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University of Illinois at Springfield

Journal Article Review
By
Sadanand Patil.

Instructor: Hamed Saremi.

ABSTRACT:
In this paper we are going to review three journal articles based on Business Process Modeling and Simulation. These articles explain the importance of business process modeling and simulation in business processes. Authors discuss how modeling and simulation is done. We start with some information about the business processes explained by the authors then we will discuss business process modeling and methods of modeling. We will also go through how simulation modeling helps to evaluate alternate business process strategies. We will also discuss benefits of simulation of business process modeling. The purpose of this paper is to give readers idea about the journal articles, whether they are worth reading and importance of these articles and how these articles will help to understand Business Process Modeling and Simulation.
INTRODUCTION:
Ray J. Paul, Vlatka Hlupic and George M. Giaglis explained in their article that due to increasing competition, organizations need to make major changes in their each step of business process.
BPR (Business Process Re-engineering) helps an organization to enhance the business process and also creates new ways in order to gain a competitive edge in a real market. BPR helps to redesign the business system for the enhancement of an organization. Many organizations faced a failure because of many factors such as difficulty in adapting new process, cost to redesign the whole process and lack of equipment’s to predict the effect before the implementation. It was important to find alternative solutions in order to reduce the loss. Simulation modeling is a way of modeling and evaluating alternative business process. Business process modeling helps to analyze/improve current process by increasing the process speed or decreasing the cycle time. It improves quality of the business process and helps to reduce the cost.
M. W. Barnett discussed importance of simulation in a business processes. This article explains simulation as a technology, what is system analysis, discrete event simulation and also what improvements increases the value of simulation. Also future of simulation is discussed in this article. Another article written by Geoffrey Hook does not explain how simulation of a business process model takes place, it tells us about how simulation has been applied by the organizations and adaption of this technique by BPM communities.

BUISINESS PROCESS:
Business process is tasks/activities involved in a business such as manufacturing the produce, sales, service etc. in order to achieve an outcome. A business process starts with a target in hand and ends by achieving that target. It involves many sub-processes. It is similar to the flowchart which has sequence of tasks for writing a program. It helps an organization to eliminate any waste activities which will cause any kind of loss. With the rapid development in technology, change in people and with time running, business processes should be altered. Business Process modeling comes in a role here.

BUSINESS PROCESS MODELING:
Geoffrey Hook explained Business Process modeling in detail in his article. The article says,
Business Process Modeling is a methodology which is widely used by organizations to enhance efficiency and quality. Due to increment in complexity and importance of information and communication in all the sectors including government services, improvisation in a business process has become important factor. Even small scale businesses need a process development. In this case, business process modeling plays an important role.
This concept has been used since 1920s but it became more popular in 1990s. Business Process
Re-engineering became popular through a book named “Reengineering the corporation: A manifesto for Business Revolution”. BPM has evolved through different stages with different names.
It is sometimes called as Business Process Management. There were many techniques in the past such as flow charts and IDEF, which helped to model the process. Nowadays organizations use
UML (Unified modeling language) and BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation). Mainly these techniques are concerned with the flow of work to get a clear understanding and make positive changes. Flow diagram is one of the important aspect in this methodology. BPM can be related to many aspects of management, mainly Quality Management. We can say that BPM is a tool used in the improvement of quality such as Six Sigma. Basically, BPM is a structural representation of process which includes flow of activities.

BUSINESS PROCESS MODELING METHODS:
Article written by Ray J. Paul has done easy for readers by explaining the methods of Business
Process Modeling. There are different methods used by organizations such as flowcharting, UML diagrams, IDEF to get help in re-engineering strategy, management, structure of business process. Simulation is one of these methods. The tools which help to define work flow by describing the text with the help of symbols are called Flow diagramming Tools. Examples of such tool is Easy Flow. Another such tool is CASE tool which provide a conceptual framework for modeling process definitions such as IDEF. The tools which provide dynamic, animation analysis capability are called Simulation Modeling Tools such as Service Model. These are some business Process Modeling methods which are widely used by organizations. These tools are released on the software market. Many of this tools use graphical symbols to represent a business process.
BPM has mapping tools which helps a user to get a clear view of the process being studied.
These tools provide the time required to complete a process. It is important that a BPM tool should be able to evaluate the effects if some changes has been done in a process. Simulation software tools has this capability in them. They show it visually and are able to model dynamics of the process. This helps to enhance the redesigning ideas of the existing business processes.
Simulation is one of the most widely used technique by organizations as it has the potential to recognize the effects before implementing change in a business process.

BUSINESS PROCESS MODELING SIMULATION:
According to the article written by Geoffrey Hook simulation as a technology to support business became popular in 1990s. It is a tool which manages change in a process. Leading an organization is an important aspect from the business point of view and simulation helps to accelerate change in a business process. There were software tools made especially for simulation. Simulation work was mostly related to industrial engineers as it involved mathematical problems. Simulation was designed to find out problems in a business process. Simulators reduce time to build models and also reduce error by using efficient tools. It has been common part of all organizations. Ability to understand the requirements, build a model and ability to spot problems in a business process made simulator successful. Simulation not only provides an answer to a problem but also provides a detailed explanation for it. Simulation can be used as a solution in design as well as management elated problems. It is important to know the working of the process and to make decisions that will help them to understand impact of those decisions. Basically it tells whether processes will work as it was expected to work.
Business Process Simulation plays an important role in an approach of continuous improvement to Business Process Modeling. We can say, it can be used for the analysis of business process. It helps to find out dynamic behavior of processes over time. Organizations can predict the performance of business processes under certain conditions. It helps to test process design, performance and changes. It is the most effective way of preventing problems in a business process.
As Geoffrey Hook explained in his article, simulation helps to test and find out possible improvements in a process before implementing, which in turn saves time and costly mistakes. Analysts strongly recommend simulation technology for all Business Process Modeling tools. That is the reason why all business process modeling has simulation built in. It depends on BPM tools to choose how they want to use the simulators as different BPM tool vendors use different methods but the approach is same. The most latest is BPMN. Modeling software provides a space to model processes. It does not provide simulation. The difference between Business process models and simulation is that Business process models provide a representation of the process being studied and simulation just adds a component which brings the process in work. Models provide boundaries of the system which are supposed to simulate. Information such as timings, resolve availability etc. can be executed with the help of simulation. Such information is added in models. We can consider business process modeling as part of system development cycle (SDLC).
BPM vendors have created many tools and methodologies to know modeling and its analysis.
Modeling is an important part of simulation.
Article written by M. W. Barnett tells us that models can be simple or complex. It depends on the business processes. Simulation tools helps to make detailed models of business processes and it can be complex or very simple. Simulation models can be systems with an interest, systems with clear description of the mechanisms, systems depending on the assumptions and models which are steady-no variation, dynamic-vary over time. Models should not be more complex because it will be useless for the analysis of the system and will create more confusion instead of making it

simple. Simulation experts finds the correct requirements of a model without any extra details.
They are able to filter out the real-world problems so that it can be modeled simply.
Also M. W. Barnett says, Business processes can be transformed successfully by saving the time and solving real problems. These problems are evaluated and solved over a long period of time.
Implementation of these changed processes are not risky because it will work as expected. Also simulation reduces the chances of risk. The hardest part in business process transformation is limiting the time and space which is done with the help of modeling and simulation.
In the article of Ray J. Paul various steps involved in a process of developing models of business processes are explained to understand the whole scenario clearly. It says, one should know the requirements for building a model. Required outcome should be kept in mind. As there are many processes involved, it should be decided which processes are supposed to be involved and which are supposed to redesign. After collecting requirements, amount of data which can be important in the process should be collected and analyzed. Experts and employees decide which data is important and which is not. With important data in hand, a simulation model is developed. In this case, first a simple model is built and then it is expanded as per the requirements. Testing of the model is very important in order to save time and efforts. Model should be tested at every step.
Now the model can be experimented. It should now reduce errors, should be easy/simple to understand. Output should be analyzed and check whether it is as expected.

BENEFITS OF SIMULATION OF BUSINESS PROCESS MODELING:
Ray J. Paul mentioned the benefits of simulation of BPM. Simulation will be helpful in this rapidly changing market as organizations will be able to react quickly as it is possible to expect the effects redesigned processes before implementation which can reduce the chances of failure.
It is easy to understand the modified business process to employees as structure of the process is transparent and description of mechanism are clearly explained. With the help of simulation model, new and various types of ideas can be tested to make a good decision.
AUTHOR’S POINT OF VIEW:
Three papers on Business Process Modeling and Simulation have been reviewed in this paper.
Authors have explained the term differently but the meaning is same in all of three papers.
Article written by Ray J. Paul named as “Simulation Modeling of Business Processes” discussed how BPR (Business Process Re-engineering) failed to provide successful business models in order to improve the productivity. Author has been successful in explaining each term clearly. Author has mentioned the types of modeling tools and examples of it with the clear description of how simulation works in a business process modeling. Steps involved in a development of a model are discussed in this article.

Article written by M. W. Barnett is named as “Modeling and Simulation in Business Process
Management”. This article basically gives clear idea about simulation and working. Author has made every point clear by giving detailed explanation of simulation, how simulation manages change in a business process, use of simulation in a business process modeling, types of simulation models and how this technology is used by organizations. From the definition of simulation to the actual use of simulation in real world is clearly explained by the author in this article.
Next article we referred is written by Geoffrey Hook and is named as “Business Process Modeling and Simulation”. Author has explained how development of BPM has been carried out over time. Article helps organizations to understand how to utilize simulation in a best way and to get full benefits of it. Article tells to focus on the simulation process and be sure and confident about the model. Article also explains why unnecessary data should be avoided and limitations of development process.
All these article has different ways to explain Business Process and Simulation. All these articles are very important as it will help organizations and analysts. After reading these articles I have got a good understanding not only about Business Processes but also about modeling and simulation. There is theoretical explanation of the term as well as application of it. It is useful for organizations as well because in an article written by Geoffrey Hook, how simulation should be used by BPM communities is explained in detail with importance and benefits of it. I will recommend to read these articles. Each and every author has explained the topic clearly. Beginner will also understand the topic thoroughly.

SUMMARY:
This paper gives a complete understanding of each term in Business Process Modeling and Simulation. It starts with the definition of Business Processes which is important as everything in this article is related to business processes. Then we have discussed about Business Process Modeling and importance of it which is explained in an article written by Geoffrey Hook. Business
Process Modeling is a methodology to build a model of a business process as per the requirements with important changes made in it to enhance quality of the process. Next, we reviewed article by M. W. Barnett who has explained why simulation of business process models is a necessary aspect. Simulation manages all the changes made in a business process models. Simulation is one of the widely used tool by organizations as it is accurate and effective. Simulation helps to modify the processes without causing any loss as it predicts the effects of the changes n advance. We have discussed benefits of the simulation. They are explained in an article written by Ray J. Paul. We have also discussed how simulation is helpful for organizations in making profits and being competitive in real market. Overall, this paper gives a detailed review of three journal articles which explains Business Process models simulation and importance of doing it.

JOURNAL ARTICLES:
(Ray J. Paul, 1998)
Ray J. Paul, V. H. (1998). Simulation Modeling of Business Processes.

(Barnett, 2003)
Barnett, M. W. (2003). Modeling and Simulation in Business Process Management. Gensym.

(Hook, 2011)
Hook, G. (2011). Business Process Modeling and Simulation. IEEE, 773-778.