Key Notes update - Business Transformation Day 2019

- Gülsüm Ucuran

On September 26th, our Business Transformation Day will take place at our customer Merck KGaA in Darmstadt. With a panel of key note speakers and participants from diverse organizations we will discuss how BPM delivers tangible benefits. The topics will span from global ERP template programs to enterprise quality management and operational excellence.

Please look forward to: 

  • Managing multiple ERP templates and projects within a single integrated BPM platform.
    Carsten Schöne, Business Process Owner Govern to Enable, Merck KGaA

  • Process orientation in pharmaceutical research and development - a BPM approach to quality management.
    Marc Seyfarth, Head of R&D Business Process & QD Management, Merck Healthcare KGaA

  • Implementing BPM from scratch - Set up a process approach in a research-driven environment.
    Julian Paulisch, Business Process Manager, Miltenyi Biotec GmbH

  • The fate of system process documentation after go-live. Template governance and as-is process documentation in a multi-site set-up.
    Katharina Koston, Project Manager, Phoenix Contact GmbH & Co. KG

Additional group discussions and breakouts provide the space for stripping away the jargon and jointly create new insights.

The participation is free of charge. 

  • 26.09.2019, 9:00 - 16:00 Uhr

  • Darmstadt

Please understand that the number of participant space is limited. More information about the travel accommodation and the event flyer will be sent to the registered participants shortly.  

Agile in GxP CSV Environments: The Concept

Are you skeptical or convinced about the compatibility of agile IT system implementation and Computer System Validation (CSV)? You didn’t make up your mind yet? Or are you just hungry for information? In any case, if you are looking for an opinion about when and how to apply an agile approach (or Scrum – used interchangeably) on regulated projects, keep reading. To make the most out of this article however, you should have basic project management, agile and GxP or CSV knowledge. 

In this article, I show how to apply Scrum on projects where the technical solution must undergo CSV (see the “How to Scrum?” section). As such, I touch on how Scrum artefacts do match to the validation documentation. Before talking about how to apply Scrum however, I start by sharing my thoughts on when to apply Scrum (see the “When to Scrum?” section). This agile framework is so much more than a way of working. It is also a way of thinking. Understanding this is key to agile implementations. 

Read further here

Business Flows Release 4 Available Now

- Rachael Föcker

Business Flows Release 4

Since our last release in July 2018, we have reflected on our project experience and customer feedback and spent the last several months improving Business Flows once again. From our experience in Business Transformation and process design initiatives, it is clear is that an End to End (E2E) perspective fosters operational excellence. The principle is to iteratively define a standard set of processes and (re)use these in various combinations to reflect all operational varieties in the business flows.

For the sake of ‘house-keeping’ this set of (unique) processes requires a structured view on the process inventory. This is typically accomplished in a repository by sorting the processes into process groups according to functional criteria.

We, frankly speaking, didn’t publish the process groups until now, as we didn’t want to distract from the core E2E focus of Business Flows.

Using Business Flows in various customer situations has shown that a reference model for the functional grouping of processes as well as a structured repository (defining the business process master list, BPML) is of great benefit.

We are, therefore, happy to announce that we have updated our published architecture and conventions in order to bring you another perspective to Release 4 of our Best Practice Reference Model: Process Groups.   

Process Groups

The introduced process groups are structured according to the SCOR top-level entry structure. Leaning on this widely used framework simplifies initial orientation for process experts with various backgrounds without limiting us to functional silo thinking.

Our Process Groups cluster individual processes in a functional representation similar to operational departments. For example, within the Customer Relationship Management functional group you will find a collection of processes for strategically shaping the relationships and interactions of an organization with existing and potential customers, including planning and execution of campaigns, gathering and qualification of leads, and the generation and distribution of marketing materials. Our classified functional building blocks offer a streamlined approach to gather the relevant business experts to review, adapt, and agree the reference model according to their business operations. In this sense, the combination of the Process Library and E2E view accelerate adapting operational processes to support company strategy. 

We adopted established SCOR framework terminology across the supply chain: source, make, store, sell, and service and extend it by design, plan, service, integrated management system, enterprise management, and quality & compliance management. 

Figure 1: Process Library

In addition to providing a functional view on processes, the process groups also allow us to accommodate for stand alone processes that do not typically map to an E2E process such as generation of reports, modification of sales order or purchase orders, or maintenance of Master Data processes that needs to be included in a comprehensive BPML.

With the introduction of the process groups, we have taken the initiative to replace the generic departments on the level 2 processes with the respective process group allocation indicating functional responsibility.  This decision was made to incorporate feedback on frictions when customers were mapping the reference content to their individual organizations and corresponding role definition and naming.

Figure 2: E2E Scenario - Inbound Logistics

As I write this the team has started working working on the next release of Business Flows where we will provide you with new E2E domains including Forecast to Plan (F2Pl) and Hire to Retire (H2R) with their respective process groups covering Human Resources, Sales and Operations Planning and others.

We are curious to receive your feedback and why not discuss the new concept and content live at our customer event in September - so save the date and come to exchange on how business transformation is a capability, not a project!

In case you want to have a closer look at our reference content, feel free to get yourself a free trail.

Business Process Experts becomes bpExperts

-Jochen König

Working to support our customers in business transformations with services and products we have updated our company name and graphic design to express our focus and dedication: bpExperts is clearly to the point and driving business process innovation.

2012 when we decided to create our own firm we had a very clear idea of what the core of this company should be: Consulting customers on analyzing their existing business processes and catalyzing the design and implementation of new and improved ones. And it would have to be done based on a thorough methodology and honed in years of hands-on expertise of what actually works.

Brooding about potential names for the enterprise we first tried all sorts of acronyms and puns based on the founders names and even experimented with creating a flashy neologisms as has been fashionable at the time with companies in life science and finance. But none of the options outperformed the down-to-earth descriptive name we eventually went for: Business Process Experts

This name describes perfectly well who we are and indicates what we do. The only drawback is: 24 characters, not even counting the 5 additional needed to append the " GmbH"! Ever tried to fit that into a visitor reception form? Forget it! Our customers quickly took a pragmatic approach and referred to us by our web domain and so did most colleagues internally.

Valuing experience-rooted, goal oriented pragmatism over blind orthodoxy we feel it is high time to formally adopt the name that expresses our origin and ambition, and that clearly works: bpExperts

Seizing the opportunity we also brushed up our logo and web appearance harmonizing it with our Business Flows brand. The new design expresses the clarity and stringency we implemented in our business process reference model and project operations. The bright yellow and the interwoven arrows symbolize the agility we gain when working from a solid foundation and open collaboration.

I hope you like the new look as much as we do!