Business process management
Model, analyze, improve and execute business processes for simulation-driven design product development.
Powering SPDM to connect people, data and simulation execution
Engineering design processes are often complex and informal, creating hidden bottlenecks and leaving decision-makers without key performance metrics. Our business process management technology solves this by mapping, formalizing, and automating your simulation-driven product development.
By establishing clear visibility and traceability, we optimize and automate engineering data flow across domains, ensuring the right information reaches the right people at the right time, while eliminating lost productivity.
What is business process management?
Research and advisory firm Gartner defines business process management (BPM) as a discipline that uses various methods to discover, model, analyze, measure, improve and optimize business processes. A business process coordinates the behavior of people, systems, information and things to produce business outcomes in support of a business strategy.
In engineering simulation, BPM formalizes the journey from design requirements to simulation execution, managing people interactions and integrating simulation workflows into an actionable, repeatable business process.
Key challenges in business process management
Monitoring and organizing simulation tasks
Tracking who is creating a CAE model, where it goes, and who receives it next is impossible when relying on spreadsheets or email.
No visibility into past and present project status
Without standardized tracking, engineers can’t reliably reproduce past simulation processes or verify current project milestones.
Poor data traceability when sharing data
Data transfer and team notifications often rely on manual triggers, increasing the risk of human error and lost updates.
Undocumented engineering design processes
Tasks are carried out manually by individual domain experts working in disconnected departments, creating severe knowledge silos.
Benefits of business process management for engineering simulation
Orchestrate the design process
Map your business process using a standard BPMN 2.0 workflow editor. Gain full transparency into your company’s existing practices, identify inefficiencies and implement targeted improvements.
Power up SPDM technology
Trigger simulation workflows directly from service tasks embedded within your business processes. Seamlessly execute complex simulation analysis chains and apply automated design space exploration strategies.
Manage tasks and automate data flows
Streamline engineering task management by assigning tasks and sharing required data directly through an integrated Kanban board. Team members receive automated notifications for assigned user tasks, while automated service tasks run exactly when triggered.
Spot bottlenecks and improve productivity
Formalize engineering best practices by automating human-in-the-loop and simulation tasks.
Breaking down organizational silos in simulation with business process management
Map and standardize engineering design processes with VOLTA
With the VOLTA Modeler, a BPMN 2.0-compliant editor, you can map organizational activities and translate them into executable business processes.
VOLTA serves as an authoritative single source of truth for all simulation data. Its business process management capabilities enable you to seamlessly orchestrate design processes across your engineering teams.
- Formalize practices using BPMN 2.0 workflows to convert existing practices into documented, repeatable processes.
- Manage human-in-the-loop interactions by integrating user tasks into executable business processes.
- Connect simulation execution directly to the business processes using services (simplified, pre-configured run configurations).
Execute engineering design processes with VOLTA
VOLTA Process Manager interprets BPMN processes and executes each element by delivering tasks to the right assignees, whether they are people or machines executing simulation workflows and performing design exploration studies.
- Run processes created directly in the VOLTA Modeler environment.
- Orchestrate task sequence and assign work to the right resources at the right time using an interactive Kanban board.
- Ensure full traceability of every action performed throughout execution.
Scale and democratize MDO workflows with VOLTA
Learn moreEmpowering SPDM with unified CAE workflow automation and BPM
Frequently asked questions
Quick answers to questions you may have.
BPM maps and executes simulation-driven product development processes. It coordinates people, data, approvals, and simulation services.
VOLTA provides an intuitive, BPMN 2.0-compliant editor that allows teams to map out business processes and execute them by delivering human tasks to assignees and triggering automated simulation workflows directly through service tasks.
Yes. BPMN service tasks can be configured to automatically trigger simulation workflows, design of experiments, studies and optimization strategies.
VOLTA combines user tasks and service tasks in a single executable process. User tasks assign manual actions to engineers via a Kanban board. Once completed, the process automatically triggers the subsequent service tasks to run automated simulations without manual intervention.
- BPM (Business Process Management) coordinates organizational activities, people, approvals, and high-level procedures.
- SPDM (Simulation Process and Data Management) governs simulation data, metadata, versions, access, and reusable process assets.
- Simulation process integration and automation connects engineering tools (like CAD and CAE solvers) into automated execution workflows.
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