how to succeed with process automation: the zen of automation

© Blue Slate Solutions 2011 May 11, 2011

How to Succeed with Process

Automation: The Zen of

Automation

Zen: emphasizes enlightenment for the student by the most

direct possible means, accepting formal studies and

observances only when they form part of such means. dictionary.com

© Blue Slate Solutions 2010

About Blue Slate Solutions

About – Founded in 2000, headquartered in Albany, NY

– Operations, strategy, technology and industry experts

Services – Specialize in improving and transforming operations

through business process transformation and IT

integration • 100s of projects that have resulted in scalable, maintainable

platforms for growth

• 75%+ of Blue Slate projects leverage business rule engines or

business process management tools

– Technology agnostic and not a reseller

– Business rules driven solutions have resulted in ROI

upwards of 2000% and 40% improvement in

departmental productivity

2


Agenda

• Means change, ends do not

• Benefits of a service oriented architecture

• Structure and organization of workflow

• Structure and organization of business rules

• Automating workflow and business rules

• Industry-specific point solutions

• Extended value of rule engines

3


Means Change, Ends Do Not

4


Why Do We Use Computers?

• Data Access

– Have to define what to store

• Repeatability

– Have to tell it the process

• Computation

– Have to encode the logic

• Speed

– Have to get out of the way

5


Same Automation Goals, Different Development Tools

• Increasing abstraction

– 1940s – Programming through wiring

– 1950s – Low-level instructions (Machine language)

– 1960s – High-level instructions (COBOL)

– 1970s – Structured (Fortran/C)

– 1980s – Object-oriented (C++/Smalltalk)

– 1990s – Event-driven (Visual Basic, Delphi)

– 2000s – Engines (Workflow, Rules, Content)

• More capability, more complexity, different risks

6


What is Programming?

• Providing a set of instructions to a computer

dictating data, workflow and rules

– Supports human intervention at fixed points

– Allows decisions in predefined ways

– Reads and writes structured and unstructured data

7

1 OPEN 1,8,15,“students”

2 PRINT “Student name”

3 PRINT “or DONE to end”

4 INPUT A$

5 IF A$ = “DONE” THEN 8

6 PRINT #1, A$

7 GOTO 2

8 close 1


Tool Advancement

• Move thinking from micro to macro

• Reduce fine-grained control

• Prefer groups to individuals

• Simplify reuse and expect

commonality

• Focus on goals not means

• Still require programming

– Integration

– Logic

– Error handling

– Security

8


Benefits of a Service Oriented Architecture

9


Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)

• 1970s – Messaging

– MQ

• 1980s – Client-server

– ODBC

• 1990s – ORB

– CORBA

• 2000s – Web services

– SOAP, REST

10

Connect systems together to share data and logic


Services are Easy, Syntax is Hard

11

Schauen Sie

Kontoinformationen für

39217839

Nom: Jane Doe:

Couverture:

Bâtiment: 200000

Biens Personnels: 50000

Responsabilité: 100000

Visualizzare il registro delle chiamate per Jane

呼籲2011年2月16日討論加入汽車保險的投資組合。決定等待一個決定


XML Represents How

<interaction>

<request>

Visualizzare il registro delle chiamate per

Jane

</request>

<response>

呼籲2011年2月16日討論加入汽車保險的投資組合。決定等待一個決定

</response>

</interaction> 12


Schema Represents What (Syntax, Metadata)

<account>

<name>Jane Doe</name>

<accountnumber>39217839</accountnumber>

<type>Homeowners</type>

<coverages>

<structure unit=“USD”>200000</structure>

<property unit=“USD”>50000</property>

<liability unit=“USD”>100000</liability>

</coverages>

<latest_notes_available date=“2011-02-16”/>

</account>

13


Canonical

• Standardized model for

exchanging information

– Database schema

– Class diagram

– XML schema

• Provides a contract for

system communications

• Requires significant, robust and engaged

governance

• Most challenging component of SOA

14


Why SOA?

• Externalizes business

mission and strategy

• Provides forum for effective

communications

• Creates the services

plumbing once

• Anticipates ands formalizes

incremental change

• Encourages flexibility and agility (loose coupling)

• Promotes interoperability and integration

15


Structure and Organization of Workflow

16


Workflow

• Processes

– Tasks

– Decision points

– Information

17

People Systems Documents

Manual Structured Unstructured

Workflow Orchestration Content

management

Human-centric System-centric Document-

centric


Baseline

• Current state will involve human-human, human-

system and system-system interactions

• Often driven by people and movement of

documents

– Email

– Fax

– Printout

– Handwritten form

• Third-party involvement

– Customers

– Vendors

18


What to Document

• Goal is to leverage automation

• SIPOC is valuable

– Suppliers

– Inputs

– Process

– Outputs

– Customers

• Key points

– Manual data

• Source

– Manual steps and decisions

• Knowledge

19


Signals for Workflow Automation

• External system lookups

• Reviews and approvals

based on risk

• Department handoffs

• Long-running processes

• Missing metrics

• Regulatory traceability

• Document collation and

generation

20


Structure and Organization of Business Rules

21


Business Rules

• Logic

– Computation

– Assertion (retraction)

– (Decision)

22


Where Do You Find Business Rules?

• Documentation

• Regulations

• Existing applications

– Source code

– Document management flows

– Configuration files

• Interviews with SMEs

23


How Do You Document Business Rules?

• Decision Table

• Pseudo code

– If applicant.age < 16 or applicant.age < 17 and

applicant.homestate = “TN” then accept_app = “no”

• Natural Language

– If the applicant is under the age of 16, or the applicant’s

home state is Tennessee and his or her age is < 17, then

the bank cannot accept his or her loan application.

24

IF Rule 1 Rule 2 Rule 3 Rule 4

Age <16 <17 >=16 >17

State * TN <>TN TN

THEN

AcceptApp No No Yes Yes


Business Rule Classification

• Volatility

• Simplicity

• Effectivity

• Reusability

• Ownership

• Sensitivity

25


Signals for Business Rule Automation

• Regulatory traceability

• Missing metrics

• Companywide visibility

• Multiple channels

• Point-in-time applicability

26


Automating Workflow and Business Rules

27


Automation

• Trust

• Integrate

• Encode

• Version

• Execute

• Broaden

28


Trust

• Businesses must trust that their process is being

automated with excellent fidelity

– Non-technical clarity of definitions is a goal of workflow

and rules environments

– Audit logging is a feature of most workflow and rules

environments

• Success must require business oversight and

participation

• Success must not require business ownership of all

workflow and rules “development”

29


Integrate

• Workflow uses Business Rules and Data

– Workflow drives the business’ processes

– Business rules incorporate the business’ decision and

computational logic

– Data represents the business’ stored and computed

knowledge

• Shared vocabulary (canonical)

– Simplifies coordination between components

– Reduces errors in implementation

– E.g. misinterpretation of information

30


Encode

• Features (Human, System, Document)

• Proprietary – Product-specific

– Domain specific language (DSL)

• Standards – XMI

– Workflow • BPEL, BPMN

– Rules • RuleML, SBVR

– Data • SQL

• Portability?

31


Workflow Representation

32


Business Rule Representations

33


Version

• Workflow definitions, rules, XML schemas and

database schemas all represent source code

• Goal is agility but if pieces are out of sync system

will not work

• Must maintain versions and define release

processes

– Complexity added due to proprietary versioning built into

many tools

• Make sure to separate versioning from effectivity

34


Execute

• Straight through processing (STP)

• Exception processing

• Assignments

– Individuals

– Teams

• Status

• History

• Repeatability

– Version

– Effective date

35


Broaden

• Automated processes lend themselves to external

interaction

• Assignments to contact a third party may be

augmented by screens or services for direct third

party use

– Process and data remains consistent

– Business still controls touch points

– Third party takes on work – productivity and accuracy

benefits

• Extending assignments within workflows is a

powerful feature of these environments

36


Industry-specific Point Solutions

37


Common Aspects of Point Solutions

• Workflow, rules and data structures prebuilt

• Self-contained integration

• Limited flexibility

– Configure and extend within constraints

• Product fit assessment

– Industry standards

– Commoditization

– 80/20

38


Advantages

• Out-of-the-box operation

• Requirements largely dictated

– Industry best practices

– Typical process steps

– Common decisions

– Standard practices

• Updates

– Regulatory changes

– Bugs

– Feature requests

39


Limitations

• Tightly-coupled

• Missing general-purpose

features

• Become one-of-many

components

• Proprietary schemas (often)

• Fine line between configuration and customization

• Business demands may promote one-off

applications

40


Extended Value of Rule Engines

41


Rule Engines Beyond Workflow

• Houses and executes logic

– What-if scenarios

– Versioned lookups

• Security

– Role transformations and checks

– Execution boundaries

• Trends

– Rule utilization

– Rule outcomes

42


Complex Event Processing (CEP)

• Leverages business rule engine capabilities – Respond to changing state

• Extensions to support related concepts – E.g. temporal reasoning, aggregation, correlation

rule “Freezer Failing for Vehicle"

when

$n : Number( intValue > 25 )

from accumulate

( $tr : Temp( $veh: vehicleId)

over window:time( 10m ),

average( $tr.temperatureValue ) )

then

$veh.alert(“Freezer failing”);

end

43


Closing thoughts

• Automation and externalization must be trusted

before significant value will be found with these

components

• Workflow and rules engines realize their maximum

potential when leveraged together in an SOA

environment

• These are development tools that add agility and

business visibility to system implementations

• No product is a panacea

• Training for business analysts and developers is

important – Tool use and requirements/design approaches

44


Your Turn

Please participate by

submitting your questions

Thank you for taking the

time to attend this webinar

45


Contact Us blueslate.net

David Read, CTO

518.810.0400

[email protected]

46

Shawn Firehock, Managing

Director

518.810.0378

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]