Business process based simulation: a powerful tool for demand analysis of business process reengineering and information system implementation

Demand analysis is of fundamentally importance in the implementation of information system. Business process reengineering (BPR) often gets involved in the process of demand analysis and play a crucial role in the achievement of project objectives. Business process based simulation (BPS) provides a precise and visual method to analyze and compare the concerned performances before and after BPR. The paper presents an industrial experience in using the BPS tool to demonstrate the effects of BPR on restraining stocking-up and overdue payments in the distribution management of a supply chain. Before significant investment involved, the related design result of BPR is validated both by the analytical method and simulation experiments. Based on the mutual supportive results, the BPS method approves its correctness and show its nicety, flexibility and the capacity of visualization.