Many organisations today struggle with the problem of effectively automating business processes across the enterprise. Companies require a business process management (BPM) framework that can automatically manage processes, extract customer information from a database while adding new customer transaction information to it, generate transactions in multiple related systems, and support straight-though processing without human intervention when needed.
This prompted Staffware PLC to commission Doculabs to perform an objective, third-party assessment of the Staffware Process Suite.
"Staffware PLC is the first vendor to provide a complete, packaged BPM Framework. Its solution, Staffware Process Suite, supports the requirements for process management across the enterprise by combining several previously released and some new process automation components into a single product offering," says Staffware SA`s managing director Mark Ehmke.
"We required an independent assessment of the performance characteristics of the Staffware Process Suite - particularly in the areas of its ability to support very high number of users and transactions within complex process management environments. Such environments have processes that include work steps involving human interaction, automated and straight through processes, including integration with other systems."
According to Ehmke, the Staffware Process Suite, running in a clustered mode, demonstrated excellent fail-over capabilities to provide uninterrupted service in the event of system failures.
"With the level of performance proven during these tests, the Staffware Process Suite is well positioned to satisfy the needs of large enterprises for a BPM framework that supports both line of business applications and those processes that span multiple lines of business across the organisation," points out Bill Chambers of Doculabs, the company commissioned to run the independent testing.
"Over the past 10 years, organisations have struggled with the problem of effectively automating business processes across the enterprise. Workflow applications have evolved from simply automating manual tasks to automating system functions and acting as a platform for providing integration between disparate systems.
"Today, companies want workflow applications to accommodate their evolving business models. Financial services, banks and insurance companies with clearly separated lines of business that individually address the needs of their customer base, now must market, sell and process multiple products to the same customer base," explains Ehmke.
"For instance, each customer of a bank could potentially hold a current account, a home loan, and an investment account - each with its own workflow process. What`s needed is BPM - a framework of applications that can automatically manage processes, allow manual intervention, extract customer information from a database while adding new customer transaction information to it, generate transactions in multiple related systems, and support straight-though processing without human invention when needed - all the while maintaining complete transaction control over the process," he comments.
In addition, a BPM solution must be able to support individual line-of-business applications, as well as those that cross lines of business. Most importantly, it must be able to efficiently and reliably process an ever-increasing volume of mission-critical data and customer transactions as customer demand increases and business models evolve.
Doculabs found that Staffware Process Suite`s performance and reliability characteristics make it an enterprise-class BPM solution, based on the following test results:
* The Staffware Process Suite demonstrated an average process throughput of over 1.514 million transactions per hour. The Staffware server demonstrated that the system can remain stable for user loads up to 30 000. Staffware successfully logged in 29 837 users, while maintaining a stable CPU utilisation of 34%.
* Staffware Process Suite has therefore been proven to be scalable to support up to 30 000 concurrent users. Such scalability is critical for organisations that need to support a high volume of users while maintaining a reasonable level of processor utilisation.
* The product exhibited the ability to process to a throughput of nearly 1.5 million transactions per hour with a CPU utilisation of 53%. This capability enables organisations to scale up to very high levels of transactions per hour, taking advantage of the multi-processor capabilities of their servers, while being sure that high spikes in transaction volume can still be easily maintained.
"The success of these independent industry performance and failover tests indicate that the Staffware Process Suite can be relied upon to be a highly scalable and reliable BPM Framework for large enterprises looking to deploy process management both within and across their lines of business," concludes Ehmke.
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Headquartered in Maidenhead, UK, and with over 400 employees throughout its offices in 19 countries, Staffware PLC is the first vendor to provide a complete, packaged BPM Framework. Its solution, Staffware Process Suite, supports the requirements for process management across the enterprise by combining several previously released and new process automation components into a single product offering. The solution includes a tailored client interface, a design tool for all forms of complex processes, a highly scalable process engine that can be integrated with transaction monitors, prepackaged and embedded adapters to multiple back-office systems, and administration and monitoring tools to manage all of these processes.
The Staffware Process Suite supports complex processes that involve very high user and transaction volumes, including work steps with human intervention, automated and straight-through processes, and "EAI steps" involving integration with other databases and systems.
The Staffware Process Suite consists of the following key components:
* Staffware iProcess Engine - supports automated and straight-through processing. As an option, the iProcess Engine also supports transaction-processing monitors such as BEA`s Tuxedo to ensure complete transaction integrity from beginning to end.
* Staffware Process Definer - a graphically oriented process design tool that allows both business and IT staff to have input into designing any type of process and work step that may be involved in a BPM Framework implementation.
* Staffware Process Administrator - provides an IT administration tool for implementing and managing process applications across multiple departments.
* Staffware Process Monitor takes this administrative view into the business realm by allowing key performance indicators to be monitored in a real-time fashion with a view into process activity including work queues, individual user workloads, and overall transaction flow across all monitored processes.
* Staffware Process Integrator - includes an embedded set of application adapters from Actional which provide pre-packaged "control brokers" that link the iProcess Engine to such applications as SAP, PeopleSoft, and Siebel. This component complements the existing Staffware Process Objects (libraries of COM, CORBA, and Java object that can be used for development) and the Staffware Process Developers Kit.
* Process Clients - client interfaces that can be customised for each participant in the process management application. With this approach, the role of the staff within each line of business application can be supported as well as those staff in the role of supporting multiple lines of business products and services. Process Frameworks - off-the-shelf, customisable industry frameworks for rapid, low-cost deployment; the first frameworks to be offered are Retail Banking (focused on Mortgage Processing) and Telecoms (based on Service Order Management).