NetWeaver是业务流程平台business process platform（BPP）
什么是业务流程business process?

什么是业务流程管理business process Management（BPM）? Why BPM?
什么类型的流程适合BPM？
BPM有哪些标准和方法？BPM有哪些工具、软件？BPM跟SOA有什么关系？

A business process or business method is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks that produce a specific service or product (serve a particular goal) for a particular customer or customers. It often can be visualized with a flowchart as a sequence of activities.

There are three types of business processes:

1.Management processes, the processes that govern the operation of a system. Typical management processes include “Corporate Governance” and “Strategic Management”.
2.Operational processes, processes that constitute the core business and create the primary value stream. Typical operational processes are Purchasing, Manufacturing, Marketing and Sales.
3.Supporting processes, which support the core processes. Examples include Accounting, Recruitment, Technical support.
A business process begins with a customer’s need and ends with a customer’s need fulfillment. Process oriented organizations break down the barriers of structural departments and try to avoid functional silos.

A business process can be decomposed into several sub-processes, which have their own attributes, but also contribute to achieving the goal of the super-process. The analysis of business processes typically includes the mapping of processes and sub-processes down to activity level.

Business Processes are designed to add value for the customer and should not include unnecessary activities. The outcome of a well designed business process is increased effectiveness (value for the customer) and increased efficiency (less costs for the company).

业务流程的特征：characteristics for a business process.

1.Definability : It must have clearly defined boundaries, input and output.
2.Order : It must consist of activities that are ordered according to their position in time and space.
3.Customer : There must be a recipient of the process’ outcome, a customer.
4.Value-adding : The transformation taking place within the process must add value to the recipient, either upstream or downstream.
5.Embeddedness : A process can not exist in itself, it must be embedded in an organizational structure.
6.Cross-functionality : A process regularly can, but not necessarily must, span several functions.
Frequently, a process owner, i.e. a person being responsible for the performance and continuous improvement of the process, is also considered as a prerequisite…

综上总结一下：业务流程是为满足特定客户需要，具有明确的边界及次序的一系列增加价值的活动。这些活动的参与者是人、设备、其他应用程序.业务流程并不是一成不变，随着商业环境的复杂和频繁的变化，业务流程就需要通过科学的方法进行控制和管理，这就是业务流程管理（business process Management，BPM）,通过BPM优化和高效管理业务流程，降低企业的运营成本，提高对市场需求的响应速度，争取企业利润的最大化。

Tags: BPM, business process