May 4, 2004

Process modeling specification designed to eradicate the business-IT divide between business analysts and technical developers responsible for Business Process Management (BPM) in the Enterprise.

Denver, CO - May 4, 2003 - The Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI.org) today announced the release of the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN 1.0) providing a readily understandable, royalty-free notation designed for both business process design and business process implementation. As an amalgamation of best practices within the business modeling community, BPMN provides a simple, standardized means of communicating process information between business users, customers, and suppliers.

As announced in March 2004, at least 20 companies, including more than a dozen process modeling tool vendors, have committed to support the new BPMN standard. BPMN is a comprehensive notation and points toward the convergence of open standards for business process management by enabling practitioners to more easily exchange business process models using a standardized graphical notation. In addition to achieving its primary objective, BPMN 1.0 also allows different XML-based process languages, e.g., Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS v1.1), to be visualized using common elements.

"BPMN enables businesses to more effectively collaborate in the design of business processes and to communicate those designs because of the use of a standard notation," said Stephen White of IBM, chair of the BPMN Working Group. "For ease of readability by business users, BPMN follows the tradition of flowcharting and swimlane notations while still providing the mapping to the executable constructs as defined in BPEL4WS. By doing so, BPMN fills a technical gap between the format of the initial design of business processes and the format of the languages that will execute these business processes. This creates an environment in which those responsible for processes in operation can be more involved in developing, managing, and monitoring IT-intensive business processes."

"Semantic differences among leading process modeling tools and arbitrary differences in visual notation have hindered the take up of process management in the marketplace," says Howard Smith, co-chair of BPMI.org and CTO for Computer Sciences Corporation’s European Group. "Management of process and performance is the majority of all work. The publication of BPMN and its use in conjunction with Business Process Management Systems (BPMS) points toward a time when business people will readily create and exchange end-to-end transactional processes as easily as they do word processing documents and spreadsheets today."

BPMN support is currently available in the following products: aXway Process Manager™, ILOG JViews™, ITPearls Process Modeler for Visio, Popkin’s System Architect™, and SeeBeyond’s Integrated Composite Application Network (ICAN) Suite™. Microsoft Visio 2003™ also provides a BPMN 0.9 template. Other vendors planning BPMN product releases later in the year include: Casewise Corporate Modeler™, Corel iGrafx™, Fuego’s Fuego 5™, Hyland’s OnBase™, IBM’s WBI Modeler™, IDS-Scheer’s Aris™, Intalio’s n³ Designer™, Lanner’s Witness™, Lombardi Software’s TeamWorks®, Mega Suite™, Proforma’s ProVision™, and Staffware’s Process Suite™. A number of service providers including Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC e4SM Architecture), EDS, Enix Consulting and InfoSys Technologies are including BPMN within their portfolio of services.

The BPMN 1.0 specification is available royalty free for download from BPMI.org's web site at http://www.bpmi.org/bpmn-spec.esp. The specification is accompanied by a short white paper that provides an overview of BPMN.

About BPMI.org (www.bpmi.org)

BPMI.org (the Business Process Management Initiative) is a non-profit corporation that empowers companies of all sizes, across all industries, to develop and operate business processes that span multiple applications and business partners, behind the firewall and over the Internet. The Initiative's mission is to promote and develop the use of Business Process Management (BPM) through the establishment of standards for process design, deployment, execution, maintenance, and optimization.

BPMI.org develops open specifications, assists IT vendors in marketing their implementations, and supports businesses in their use of business process management technologies. Currently comprising over 80 members, membership is open to all companies, non-profit organizations, and individuals.

Editorial Contact:
Layna Fischer
BPMI.org
Tel: 954-596-2077
Email: [email protected]

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