Managed and fully supported by ARIS

The Lego Smart Factory showcase—a cooperation between Software AG and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI)—covers a complete end-to-end scenario of a tractor manufacturer and shows how a successful strategy to execution in a digital business can work. The whole value chain consisting of business processes, risks and Internet of Things (IoT) networks is planned with ARIS 10 and executed with either webMethods or the research prototype RefMod-Miner of the DFKI. Workers are assisted by ARIS Mobile and the progress is monitored with ARIS Process Performance Manager (PPM). The loop is closed by visualizing the measured KPIs with ARIS Aware in ARIS Connect. See how complex nexuses can be managed successfully with a clear methodical approach!

by Tom Thaler, ARIS Product Management, Software AG
and Elke Bastian, ARIS Product Marketing, Software AG

Issue 2, 2017

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The showcase in detail

See what a successful strategy to execution in a digital business looks like! Our demo presented at CeBIT 2017 covers a complete end-to-end scenario of a tractor manufacturer, from customer acquisition and individual order, to tractor production, and to final distribution and billing. The entire Business Process Management (BPM) lifecycle, including the phases “Strategy & Design,” “Implement & Execute” and “Monitor & Control,” is fully supported by ARIS and the Digital Business Platform of Software AG.

BPM lifecycle: A clear methodical approach covered by ARIS and the Digital Business Platform

The digital transformation requires a well-planned strategy—a strategy that is designed with ARIS. It is essential to know what the organization, data and business processes look like in order to derive the most value. The complete E2E scenario, including all relevant business processes such as sales order processing, production planning and assembly, as well as the billing and delivery, are modeled in ARIS. Our new method for IoT modeling in ARIS 10 allows you to cover the necessary technical resources and connect them to the business processes they are used in!

Don’t forget to think about risk and compliance—include these aspects into your business landscape in ARIS and operationally address them with ARIS Risk & Compliance Manager (ARCM).

IoT modeling in ARIS

The business blueprint is then transferred to webMethods—the implementation and execution environment of Software AG’s Digital Business Platform. The process models serve as a basis for the implementation; the necessary services are being realized and connected to the IoT objects. In our showcase, we completely control the Lego Smart Factory, which is a result of a cooperation project between Software AG and the DFKI. The production line built of Lego bricks assembles tractors out of other bricks based on the underlying process models from ARIS. The process includes a manual production step, where an employee has to assemble an exhaust.

ARIS Mobile assists the assembler at this step—he simply scans a code with his mobile device at the working station and gets a video instruction on what to do. All necessary information comes directly from the ARIS repository.

Human task supported by ARIS Mobile

The entire assembly process is monitored by ARIS PPM based on event logs produced by the execution engine. Among other things, the real behavior of the process is mined and presented as a business process model (process mining, process discovery)—and separate variants with specific characteristics are automatically derived as well. Additional details on single instances, error rates, throughput times, material costs and revenue are analyzed. The loop is closed by providing all relevant KPIs as well as the derived function flows in ARIS Connect with ARIS Aware in the context of the originally planned process. This allows a business user to analyze differences between as-is and to-be, to analyze the fulfillment of business goals and to identify potential optimizations of the business processes. The measured business processes can be transferred to the ARIS repository, where they can be adapted and simulated with different parameter settings in order to identify bottlenecks and generate best practices!

Performance KPIs side-by-side with ARIS model

Performance dashboard in ARIS Aware

Process mining and variant comparison in ARIS Connect

The complete showcase will be at Hanover Messe Industry, on April 24-28 in Hanover, Hall 7, booth A34. If you didn't make it there, watch this video on You Tube to learn more.