Quick Read – Business Process Management (BPM) Acronyms

Posted on October 3, 2019 by Jonathan Kidd

To help you understand the nuances of Business Process Management (BPM) better, here’s a list of acronyms predominantly used in the BPM context.

ABC – Activity-Based Costing
Activity-based costing (ABC) is a costing method that identifies activities in an organisation and assigns the cost of each activity to all products and services according to the actual consumption by each.

B2B – Business-to-Business
Business to business refers to business that is conducted between companies, rather than between a company and individual consumers.

BAM – Business Activity Monitoring
Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) is software that aids in monitoring of business activities, key performance indicators, business / operational exceptions and business risks, as those activities are implemented in computer systems.

BOM – Bill-of-Material
A bill of materials or product structure (sometimes bill of material, BOM or associated list) is a list of the raw materials, sub-assemblies, intermediate assemblies, sub-components, parts, and the quantities of each needed to manufacture a product.

BPA – Business Process Analysis
Business Process Analysis (BPA) is a methodology for the analysis of a business with a view to understanding the processes and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of its operations.

BPEL – Web Service Business Process Execution Language
The Web Services Business Process Execution Language (WS-BPEL), commonly known as Business Process Execution Language (BPEL), is an OASIS standard executable language for specifying actions within business processes with web services.

BPM – Business Process Management
Business process management (BPM) is a discipline in operations management in which people use various methods to discover, model, analyse, measure, improve, optimise, and automate business processes.

BPMN – Business Process Model & Notation
Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is a standard for business process modeling that provides a graphical notation for specifying business processes in a Business Process Diagram (BPD), based on a flowcharting technique very similar to activity diagrams from Unified Modeling Language (UML).

BPMS – Business Process Management System
Business process management systems automate core business processes from “end to end.” That means a good business process management system has the tools and technologies to include human-focused tasks along with machine processing applications to allow a company or organisation to flexibly manage its work.

BPR – Business Process Re-engineering
Business Process Re-engineering is the process of restructuring a company’s organisation and methods, especially so as to exploit the capabilities of computers.

BTO – Build-to-Order
A Build to Order (BTO) product is custom-made for a specific customer according to what the customer requests.

BVA – Business Value-Adding
A step or change made to the product which is necessary for future or subsequent steps but is not noticed by the final customer.

CMMI – Chief Maturity Model Integrated
The Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) is a process and behavioural model that helps organisations streamline process improvement and encourage productive, efficient behaviours that decrease risks in software, product and service development.

CPO – Chief Process Officer
A chief process officer (CPO) is the senior-most executive reporting to the Board of Directors, CEO, or COO with responsibility for an enterprise’s business process transformation and continuous improvement initiative.

CRM – Customer Relationship Management
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a technology for managing all your company’s relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers.

CT – Cycle Time
The period required to complete one cycle of an operation; or to complete a function, job, or task from start to finish.

DBMS – Database Management System
A Database Management System (DBMS) is a system software for creating and managing databases.

DES – Discrete-Event Simulation
Discrete Event Simulation (DES) is the process of codifying the behaviour of a complex system as an ordered sequence of well-defined events. In this context, an event comprises a specific change in the system’s state at a specific point in time.

DMS – Document Management System
A Document Management System (DMS) is a system used to track, manage and store documents and reduce paper.

ERP – Enterprise Resource Planning
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is business process management software that allows an organisation to use a system of integrated applications to manage the business and automate many back-office functions related to technology, services and human resources.

KPI – Key Performance Indicator
A key performance indicator is a measurable value that demonstrates how effectively a company is achieving key business objectives.

PD – Product Development
Product development, also called new product management, is a series of steps that includes the conceptualisation, design, development and marketing of newly created or newly rebranded goods or services.

PDCA – Plan-Do-Check-Act
A Plan-Do-Check-Act, sometimes seen as Plan-Do-Check-Adjust (PDCA) is a repetitive four-stage model for continuous improvement (CI) in business process management.

PO – Purchase Order
A purchase order (PO) is a commercial document and first official offer issued by a buyer to a seller indicating types, quantities, and agreed prices for products or services.

RBAC – Role-Based Access Control
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) is a method of restricting network access based on the roles of individual users within an enterprise.

RFQ – Request For Quote
A Request For Quotation (RFQ) is a document that an organisation submits to one or more potential suppliers eliciting quotations for a product or service.

ROI – Return-On-Investment
Return on Investment (ROI) measures the gain or loss generated on an investment relative to the amount of money invested.

SCAMPI – Standard CMMI Appraisal Method for Process Improvement
The Standard CMMI Appraisal Method for Process Improvement (SCAMPI) is the official Software Engineering Institute (SEI) method to provide benchmark-quality ratings relative to Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) models.

SCOR – Supply Chain Operations Reference Model Smart
The Supply Chain Operations Reference Model (SCOR) is a management tool used to address, improve, and communicate supply chain management decisions within a company and with suppliers and customers of a company.

SOA – Service-Oriented Architecture
Service-oriented Architecture (SOA) is a style of software design where services are provided to the other components by application components, through a communication protocol over a network.

TCT – Theoretical Cycle Time
The TCT is the cycle time if we only counted value-adding activities and excluded any waiting time or handover time, so it counts only processing times.

TOC – Theory of Constraints
The Theory of Constraints (TOC) is a management paradigm that views any manageable system as being limited in achieving more of its goals by a very small number of constraints.

TQM – Total Quality Management
A core definition of Total Quality Management (TQM) describes a management approach to long-term success through customer satisfaction. In a TQM effort, all members of an organisation participate in improving processes, products, services, and the culture in which they work.

UIMS – User Interface Management System
A User Interface Management System (UIMS) is a mechanism for cleanly separating process or business logic from Graphical User Interface (GUI) code in a computer program.

UML – Universal Modelling Language
UML, short for Unified Modeling Language, is a standardised modeling language consisting of an integrated set of diagrams, developed to help system and software developers for specifying, visualising, constructing, and documenting the artifacts of software systems, as well as for business modeling and other non-software systems.

WfMC – Workflow Management Coalition
Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) is a consortium formed to define standards for the interoperability of workflow management systems.

WfMS – Workflow Management System
A workflow management system (WfMS or WFMS) provides an infrastructure for the set-up, performance and monitoring of a defined sequence of tasks, arranged as a workflow application.