BusinessOptix's Process Transformation functionality enables business analysts to:

• more easily document a future state process from your current state process model
• show process owners and other stakeholders the current, future and change state and to quickly switch between them
• capture high-level metrics on the costs and revenue associated with activities in the current state process model and how costs and revenue change in the future state
• rapidly iterate and produce the information needed for your business case

Getting Started with Process Transformation

One of the samples BusinessOptix provides in every library is called Process Transformation. The business process is a simplified HR onboarding process that is used to demonstrate many of the features of modelling process change.

Browse to system/samples/process transformation to load it.

When you initially open the process model you are shown the change state view of the process. In this view, BusinessOptix uses colour shading to indicate whether in the future state process model the activity is being kept, modified, dropped or added. 

To change the view from current state, to changes, to future state, click on the View tab from the design menu.  Choose the View selection for viewing transformation differences e.g. changes, current state (as is) or future state (to be)

Adding Metrics to Your Current State Process Model

For all of the elements in your current state process model, you can enter metrics. The metrics you are asked for will vary depending on which process element you are viewing.

A BusinessOptix Transformation is not a simulation and does not take into account whether resources are available to complete the activity. If you are looking to understand resource usage, optimisation or the impact of changing resource availability then please review BusinessOptix's Scenario capabilities.

For the Process

In order to quantify the benefits/costs of the process transformation, you start by entering the quantity of work.

Select the Process and in the Metrics tab complete:

• Annual Volume - the number of process instances occurring on average per annum
• Maximum Annual Volume - this metric is only required if you are also using BusinessOptix Process Scenarios.
• Percentage Annual Growth - what change in work volume do you expect year on year. Enter a negative percentage if you expect the process volume to decrease.

Activity Metrics

For each activity, you will be asked to record a variety of time and financial metrics. For each time you can record in seconds, minutes, hours, days, months or years. The metrics you will need to enter include:

• Wait Time - the time that you typically have to wait before this activity can start
• Max Wait Time - the maximum wait time before this activity can start
• Work Time - the typical amount of time to carry out this activity
• Max Work Time - the maximum amount of time to allow to carry out this activity

For the financial metrics BusinessOptix you will need to enter:

• Number of FTE - this refers to how many FTE are required to complete a single instance of the activity. For example a contact centre call would be one, a delivery that requires two people to move the good would be two, moving a patient in a hospital could be more.
• Responsible Role - If you have set a responsible role in the Details property tray it will show here. If you need more than 1 FTE and they are different roles (e.g. Doctor and Nurse) you will need to use Process Scenarios.
• Role cost per hour - this is the hourly cost set in Master Data for the role. 
• FTE cost per hour - if you don't have the role or role cost set-up in Master Data or you need to override the cost per hour then enter the cost here.
• FTE time cost - the calculated costs of performing this activity in mean working time.
• FTE fixed unit cost - along with time based costs do you have a cost per activity instance associated with the FTE. For example this activity includes a fixed call-out fee of $100 plus the time related costs.
• Other fixed unit costs - for capturing non-FTE costs associated with each activity instance. For example postage, packing, delivery, printing.
• Per Unit Revenue - if by completing this activity you will collect some revenue then enter it here.

Gateway

When you have a gateway with alternative paths you will need to enter the probability of the process following each of the paths. You enter this on the links coming from the gateway. 

Select a link and on the metrics tab, you enter the probability. Probability is represented here as a percentage with a value between 0 and 100. You do not need to enter a probability on the last path as BusinessOptix will calculate the remainder.

Documenting Your Future State Process Model

In your future state business process, you will be making decisions about which activities are staying the same, being modified or are no longer required.

Changing a Process Activity

For any process activity that is being changed in the future state you need to select the activity and on the transformation tab you select the appropriate transformation:

• Keep - this activity remains unchanged in the future process state;
• Drop - this activity is no longer required in the future process state. You then have the option of entering some free text information on why this activity is no longer required;
• Add - if this a new activity then mark it as an add. For new activities, you do not need to enter any current state metrics, but you will need to enter some future state details;
• Modify - when you are making changes in the activity select this option. You will need to enter any attributes on the activity that change. You do not need to enter everything, only the attributes that are changing

If you are adding or modifying the activity in the future state you will need to enter details on what is being changed.

An activity in the future process state can be modified by:

• Activity Type
• Systems used
• Wait Time
• Maximum Wait Time
• Work Time
• Maximum Work Time
• FTE Count
• FTE Cost
• Per Unit Cost
• Per Unit Revenue

Changing a Gateway

In the same way that activities are changeable in a process transformation, you may also change the paths from a gateway by keeping them unchanged, dropping them if they are no longer relevant, adding them if they are new or modifying them if there is a change. 

In the case of Modify or Add you will need to enter the probability of the process following this path.

Cost of Change

The final piece of financial information to enter is the cost of carrying out the change. At the Process level, select the transformation tab and enter both the cost of change and any recurring annual costs associated with the change.

Business Case for Process Transformation

With a future state business process model and metrics entered to record costs and revenue changes from the current state process model you are now ready to generate the Process Transformation Output. The generated output provides you with the following details:

Return on Investment

Easily find out whether the process transformation proposed is going to be financially beneficial to your organisation.

Cumulative Revenue/Costs/Cycle Time

Easily visualise where the revenue, costs and cycle times change through the business process.

Activity Revenue/Costs/Cycle Time/Wait Time/Work Time

For each activity in your business process understand how the revenue, costs, cycle time, wait time or work time has changed between your current state and future state.

Metrics Data

In the metrics data, BusinessOptix provides tables of all of the data about your current and future state process transformation. The tables either represent all the processes for a year or an average process.

Note that when reading the timings for an average process that is after a gateway that the activity time will not be the same as entered in the process model. This is because we are reflecting the average across all process instances and if only 60% of process instances follow this path then the activity time will be 60% of the work time entered on the activity metrics.

Conclusion 

Process Transformation provides an easy way to document your current and future process state and quantify in both process and financial metrics the benefit of the change being proposed. If you have more complex process modelling and simulation requirements that need to take into account changing work rates and more complex staff working patterns then please review BusinessOptix Scenarios.