The future: Obstacles and Opportunities

Abstract

This chapter discusses the possible future of using S-BPM in production industry, including prospective obstacles and potential opportunities. It commences by proposing a framework representing the fundamental values of S-BPM relevant for its contribution to production enterprises: agility. These values are derived from the agile approach to software development. It is shown how S-BPM supports them in several ways; specifically 1. Individuals and interactions are supported by the notational simplicity in S-BPM. 2. Working software is supported by the ability of S-BPM to seamlessly integrate processes along life cycles and value chains. 3. Customer collaboration is supported by the widely shared semantics of S-BPM modelling constructs. 4. Responding to change is supported by the ability to encapsulate process functionalities by means of subjects in S-BPM. The principal obstacles are identified for the use of S-BPM in industrial practice, in a way to achieve the four agile values. They include a widespread perception of process modelling as a routine task (not a creative activity), security concerns for core production processes, organizational cultures where there is a strong sense of hierarchy and silo mentality, and a desire for global control flow. Based on the size of each obstacle and the degree to which S-BPM is already prepared to address them, the beginnings of a roadmap towards industrial fitness are then developed. For this purpose, the metaphor of a “compass” is introduced to give orientation to future S-BPM research within a four-dimensional space of opportunities. A specific S-BPM project in the food industry, as part of the SO-PC-Pro project, is presented to show common drivers and challenges of S-BPM implementations for production processes within this four-dimensional space. Finally, the compass is used for identifying further domains that share similar issues likely to be solved using an agile approach supported by S-BPM. The architecture-engineering-construction (AEC) domain is presented as an example of such a domain.