Communication of Business Process Models

Communication of Business Process Models via Virtual
Environment Simulations

Process Models via Virtual Environment Simulations

Ross Brown and Florian Cliquet
Games and related virtual environments have been  a much-hyped area of the entertainment
industry.  The classic quote is that games are now approaching the size of Hollywood box office
sales [1].  Books are now appearing that talk up the influence of games on business [2], and it is

one of the key drivers of present hardware development.  Some of this 3D technology is now

embedded right down at the operating system level via the Windows Presentation Foundations –
hit Windows/Tab on your Vista box to find out...

In addition to this continued growth in the area of games, there are a number of factors that
impact its development in the business community.  Firstly, the average age of gamers is
approaching the mid thirties [3].   Therefore, a number of people who are in management
positions in large enterprises are experienced in using 3D entertainment environments. 
Secondly, due to the pressure of demand for more computational power in both CPU and
Graphical Processing Units (GPUs), your average desktop, any decent laptop, can run a game or
virtual environment.  In fact, the demonstrations at the end of this paper were developed at the
Queensland University of Technology (QUT) on a standard Software Operating Environment, with
an Intel Dual Core CPU and basic Intel graphics option. 

What this means is that the potential exists for the easy uptake of such technology due to  :

1. A broad range of workers being regularly exposed to 3D virtual environment software via games;
2. Present desktop computing power now strong enough to potentially roll out a virtual

environment solution across an entire enterprise.
We believe such visual simulation environments can have a great impact in the area of business
process modeling.  Accordingly, in this article we will outline the communication capabilities of
such environments, giving fantastic possibilities for business process  modeling applications,
where enterprises need to create, manage, and improve their business processes, and then
communicate their processes to stakeholders, both process and non-process cognizant. The
article then concludes with a demonstration of the work we are doing in this area at QUT.