BPM positioned as an ally in production

(Translated from the original French article that appeared on Journal du Net on June 22, 2015.)

Being in constant evolution, BPM technologies have taken a strategic turn that has led them to new uses. In this context, BPM is no longer used solely for the optimization of decision processes, but fits into the very essence of industries at the level of product creation and creativity in general.

As such, we see a higher and higher demand from manufacturers, food processing professionals, and pharmaceutical companies that have turned to BPM technologies to industrialize the management and optimization of product life cycles, notably in feasibility studies, creation, and modification, as well as in the fabrication of packaging.

The objective is to accelerate market launches, to define precise processes with planning in mind, to have traceability of what’s been done and what’s left to do, to encourage collaboration, and so on. All of this is covered within the framework of a process, as opposed to collaborative tools that only manage lists of tasks without planning or sequencing them.

The data transiting in these processes, in this case Master Data, are generally sensitive. BPM allows the creation, modification, and update of this product information via interconnectivity with ERPs or application bases. BPM solutions thus allow manufacturing and marketing managers to benefit from intuitive dashboards that let them plan and anticipate product availability dates.

These study and product creation processes allow close collaboration between head office teams (commercial, finance, marketing) and industrial sites (R&D, manufacturing, fabrication, quality). This contributes to the streamlining of the entire process and creates new added value.

Finally, it’s clear that BPM solutions, via mobile applications, are at the very heart of production workshops, allowing users to share the results of their trials in real time from their mobile devices. This simplifies production work processes while strengthening team productivity.

BPM continues to grow as a central part of enterprises, demonstrating its capacity to respond to operational business requirements. At a time when productivity and agility are highly sought after, BPM is thus positioned as a genuine ally in operations, notably at the production level.