What is Process Architecture

Business process management has long been a topic of great interest in operations management research. Early research on business process management focuses on workflow analysis and process optimization. These types of research evaluate and analyze a predefined set of procedures from a process perspective. That said, with a list of activities, constraints and criteria, the procedural workflow are specified and examined. Then, process analysts come up with suggestions to optimize the process and speed up the workflow. Research findings are widely applied in production and logistics; however, some works are criticized as being too rigid and only suitable for a stable business environment (Burns, 1993). The article describes an architecture approach for business process management, and is organized as follows: first, we review the literature on architecture. Next, we outline a de facto standard for the architecture approach, and highlight the strength of using an architecture approach. Finally, we describe future trends, and conclude the article.