IDS Scheer, a provider of business process management (BPM) software, this week announced updates to two of its analytics products.
With its ARIS Performance Dashboard 4.1, IDS Scheer is targeting a more inviting user experience for executives who want to monitor the key performance indicators (KPIs) that govern their companies' processes. To that end, IDS Scheer used Adobe Flex 2 application development technology to create a graphical, WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) representation of business processes. Through the new technology, on-screen process maps show the performance metrics associated with each of the steps displayed.
In Process Performance Manager version 4.1, which helps users measure, visualize, and optimize the performance of business processes, an enhanced intelligence engine enables users to better identify process bottlenecks, the company said.
Target customers for the modules include businesses that already use ARIS components to design and document their processes, as well as those that simply want to monitor existing processes. The Control module of the ARIS platform, which includes the Performance Dashboard and the Process Performance Manager, extracts relevant information from enterprise systems to create KPIs.
"We are able to generate graphical visualization of the [business] processes," said Helge Hess, director of ARIS Product & Solution Management at IDS Scheer AG, in an interview with Managing Automation. "So, you can use that for identifying bottlenecks within the execution of process."
Both products are available now; IDS Scheer representatives did not provide pricing information.
IDS Scheer has long been a leader of the charge to automate process management at manufacturers and other companies, according to Maureen Fleming, program director of business process automation and deployment for analyst firm IDC. Yet, as BPM vendors begin to harvest the data created during these processes, they find themselves rubbing elbows with business intelligence vendors that also mine this kind of data for business insight. Sensing the synergies, purveyors of business intelligence software have likewise added BPM capabilities to their offerings, either organically or through partnerships, she said.
"The minute you're talking about measuring the process, you're talking about intelligence about a process" Fleming told Managing Automation today. "So, from that perspective, it's absolutely logical that the BPM vendors would be improving the intelligence capabilities of their products. And at the same time, the BI vendors would be keenly interested in extending out their capabilities around process."
The trend is not lost on IDS Scheer's Hess. "We see really a congregance of both markets, from both sides," he said. The company also thinks its position as a process management veteran might provide some insulation against new competitors.
"I would say IDS Scheer has its own set of challenges as the larger [BI] vendors" enter the process space, Fleming said. "IDS Scheer, I would argue, knows more about process than any company in the world."