David McCoy

At the IBM software summit, I saw a demo of what Airbus is doing with RFID, CEP, BPMT and BAM.  For those who don’t know the acronyms:

• RFID – Radio-Frequency Identification
• CEP – Complex Event Processing
• BPMT – Business Process Management Technologies (as opposed to BPM which we use for the management discipline)
• BAM – Business Activity Monitoring

By using RFID tags and a process context, Airbus can better track its assembly process in real-time – a process that requires parts of a single airplane to be manufactured in Spain, France, Germany, etc.  For example, parts of the fuselage are shipped from one manufacturing site to another as a standard step of the assembly process.  Interestingly, multiple fuselage portions for several aircraft are shipped inside the incredible Beluga airplane like so many Russian nesting dolls.  As the fuselages are unloaded at the next site in the assembly process, RFI tags located on the fuselage jigs are read and the data is used to update the BAM dashboard.  The whole thing is pretty cool to watch and the dashboard view of the process is addicting.  RFID read events can also trigger new processes or they can feed data into running process instances that are waiting for certain events.

A few observations:

1. BAM, BPMT, CEP, RFID blend well. Real-time event processing is good (CEP). Monitoring, KPIs and dashboarding are good (BAM).  Capturing data at the source is good (RFID).  Process control is good (BPMT).  Four “goods” performing as a composite whole equals one “great.”
2. This is not rocket science.  Adding an RFID event channel to BPMT is not hard.  Using BAM as the business end of CEP is not hard.  Even combining all these aspects together is not hard.  It just takes time and trial-and-error and vision.
3. This is a good start toward what I have called “Event Agnosticism” – the marrying of all forms of event traffic, whether “business events” or “system events.”  This is not pure agnosticism, but does breach the traditional wall of event classes that was present at the start of BAM.  In general, the wall has been collapsing since we started writing on BAM back in 2001.
4. A BPMS is more than the collection of its core parts – it is the 1+1=3 power that makes a BPMS worth the money. If you have an example like this – one that combines multiple elements of the BPMS – you have a more holistic approach and a stronger project value proposition. 

Two questions – one for you to mull and the other for your comments:

1. To mull over – We are developing the 2009 BPMS Magic Quadrant as we speak.  Are you aware of your vendors and where they are going with their BPMS offerings?
2. To comment upon – What is your experience with these four elements: RDIF, CEP, BPMT and BAM?  Do you have a story to tell?

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Category: Business Process Management (BPM)     Tags: Business Process Management (BPM), David McCoy, Gartner

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