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  Method and apparatus of on demand business activity management using business performance management loopsUSPTO Application #: 20060111921Title: Method and apparatus of on demand business activity management using business performance management loops Abstract: An architecture, system, and method are provided for a commitment loop solution for on demand business activity management. A Business Performance Management (BPM) loop is defined as a set of nodes each relating to different tasks for processing performance management trigger data generated by a business entity in real time, where the beginning or sensing element of the loop is triggered by a token (representing a business event from a business process) and the ending or executing element provides a business action to be implemented by the business entity. The token is passed from node to node sequentially in a particular order around the loop. Processing of the data represented by the token is governed by policies, which can be changed dynamically and follow a life cycle. On demand business activity management of larger aggregates of business entities (i.e. enterprises and value chains) is achieved by extending this architecture by building upon the BPM loops of the component entities to form a BPM net, adding nodes as necessary. This architecture, system and method can be implemented at multiple levels of granularity from operational or tactical business activities to enterprise wide strategic activities. (end of abstract) Agent: Whitham, Curtis, & Christofferson, P.C. - Reston, VA, US Inventors: Hung-yang Chang, Shyh-Kwei Chen, Pawan Chowdhary, Jun-Jang Jeng, Liangzhao Zeng USPTO Applicaton #: 20060111921 - Class: 705001000 (USPTO) Related Patent Categories: Data Processing: Financial, Business Practice, Management, Or Cost/price Determination, Automated Electrical Financial Or Business Practice Or Management Arrangement The Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20060111921. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention generally relates to business process management and, more particularly, to frameworks for business process management that facilitate adaptive monitoring and control. [0003] 2. Background Description [0004] To succeed in today's business environment, an enterprise needs agility. Businesses must respond to changing customer needs with flexible systems and processes. Unfortunately, most enterprises are slow to respond to both the problems occurring in its organizations and the changes of requirements from customers. Static processes that cannot adapt to changing needs are a liability. Enterprises are scrutinizing the effectiveness of their business and information technology (IT) operations to identify opportunities for greater efficiencies. [0005] Business performance management (BPM) has emerged as a critical discipline to enable enterprises to manage their business solutions in an "on-demand" fashion, that is, so that the business solution changes rapidly to accommodate changing demands in the marketplace. BPM applications are intended to promote an adaptive strategy by emphasizing the ability to monitor and control both business processes and the IT events that support these processes. In theory, by coordinating the business and IT events within an integrated framework, decision makers can quickly and efficiently align IT and human resources based on the current business climate and overall market conditions. Business executives can leverage the results of core business process execution to speed business transformation, and IT executives can leverage business views of the IT infrastructure to recommend IT-specific actions that can drive competitive advantage. [0006] However, in practice most BPM processes and architectures are linear and rigid and are very hard to change once they have been developed and implemented. To change the requirements of these BPM systems is sometimes like building a completely new application, which costs time and money. Some enterprises attempt to increase the flexibility and agility of business processes by introducing dynamic workflows and intelligent rules. However, this kind of approach is hard to model, deploy and maintain. In the BPM domain, business analytics are commonly incorporated into business monitoring and management systems in order to understand business operations in a deeper sense. Nevertheless, most functions provided by business analytics are performed in batch mode, which compromises the ability of the management system to determine business situations and resolve exceptions in a timely fashion. It is challenging to run business analytics in a continuous manner. In general, it is extremely difficult to model, integrate and deploy monitoring and control capabilities into larger scale business solutions (e.g. supply chain management) so that the business process can be managed dynamically. [0007] Current technologies for dynamically adapting IT systems to changes in the business environment, where the IT systems are serving an interrelated structure of business units, are inadequate in a number of particulars. There is no agreement on how monitoring and management capabilities should be defined and deployed to the customer's environment. Further, existing workflow models are process-centric, for reasons of efficiency and cost, but many business problems arising from changes in the business environment can be more easily solved using a mission-centric analysis, i.e. what an organization is obligated to do. Also, two-party service management based on service-level agreements (SLAs) cannot handle commitments crossing lines between business units in a complex organization. Finally, existing rule-based expert systems for decision support do not provide end-to-end reasoning for business commitments and capabilities. [0008] There are several existing efforts directed toward the general problem area of adaptation to changing business conditions, but each of these efforts is deficient. An approach using the name "Ponder" provides a policy language for a distributed management system, but fails to consider modularized policies for different granularities and levels of abstraction in business process management. The Holosofx Monitor is based on time and cost only, and fails to provide a generic concept for business process management. There is no quality of service management of the wider value net within which a particular business process operates. A framework for specifying and monitoring Service Level Agreements for Web Services (WSLA) provides a web service based language to specify IT level service agreements, but there is no supporting and scalable infrastructure for handling monitoring and management capabilities. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION [0009] It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a set of modularized policies for business process management that are adaptable for different granularities and levels of abstraction within a complex business structure of interrelated business activtities. [0010] Another object of the invention is to provide a supporting and scalable infrastructure for building monitoring and management capabilities at the business unit, enterprise, and value net levels. [0011] It is also an object of the invention to provide an architectural framework for building business performance management (BPM) systems that overcomes the constraints of a currently available linear based design. [0012] The present invention provides a policy based BPM framework to address the above issues. In general, a BPM system is a system for sensing stimuli in the business environment, interpreting perceived data to detect exceptions, determining alternatives for overcoming the exceptions, and deciding how to respond to the situation presented. A policy based BPM system using BPM loops establishes an on-demand platform for business performance monitoring and control. The central notion of this kind of BPM system is the BPM service. A BPM system having BPM loops manages multiple instances of a BPM service within a shared IT infrastructure. Each service is developed as either a Web service or a service on grid of servers. We define the BPM loop framework as delivering BPM services to multiple service customers over the Internet to form a shared service-oriented architecture. Each instance of a BPM service in this BPM loop architecture can be viewed as a utility computing service environment. A defining feature of a BPM loop framework in accordance with the invention is the sharing and management of highly heterogeneous resources with the constraint that user expectations will be satisfied from both functional and non-functional perspectives. Similarly, a policy based BPM loop system is able to integrate, monitor and control functions so that these functions are available to managers on a continuous basis. [0013] The core of this modular and scalable invention is a system for business performance management of a business unit. The business unit is defined by business processes. The business processes generate events, which are detected by the BPM system (e.g. via probes) and represented by tokens. The central component of the system is a BPM loop comprising a plurality of nodes, including at least a sensing node for receipt via the tokens of event data corresponding to a business event, as well as an execution node for sending action data to a business unit to be implemented in response to the business event. The transformation of event data into action data by the nodes of a BPM loop is governed by policies. Each token is passed sequentially from node to node in a particular order around the BPM loop, beginning with the sensing node and ending with the execution node. Application of a policy at a node is triggered by the token. Another aspect of modularity is that each node comprises a data acquisition element for acquiring data from another node, a data processing element for transforming data in accordance with one of the policies, and a data output element for transmitting data to another node. A further aspect of the invention is that the tokens are handled in real time, beginning with receipt of event data at the said sensing node and continuing with transformation of the event data in accordance with policies as the token is passed from node to node around the BPM loop, and ending with the transformed action data being sent to the business unit. Yet another aspect of the invention is that the policies may be adapted dynamically, including removal or addition of nodes in response to changes in the business process or changes in monitoring and control objective pertaining to the business process. [0014] Building upon the foregoing core features, BPM loops can be combined by driving the sensing node of an additional BPM loop with an event not from a business process but rather from the data output component of a node (not necessarily the execution node) in another BPM loop. The token functionality is the same. In this fashion it may be understood how a network of BPM loops may be established, BPM loop by BPM loop, so as to dynamically adapt and expand business performance management capabilities to multiple business units forming an enterprise and multiple enterprises forming a value chain, as demand may require, without having to remove the modular and adaptable BPM loops and policies from their respective business units in order to undertake a BPM re-development effort. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS [0015] The foregoing and other objects, aspects and advantages will be better understood from the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment of the invention with reference to the drawings, in which: [0016] FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a business activity management cycle. [0017] FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the life stages of a business policy life cycle. [0018] FIG. 3 is a schematic of a business performance management node. [0019] FIG. 4 is a schematic showing a BPM loop composed of BPM nodes. [0020] FIG. 5 is a schematic showing a BPM Net composed of BPM loops. [0021] FIG. 6 is a schematic showing strategic, operational and execution levels within an enterprise, together with BMP loops connected to form BMP capabilities horizontally within a level and vertically across levels. Continue reading... Full patent description for Method and apparatus of on demand business activity management using business performance management loops Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims Click on the above for other options relating to this Method and apparatus of on demand business activity management using business performance management loops patent application. 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