Objective: To show an understanding of communication breakdowns using the commitment management protocol and modeling business processes with actor-transaction diagrams. Background: The article by Jan Dietz The Deep Structure of Business Processes, presented his Actor Transaction Diagram (ATD) for business process modeling, which is a term he uses in another article. Figure 1 shows two diagram types: Molecular Building Blocks and Atomic Building Blocks. Figure 3 from Dietz shows an application of his notation to a particular situation. He calls the top diagram the Essential Map (using Molecular Building Blocks) and the bottom one the Atomic Level (using Atomic Building Blocks). Let us call these the Top Level ATD and the bottom one the Detail Level ATD, respectively.

Business Scenario Consider the following AS-IS scenario of the sales and manufacturing process steps at O'Hall Fitness, a manufacturer of customized home exercise equipment. Each piece of equipment is built to exact specificatipons provided by a customer on a sales order. Since everything is built to order, parts must be acquired for each order before they can be fabricated internally. When the Sales Department at O'Hall Fitness receives a custome sales order, the Production Planning Manager must coorrinate with several internal and external process participants and partner to fulfill the sales order. The steps below represent only the coordination steps (C-Acts in language from Dietz) followed at O'Hall Fitness:

AS-IS Steps: 1. The Customer places an order with O'Hall's Sales Manager. 2. Sales Manager submits a production order request to the Production Planning Manager. 3. The Production Planning Manager orders parts from the Supply Partner. 4. The Supply Partner agrees to fulfill the parts order. 5. The Production Planning Manager requests the Manufacturing Department to schedule fabrication of the custom fitness equipment. 6. The Supply Partner sends an invoice for parts that have been shipped. 7. The Manufacturing Department Manager commits to the fabrication request of the Production Planning Manager. 8. The Production Planning Planning Manager pays the Supplier for parts received. 9. The Production Planning Manager schedules shipping of the finished product with UPS. 10. The Sales Manager sends an invoice to the customer 11. The Manufacturing Department Manager notifys the Production Planning Manager that fabricatipon of the product is complete. 12. The Customer pays the O'Hall Fitness invoice. 13. UPS advises that the specialzied equipment has been delivered to the Customer.

Assignment Parts: 1. Identify the Actors in the Business Scenario 2. Identify the Transactions in the business scenario (be sure to specify which actors the transaction takes place between). 3. Draw a Top-Level ATD for the Existing AS-IS process. 4. Draw a Detail-Level ATD for the existing AS-IS process. You should use dashed arrows to show precedence in this AS-IS situation. 5. In analyzing the Detail Level from the AS-IS situation, you will see there are some missing speech acts (coordination steps). You can improve the process by identifying the missing speech acts (coordination steps) and include them in a re-designed TO-BE You might also note that the precedence or ordering of steps is not optimal. List the missing speech acts (coordination steps) that should be added to improve coordination. 6. Redraw the Detail-Level ATD including the missing speech acts as a re-designed TO-BE process. Be sure to use dashed arrows to show any revised precedence. 7. What-if the commitment from the Manufacturing Department manager to the Production Planning Manager cannot be made until after the Production Planning Manager receives the supplies and has indicated the supplies meet quality standards. How does this change the TO-BE diagram? Do not redraw the ATDs, just explain how the Top-Level level and the Detail-Level ATDs are changed using the transaction labels you have assigned. 8. In discussing the Commitment Management Protocol (CMP) in Lecture Unit #2D, the simplest form of a conversation goes through the four phases of the CMP (steps of the Action Loop). However, note that the second phase is described as a negotiation. Describe a possible scenario in one of the process steps where the negotiation fails or is delayed. What other outcomes are possible? What happens to the Condition of Satisfaction (CoS)? Is this realistic?