ARIS Expert Paper

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ARIS Paper
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The Art of Sustained

Process Improvement
- A Practical Guide -

www.ids-scheer.com
 ARIS Expert Paper

The Art of Sustained Process Improvement

– A Practical Guide -

In recent years, business process modeling has emerged as a proven tool for About the author:
transparent documentation of process flows and identifying weaknesses.
Comparison with target processes helps to identify improvement potential
and boost corporate performance long term.
ARIS supports Business Process Management (BPM) in its entirety – from
strategy definition and process design through to implementation and moni-
toring of the executed processes.
This paper describes a typical business process transformation project,
where the aim is to systematically align processes with strategic corporate
objectives. In the course of the four phases (strategy, design, implementa-
tion, and controlling), you will learn which Britta Hilt
Senior manager, joined IDS Scheer
- Standard ARIS methods in 1995. She advised leading
multinational companies on man-
- Standard ARIS reports and analysis tools aging business processes with
ARIS for many years.
you should use to ensure the desired results as the project progresses. The insights she gained provide
valuable input for the ongoing
development of packaged ARIS
products. This ensures they
Find out: remain fully aligned with cus-
 How can you deploy packaged ARIS products, such as ARIS tomer requirements, thereby facil-
Business Architect, to consistently achieve your various itating sustained process improve-
ment.
corporate objectives?
 How do organizations go about transforming their business
processes?
 What are the standard methods, reports, and analysis tools
offered by ARIS Business Architect and ARIS Business
Publisher that enable companies to achieve their objectives in
the individual phases?

1 Introduction
Depending on the task in hand and its complexity, a variety of proven methods
(ARIS Value Engineering1) and ARIS Platform products are available.
This paper looks at “only” two ARIS Platform products in detail:
 ARIS Business Architect
 ARIS Business Publisher
The powerful methods, reports, analysis functionality, and communication
options they provide as standard are sufficient to achieve many of the objectives
associated with a business process transformation project.
Any outstanding areas can be covered by deploying the ARIS Platform product
that suits your specific need, such as ARIS Business Optimizer (e.g., for contin-
uous process cost management and resource planning), ARIS Six Sigma (for
more efficient implementation of your Six Sigma projects), and ARIS Business
Simulator (e.g., for dynamic time analysis and monitoring of end-to-end process
cycle times in the context of service level agreements).

Contact:
1 ARIS Value Engineering and the Business Process Transformation scenario combine the experience of countless national and international arisproductmarketing@ids-scheer.com
process transformation projects covering a range of industry sectors.

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2 Business Process Transformation or: How Complex Is the World?

2.1 The roadmap phases

Business process transformation is a project-based method for business process analysis and optimization.
To transform your company, you will execute the four roadmap phases displayed here. However, depending on your
objective and the complexity of your application scenario, certain work packages within the phases will always be imple-
mented, while others will be optional. This allows you to follow a proven method, but flexibly adapt it to your corporate
reality, whether simple or complex.
Strategy phase: In this phase, you assess the market and compare your products and services with market require-
ments to define objectives and identify strategic processes.
Design phase: This phase is about shining a light on the current situation and deriving your desired reality in the form
of target processes.
Implementation phase: The results of the design phase are turned into reality here as you transform your organiza-
tional structure, processes, and, if necessary, your IT environment. Creating a process-oriented enterprise that incorpo-
rates a BPM governance model is vital here to ensure sustained success.
Controlling phase: As the logical consequence of every process transformation project, this phase reveals whether
your defined objectives are being achieved in the long term, enabling corrective action to be taken if needed.

Fig. 1: Business Process Transformation – Roadmap

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2.2 How complex is your enterprise?

Depending on individual circumstances, the above roadmap may be
executed multiple times, rather than just once, which obviously leads
to greater complexity. This makes it all the more important that stan-
dards are both
 available, and
 complied with.
The project used here as an example involves the rollout of a uniform
software system (for example SAP) across a company to standardize
processes and the IT environment. Such a project is naturally not
restricted to a particular country – processes need to be the same
throughout the enterprise, from Sydney to New York.
Here, the above roadmap cannot be applied just once. Rather, it is
implemented by each country/region.
 To start with, the business process transformation roadmap is
executed at the central level (corporate divisions) and a global
process template is created. This global template includes doc-
umentation of all relevant target processes to be supported by
Fig. 2: Global and local process design
SAP and a preconfiguration of the SAP system.
 Next, the regions are provided with the reference models and
preconfigurations, with the reference processes being adapted to country-specific circumstances. It is vital that this
flexibility is possible, despite the desire for standardization2. The subsequent execution of the four roadmap phases
at the local level thus leads to differences between the original reference model and the country-specific process-
es.
 If several countries modify the same part of the reference processes, it is likely that the reference structures have
not been optimally tailored to market needs. The regional process adaptations are therefore consolidated and eval-
uated at the global level, resulting in a new, improved version of the global reference model for distribution to the
various locations. These improvements are then reviewed critically by all regions and either accepted or rejected.
It is also possible to use other sources, such as industry-specific reference models or horizontal reference models like
ITIL3 and EasySCOR4, to create best-practice process models (either centralized reference models or local adaptations)
based on existing knowledge.

2 Country-specific strategies, objectives, and market factors may vary from the global standard; regional legislation may also necessitate process variants.

3 Information Technology Infrastructure Library (reference model for the implementation and operation of IT service management systems)

4 Supply Chain Operations Reference Model (reference model for supply chain design and analysis)

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3 Standard Methods in the Strategy Phase

3.1 Procedure
In the strategy phase, you begin to develop an overview of your business
environment, i.e., by analyzing your products and services and aligning
them with current or anticipated market conditions. Your products5 may
be weighted differently in different markets, of course. It is important
here that you define critical success factors, so that you can work
towards your objectives in a targeted manner.
The next step is a critical market analysis designed to identify how far
your company is from achieving its desired objectives and where it
stands compared to the competition.
It is now a simple matter to identify the processes that are key to achiev-
ing your aims. Instead of viewing processes solely in terms of individual
functional areas, they must be viewed holistically at this stage, i.e., from
end to end. This is crucial in order to properly identify the process areas
that matter most.

3.2 Standard report and analysis tools

3.2.1 How can you analyze your markets? Fig. 3: Strategy phase
The tool used for detailed market analysis is the business segment
matrix, which enables you to compare and evaluate your products in the context of the corresponding markets. This will
provide fast, reliable answers to the following questions:
 Where does my organization stand today?
 Where does it need to be tomorrow?
 Which members of my organization are key to achieving its objectives?
 Which products must my organization offer?
 Which markets should be prioritized?
 Which products are relevant for the defined markets, both now and in the future?

Fig. 4: Business segment matrix

5 The word “product” can also refer to a service.

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ARIS provides a variety of analysis options to transparently evaluate your business segments, including key success
factor analysis. This tool gives you a fast overview of your company’s goal achievement and highlights critical areas.
The resulting graphical summary displays and assesses the relevant key success factors for each business segment.
The analysis answers questions, such as the following:
 How is the company performing in its critical business segments?
 How is your strongest competitor performing?
 Will you still be competitive in the future?
The current situation is clearly revealed for each rel-
evant business segment, enabling the key processes
to be defined so that they are consistent with market
conditions and strategic objectives. So far, so good –
but to what extent are these processes embedded in
your organization? The answer is provided by a
process map covering the entire company, which
highlights your core, management, and support
processes.

Fig. 5: Main critical factors analysis

3.2.2 How can you design your process map?

A process map provides a bird’s eye view of your organization’s core processes. It is the first step toward examining the
relevant individual processes that need to be analyzed in order to achieve the defined objectives. You can either start cre-
ating your process map from scratch or adopt a
much faster and simpler approach by leveraging an
industry-specific reference model. These models
contain predefined process content, which you can
select according to certain criteria. The result is
your own enterprise model that draws on industry-
specific best practices. Reference models are even
more important in the design phase, though,
because they deliver detailed process knowledge
“on a plate” that you can then adapt to your organi-
zation’s requirements (see 4.2.1).
Having defined the process map, you now need to
evaluate the processes that are key to your goal
achievement. To do so, you can use tools, such as
the standard process evaluation, which analyzes
each process in graphical form in terms of its per-
formance and the extent to which it meets relevant Fig. 6: Process assessment
success factors.

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3.2.3 How can you efficiently define your master data?

A process is not just a workflow – it also has other aspects, such as organizational structures, IT, data, and risk.
The term “master data” is often used here because this information is common to multiple processes.
Example:
 The role of “sales assistent” is involved in both the quotation process and the order process.
 The same IT system is required for sales and production processes.
While you have the option of defining master data
from scratch very flexibly in ARIS, this information is
often already available in existing company sources,
e.g., HR systems. By simply importing this data, you
can transfer the organizational structure from your
HR system into the ARIS repository via a predefined
Excel table, for example. Transferring master
data in this way allows you to automatically create
all the required elements, such as organizational
charts, IT environments, product portfolio, etc., and
make them available for modeling.
As well analyzing processes, you can evaluate
your IT environment and thus visualize it in terms
of critical factors and the investment required.

Fig. 7: IT system assessment

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4 Standard Methods in the Design Phase

4.1 Procedure
Having identified the critical processes in the strategy phase, you now
need to zoom in and define your target processes. Depending on the
project objective, this step can involve a greater or lesser degree of
detail.
To come up with the suggested improvements that will form the basis of
the target processes, the current situation needs to be analyzed both
dynamically and statically. Selected standard reports and analysis tools
for this phase are described below.

4.2 Standard reports and analysis tools

4.2.1 How can you define your processes?

As in the strategy phase, you can either start from scratch or leverage
accumulated process expertise by drawing on industry-specific or hori-
zontal reference models. These sources provide detailed process mod-
els, which include typical
 required data input or generated data output
Fig. 8: Design phase
 indicators relevant to the individual process steps to facilitate per-
formance measurement.
The process flow is described in intuitive fashion across multiple levels in a way that enables easy navigation. Using
these reference models can significantly reduce the time needed for process design and simultaneously improve process
quality.
Thanks to the process transparency now achieved, it is a simple matter to analyze your processes for weaknesses and
identify the necessary improvements. This step is thus all about designing your target processes.

4.2.2 Which analysis options are available to support process design?

ARIS offers a range of standard analysis tools to facilitate work in the design phase.

How will your organizational structure change?

One option consists of evaluating your process map using a
RASCI chart6. A RASCI chart is a responsibility matrix that
evaluates all the (old and new) processes and provides infor-
mation on
 who is involved
 in what capacity
 what activity they are performing
 whether their involvement is active or passive.
This chart is an excellent way of providing employees with a
clear overview of individual responsibilities, enabling changes
to be made quickly and efficiently. Fig. 9: Responsibility matrix (RASCI Chart)

6 RASCI stands for Responsible / Accountable / Supportive / Consulted / Informed

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On which design are your processes based on?

Another option is flexible evaluation using different
aspects. This report provides information, such as
 which IT systems are used in which processes
 which data is needed as input or output in which process-
es
 which risks are “hidden” within which processes.
This gives you powerful options for creating a view of your
processes that meets your specific requirements.

Fig. 10: Process-oriented IT evaluation

How can you customize the evaluations to suit your target groups?
In addition to standard reports, you can quickly and
easily create custom report scripts without the
need for programming skills.
These ad hoc reports enable you to assemble all
the content you want to export to Word or Excel
with just a few mouse clicks, aided by a wizard. You
can thus produce individual, targeted process
analysis reports and result presentations.

Fig. 11: Ad hoc reporting

How expensive are your processes, and how long do they take?
Process optimization is often about achieving time and cost savings compared to current processes. Available as a stan-
dard analysis tool, time/cost analysis functionality compares potential target process improvements with the actual
time and cost of existing processes. Specific data is maintained for this purpose, such as the duration of a process step.
You can analyze a single process or multiple processes, making it possible to quickly identify process steps that are par-
ticularly costly or time-consuming (in terms of processing time or unnecessarily long wait times).

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How streamlined are your processes?

Structural analysis is a further option and enables you to ascertain whether
 your IT systems support the entire process smoothly (i.e., there are no inefficient IT transitions)
 the process is embedded in your organizational structure without any “frictional” losses (i.e., there are no inefficient
organizational transitions)
 data is processed in a continuous flow (i.e., there are no inefficient
media transitions).
If you discover that a process has multiple organizational transition
points, a number of employees will be involved in its execution. This
results in unnecessary wait times and means that the relevant users con-
stantly need to respond and react. This simple analysis identifies critical
gaps in IT support, organizational responsibility, or data consistency. The
analysis results are particularly useful if you compare the actual process
with the target process. Fig. 12: Structural process comparison

How can you flexibly analyze process-relevant factors?

Flexible classification analysis makes it possible to classify all process
content according to your own criteria. For example, you can quickly estab-
lish whether your process steps add value or not, or identify the level of
automation in your processes. The resulting parameters can be used as the
basis for comparisons.

Fig. 13: Flexible process analysis

You can identify, for example

 whether your target process has delivered the planned improvements over the as-is process
 which process variants have performed better in terms of goal achievement (e.g., achieving loan process targets in
the private customer segment compared to performance in the business customer segment).
This analysis covers every aspect, e.g., it also takes into account
 IT systems
How many piloted systems are being used?
How many systems will be shut down in the near future?
 Risks
What is the rate of high-probability risks compared to low-probability risks?

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What can you achieve by getting a different view of your processes?

Changing your viewpoint can often provide insights into
weaknesses and scope for improvement. With the help of
standard functions, you can analyze processes from differ-
ent angles.
 Generate a column-based flow display from a process
flow. Because the columns represent departments or
IT systems, you can easily identify the departments / IT
systems involved in the process and whether the
process involves many pairs of hands or is executed
by just a few departments, for example.
 Although each subprocess may be logical and correct,
insights into any inconsistencies only emerge when
Fig. 14: Dynamic views
the complete process has been generated in an end-
to-end view.
 A valuable alternate view for IT staff is one that shows which IT systems support which process steps, as opposed
to a display that focuses only on processes.

How can you involve everyone in the change process?

To be successful, change management must ensure that the agreed changes are actually implemented. This has an
impact on various roles. These roles include people who
 make the suggested improvements
 are responsible for implementing them
 execute the defined tasks.
Each of these roles has its own areas of responsibility and separate requirements, which are all supported by ARIS.
Weakness reports provide users with point-and-click functionality to list all your suggested improvements for the
process in the relevant context. They reveal the processes and activities in which weaknesses have been identified, as
well as the improvement potential.
The weaknesses are then prioritized and assigned to the relevant staff members. Task lists can be created at the push
of a button for these employees, enabling them to quickly identify whose job it is to implement the improvement options,
and how.

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5 Standard Methods in the Implementation Phase

5.1 Procedure
The implementation phase is all about converting theory (i.e., the results
of the design phase) into practice.
After all, even the best-designed process is of no use if it is left to gather
dust and people continue to work as before.
In addition, process changes often impact a company’s organizational
structure and IT systems.
To ensure sustained success, you need to establish a process-oriented
enterprise, which entails continuous critical assessment of your
processes. Using a BPM governance model, you can embed the process
management concept throughout the organization.
So how can you ensure that your improved process design has the
desired effect?
The process participants must
 be informed about the changes, and
 take ownership of them.
It sounds easy enough in theory – but the human element should not be Fig. 15: Implementation phase
underestimated!
ARIS offers a variety of valuable options here.

5.2 How can you make process changeover easier for your staff?
Employees may need the overall context to better understand the
rationale behind changes, but they also need a description of the
new processes tailored to their specific situation. One option is to
create job descriptions for all relevant processes and roles.
These reports can be provided for all employees in the form of a
Word document, for example.

Fig. 16: Job description

Pinpointing the differences between old and new

processes is another important way of supporting
change in the organization. A version comparison
makes it easy for staff to understand what is new
about the target process. To make this possible, a
model is versioned and compared as soon as it has
been completed and approved. You can also use
this graphical comparison to help define training
requirements.

Fig. 17: Version comparison between as-is and to-be process

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A key tool in the transition from theory to practice is publishing and

target group-specific representation in ARIS Business
Publisher. Every employee can home in on the processes relevant to
them and use dynamic views to display only the data they need.

Fig. 18: Target-group specific publishing

6 Controlling

6.1 Procedure
Once the strategy, design, and implementation phases have been
completed, it is necessary to establish how the operational process-
es are actually being executed in your company. Questions that
need to be answered include:
 Were your strategic objectives properly implemented?
 Did the transactions defined during process design yield the
desired benefits?
This check is essential to make sure that your project objectives are
achieved. All too often, practical deployment reveals that defined
processes do not run smoothly the way they were designed.
Unfortunately, reality tends to be much more complex than antici-
pated.
The graphic below shows
 the newly designed target process on the left-hand side
 the target process as it actually executes on the right-hand
side.
Fig. 19: Controlling phase

It is immediately apparent from the multiple loops that the new-

ly designed target process is taking a circuitous route to reach
its objective.
The desired process improvement can only be considered a
success if its associated objectives have also been achieved,
i.e., the executed business processes have not only been effec-
tively and efficiently designed and implemented, but they remain
effective and efficient. To measure this success, you can use a
sampling approach or ongoing critical assessment of goal
achievement.

Fig. 20: Designed process versus executed process

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6.2 How can you evaluate your processes using sampling?

Random sampling involves monitoring performance improvement at a specific point in time.
If conducting a manual evaluation, you can ask the process participants whether performance has improved, and how.
You can also use indicators captured automatically by the various IT systems, such as the time taken from receiving a
call on the hotline to providing a final answer. However, because a process is often supported by multiple IT systems and
each system can only provide its own indicators, results are not always meaningful.

6.3 How can you comprehensively and continuously evaluate goal achievement?
The above procedure is not efficient in terms of monitoring success on an ongoing basis. For effective continuous meas-
urement, you need to
 avoid manual surveys as far as possible
 ensure that all relevant measurement results are clearly presented by an IT system, regardless of whether your
enterprise uses one or several IT systems to implement your process from end to end.
ARIS Process Performance Manager performs pre-
cisely this task by recording and displaying business
processes automatically. You can thus continuously moni-
tor process performance (quantity, time, cost, and quality),
which is measured in real time via the process-supporting
IT systems. ARIS PPM enables intuitive ad hoc analysis for
process improvement and identifies behavioral patterns in
organizational structures. Using actual data, the process-
es are compared with their target values and analyzed. An
efficient early-warning system for critical performance
indicators guarantees control and transparency of your
process performance at all times, enabling you to take the
appropriate action and respond rapidly to potential prob-
lems.

Fig. 21: Continuous process analysis and benchmarking

With ARIS Process Performance Manager, you can quickly

and easily pinpoint the cause-and-effect chains that impact
on performance. A dashboard that provides a management
view of your processes enables you to keep tabs on current
performance in critical areas. Color coding ensures instant
identification of weaknesses. If errors or exceptions occur,
the relevant person is immediately informed so that correc-
tive action can be taken and the error eliminated. This guar-
antees a high level of process quality. Your process partici-
pants benefit from interactive value chains, process traffic
lights, trend information, and KPI documentation. ARIS
Performance Dashboard thus enables central integra-
tion and target group-specific display of the relevant
processes, thereby ensuring continuous measurement of
your process performance.
Fig. 22: Management view on process performance

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Here you can find the described example reports:

Folder of
Name in Text Chapter Report Name Location of evaluated model Evaluation
Script
Strategy / Objectives / business segments UMG
Key success Main critical factor
factor analysis 3.2.1 analysis
Automotive by markets [Business segment BPM
matrix]

Process Processes / process architecture / enterprise

assessment 3.2.2 Evaluate Process
process map (Value-added chain diagram)
BPM

You can create a template (Folder: Evaluate – Report – Create template for data import),
Transferring
master data 3.2.3 add all relevant information in this Excel sheet and import it again (Folder: Evaluate –
Report – Import data in Excel format).
United Motors Group / 4. IT Systems / Systems /
IT system
assessment 3.2.3 System evaluation 01 System Inventory / IT Systems (domains) IT Architecture
[Application system type diagram]
United Motors Group / 2. Processes / Process
Responsibility
architecture / Core processes / Marketing & Sales
matrix 4.2.2 Export RASCI Chart
(as-is processes) / Sales process / Sales order
Default
(RASCI Chart)
processing [EPC]
Output model United Motors Group / 2. Processes / Process
Process-oriented information architecture / Core processes / Marketing & Sales
IT evaluation 4.2.2 considering various (as-is processes) / Sales process / Sales order
Default
aspects processing

ARIS Business Architect (module Administration) offers you to create ad hoc report
Ad hoc reporting 4.2.2 scripts. Please refer to online help, chapter Help Topcis - Creating scripts.

United Motors Group / 2. Processes / Process

Time and cost Analyze times / architecture / Core processes / Marketing & Sales
analysis 4.2.2 costs (as-is processes) / Sales process / Sales order
Analysis
processing
United Motors Group / 2. Processes / Process
Structural
Analyze application architecture / Core processes / Marketing & Sales
process analysis 4.2.2 systems (as-is processes) / Sales process / Sales order
Analysis
and comparison
processing
Processes / Process architecture / Core processes
Flexible process Analyze / Marketing & Sales (As Is processes) / sales
analysis 4.2.2 classification order management (as is) / sales order
Analysis
processing / sales order processing (as is) [EPC]
Processes / Process architecture / Core processes
Generate position / Marketing & Sales (As Is processes) / sales
Weakness report 4.2.2 description order management (as is) / quotation processing
Default
/ quotation processing (as is) [EPC]

Processes / Process architecture / Core processes Change

Task list 4.2.2 task list
/ Marketing & Sales (As Is processes) management
Processes / Process architecture / Core processes
Generate position / Marketing & Sales (As Is processes) / sales
Job description 4.2.2 description order management (as is) / quotation processing
Default
/ quotation processing (as is) [EPC]
Version United Motors Group / 2. Processes / Process
comparison architecture / Core processes / Marketing & Sales
Right mouse click
between as-is 4.2.2 on model
(As Is processes) / Sales process / contract --
and to-be negotiation & conclusion / contract negotiation &
process conclusion (as is) [EPC]

All examples are included in UMG demo database of ARIS 7.1+

The UMG (UNITED MOTORS GROUP) is the virtual demo company of IDS Scheer AG

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ARIS Expert Paper

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