Business Process Automation Solution Increases Efficiency
Project at a Glance
RDA developed a cost-effective, reusable business process framework for a military defense supplier that promotes rapid development and deployment of automated workflows.
About Our Client
RDA’s client is a major supplier of sophisticated military defense systems. Our client provides advanced technical and operational services to a broad range of government agencies.
Background
With offices in various locations, our client sought to apply Microsoft and K2.net workflow technologies to build internal business solutions and to automate internal processes.
Our client asked RDA to assist in the architecture, design and implementation of a proof-of-concept (POC) to automate a paper-based purchase request process and to deploy a reusable framework to be leveraged throughout the organization. In addition, RDA was tasked with supporting our client’s IT staff in the transition to the new purchase order system.
Solution Detail
The solution was termed the Business Process Automation (BPA) Framework and provided a common framework of technologies, development tools, methodology and reusable components to be leveraged across the enterprise to automate paper-based and legacy system business processes involving human-to-human, human-to-system and system-to-system workflows and integration.
SharePoint, InfoPath and ASP.NET provide all user services, K2.net provides all human workflow services, and BizTalk Server, custom Web Services and .NET components provide all application integration services required by the framework. RDA also provided multi-week instructor led training, knowledge transfer and mentoring in .NET, SharePoint, InfoPath, K2.net, BizTalk and the new Purchase Request system.
The first implementation of this framework was for one division of the company. Due to an increase in manufacturing demand, the automation of a paper-based purchase request system was critical. It was characteristic of many future workflows that would leverage the BPA Framework with enough complexity to evaluate the framework and required completed purchase request to be transformed and delivered to a legacy PO system hosted on VAX under VMS. The successful implementation of this solution led our client to decide to use the BPA Framework across their organization.
Following the initial implementation, RDA’s team assisted in the design and implementation of an IT Request system POC at another division. By leveraging the framework, an end-to-end POC was developed in three weeks and ready for production in five. Due to the construction of reusable components at SSD, future development cycles can be even further reduced over time.
During the implementation of this framework, primarily two solutions were constructed and deployed using the framework architected. In all cases, the solutions were delivered on time and within the specified budget. In the case of the first implementation, incremental functionality was added throughout the development effort in effect growing the initial solution scope. The engagement grew from an initial prototype into a fully deployable production system. Along the way, incremental scope was easily managed given our team’s use of a strong methodology, process, and the benefits of the framework that had been architected, thereby exhibiting the true agility of the overall solutions being constructed.
Benefits
One of the most important characteristics of this solution architecture is its ability to integrate across software solutions and platforms. The entire solution is tied together using XML, XSD and Web Services, which are WC3 standards. BizTalk is used to facilitate system-to-system integration while K2 enables human-to-human and human-to-system workflows. Leveraging XML across all the technologies, the rich presentation environment of SharePoint and InfoPath as well as the graphical design capabilities intrinsic to BizTalk and K2 allow for a flexible, reusable, very scalable and agile framework that promotes rapid development of incremental workflow solutions in a cost effective way.
The BPA Framework and Purchase Request system replaced a purely paper-based system that – after various manual routings and approval processes – was later entered into a legacy purchase order system hosted under VMS on a VAX. The purchase order system continues to be used today, however the entire manual, paper-based purchase request system has now been automated.
The BPA Framework and IT Request system were the first of many automated business processes being migrated off an older legacy Lotus Notes system. Eventually, the Lotus Notes system will be retired.
Challenges
The project needed to be completed within a short timeframe. The RDA team leveraged existing code and frameworks developed on previous projects and utilized our IT FlightPlan process to ensure successful delivery by the established completion date. In addition, a common standardized infrastructure was defined up front which identified development guidelines, XML, schema standards, folder structures, naming conventions, registry usage, logging, and deployment processes.
Our client required that their development staff be trained to take the delivered architectural framework and use it to deliver their own workflow implementations of additional forms. In order to achieve this goal, the RDA team built in knowledge transfer tasks and time into the project plan during each construction and testing phase.
Technically Speaking
The BPA Framework was designed using industry standards leveraging XML, XSD Schema, Web Services, and XML and Web Services compatible products such as SharePoint, InfoPath, BizTalk, and SQL Server, all of which promote overall scalability, reliability, performance, and business agility. The resulting reusable framework greatly improved return on investment and time-to-value by promoting rapid development and deployment of future automated workflow solutions.
When automating new workflows, a data flow diagram is often used to describe the process, flow of data and participants in a given workflow. Using this framework, the information is easily described using XML and captured graphically into a human workflow process using K2′s Development Studio. User services are rapidly constructed using SharePoint, InfoPath and ASP.NET Web Forms and Application integration is easily facilitated through BizTalk Server. Business requirements are abstracted into rules using the business rules engine, promoting agility throughout the business processes. Together, these technologies result in shorter development life cycles.