Guidelines of a Unified Approach for Product and Business Process Modeling in Complex Enterprise

Purpose Many differences exist between a generic process representation and the real flow of activities performed in relation to specific products/programs within an enterprise. The product life cycle modeling approach allows us to model the temporal flow of activities from conceptualization to disposal of specific product/program. In contrast, the business process modeling approach provides a general process perspective. The two views taken alone are not entirely satisfactory. This paper aims to propose a unified and integrated product–business process modeling approach, which overcomes the limitations inherent in adopting a single perspective, maintaining as much as possible, the essential characteristics and strengths of both modeling approaches. Design/methodology/approach The conceptual model of the proposed unified approach is based on the review of existing process and product modeling theories and on an inductive perspective emerging from the observation of the organizational practices in a number of Italian aerospace companies. Findings The proposed approach is expressed in eight guidelines, which describe a new unifying perspective to be adopted in different domains, which ensure that managers identify the assets and activities that are associated with each product that an organization creates. Constraints are also suggested. Some practical applications and examples using the software, aris (IDS Scheer, Saarland, Germany) are also provided based on actual practices in an aerospace company. Originality/value This paper describes a new unifying perspective for a combination of product/business process modeling view. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.