Designing an Enterprise Business System

The design phase of an Enterprise Business System consists of many steps, tools, and compromises. Each step of this phase is enhanced by many established tools or processes that carry over from previous phases.

The initial step, in the design process determines the present function of the system. The following step determines what the system requires for optimal function. The final step determines the user end and hardware elements.

The most common method of business process mapping is through the use of models and diagrams. These tools are used in both the previous phase of analyzing the current business process and in the design phase to provide a visual model of what the projected business process.

Business process tools are used to create business process models. These tools create a visual map of the system in each phase. The phases leading up to the design aspect of an Enterprise Business System have included useful mapping tools for the design phase.

English: Business Process Reengineering Cycle

Design library, reorganized by topic

BPMN - A Process with Normal Flow

The previous phase of analysis calls for three business-model mapping tools - Activity-flow, Dataflow, and Role activity. The purpose of these tools is to analyze problems in the current business process so that an optimal design can be created.

Those previous steps are truly necessary in the business-system design process. Without the information from these models, an automated streamlined application could not be designed. The completed process provides a layout of the current workflow with each department and between departments. This is an important tool for the initial design phase, thus I recommend all three.

As far as documenting the design, I recommend Data Flow Diagrams and System Diagrams of the present system and the design of the new system. Not only do the diagrams help layout the designs, but also it helps communicate the designs.

An additional tool in...