continue to run the optimizer until the process is performing as it should.
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Figure 21 shows a comparison of the previous simulation run with the results of the Custom Optimization. As you can easily see from the color bands, the recommended set of changes has dramatically improved our overall process execution.
Figure 21: Completed Custom Optimization results
In addition to the status summary shown above, be sure to view the other entries at the left of the Simulation Results window to see additional process data.
Quick Tip
You can also use reports to view process data summarized in tabular formats that can be printed and saved.
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3.10 Summary The BPMN process modelling and simulation exercise for ACME Insurance Corporation provided a clear understanding of what the current (as-is) process was and concise changes that they could take to meet their goals. With these specific changes in place, ACME Insurance Corporation’s revised (to-be) process resulted in:
» A 20% reduction in utilization claims processing staff
» The staff exceeding their 95% completion rate service level agreements (SLA)
» Dramatic improvements to the quality of customer interactions
At this point, you should be familiar with analystView to configure and run your own simulation scenario. You should also know enough about the “as is” insurance claims processing example that you can refer to it for assistance as you continue to explore the power of analystView.
We hope you have enjoyed learning about analystView and that it will become an important part of your work as you design, analyze, simulate, and optimize effective business processes.
4 Next Steps Congratulations on your completion of the analystView Quick Start! There is an enormous amount that you can learn about process simulation by experimenting with analystView. We strongly suggest that you take time to work with the insurance examples in more detail. For example, change the design of the process; alter the participant and role lists; try a work schedule of four 10-hour days instead of five 8-hour days; test different arrival scenarios.
In addition, work with your own processes. Pick a simple process you know well and for which you have some process metrics. Create a BPMN model of your process and configure a simulation scenario. Configuring your own scenario will require you to undertake process discovery exercises related to the business processes you are trying to optimize. Then run the simulation and see how close the results are to the measurements of your actual process. Can you adjust the map or the simulation parameters to get a closer match?
Try running both express and custom optimizations of your process. Did you discover anything about your process that you didn’t know before and might be able to improve? Try testing a different set of arrival parameters or resource allocations to see what you get.
Then tackle a more complex process…
Finally, show your colleagues what you’re doing with analystView. Explain to them how it is not only helping to improve your understanding of your processes but how it is helping to improve the processes themselves.
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5 Additional Information In addition to this guide, you can find information and assistance for using analystView in the following locations:
» analystView online help You can view the online help in a variety of ways:
Click the Help button on the Simulation Ribbon
Press F1 or click the question mark (?) in any analystView configuration dialog box
» Screen cam tutorials, online training, training seminars, online help, and support information are located at http://www.global360.com/products/process-discovery-analysis.
» Computer Based Training The Quick Start Guide is intended as a quick introduction to analystView BPMN simulation modeling. If you are interested in learning about the more advanced features of analystView, Global 360 offers a two-day, self-paced computer based training (CBT) course. The CBT course includes topics such as:
Learn to use additional features to create BPMN-based process maps, assign process attributes to maps, and set up and run process simulations through hands-on, self-guided exercises.
managerView reporting for advanced simulation analysis and dashboards.*
Visio Services for SharePoint 2010 to allow sharing and collaboration on models and simulation scenarios.
SharePoint 2010 as the process repository for Visio Premium 2010.
XPDL Import/Export for process automation. Process maps from Visio 2010 can easily be exported to Global 360’s Process360 for SharePoint and Case360 solutions for process automation. This topic is covered more extensively in instructor-led courses from Global 360 entitled analystView Essentials for Process360 and analystView Essentials for Case360.
To find out more information or register for training, visit http://www.global360.com/services/training-course-descriptions at the Global 360 web site.
* If you have managerView, a powerful Global360 product for performing detailed analysis on simulated and production processes, you can define settings to integrate with managerView. To learn more about managerView features and functions, visit http://www.global360.com/products/product-list#614.
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Global 360 helps organizations to better manage processes today and make improvements for tomorrow. Our market-leading process and document management solutions improve business performance by maximizing the productivity of all participants in a process. Our more than 2,000 customers in 70 countries have reduced paper, automated processes and empowered individuals to truly change how work gets done.
Global 360, Inc. is headquartered in Texas with operations in North America, Europe, and the Pacific Rim. For more information about Global 360's process and document solutions, call 1-214-520-1660 or visit the company web site at www.global360.com
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