Journey to digital processes – Benefit, Challenges and Solutions
Carlo Alberto Bonatti – Modeling Project Manager / Process Architect – Alstom
The presentation describes the process modeling initiative currently running in Alstom, leading player in the railway industry; this initiative embraces a large set of company processes and disciplines, spanning well outside the more natural area of process modeling, i.e. the engineering domain, like industrialization, supply chain, project management, product management, .obsolescence management.
The context where the modeling initiative was born was a company with very mature processes, aligned to the CMMI 1.3 level 3 requirements which impose company wise process standardization, but at the same time difficult to understand for new comers, with areas of inefficiency and often perceived as silos. Moreover, the company division where this initiative was kicked off is characterized by significant differences in term of Product Breakdown Structure and overall complexity from one Program/Project to another: despite after many years of CMMI application the processes had been designed with a wide set of tailoring rules in each process, mastering them in order to create an optimal development strategy is not an easy task.
On top of this, when the modeling idea was still in incubation, Alstom merged with Bombardier: a great opportunity, but at the same time an additional challenge to define and execute the process referential set for the new company.
The process modeling initiative is as a key asset to support the strategic objectives of digitalization, effectiveness, efficiency, integration of the new company and standardization and has been kicked off officially in June 2021: the presentation will describe the modelization journey from the earlier incubation phase till today and the future roadmap. The model development strategy will be described, highlighting the main challenges, how they have been addressed and the benefits that have been identified.