Today’s question: do you care about simulation of business processes? If you do, you probably should be aware of the recent developments of BPSim.
BPSim is the result of a lot of dedicated effort by people who really do care about simulation, and believe there should be standard for interoperability between various simulation products. The spec is being published, there is an implementer’s guide, and several key vendors have demonstrations available (www.bpsim.org). 
There are many kinds of “simulation” out there, but this is aimed purely at business process simulation. The best coverage is the article in Integration Developer News: Leading BPM Vendors Collaborate on Next-Gen Business Process Simulation Standard.
Many products offer business process simulation, but how do they compare? Do you get the same results? There has not been a good way to compare them before now. The idea behind BPSim is that you can set up a simulation scenario, and continue to use it and grow it over time, without the fear that you will have to scrap it when a new generation of technology comes out. If you are serious about simulation you should be serious about this standard as well.
But I’m just a User!
This is the reason I am reaching out. While standards groups may be supported by vendors, it is users that drive adoption. You should understand that there is no inherent motivation for vendors to make products interoperable. On the contrary, vendors would prefer you use their proprietary approach so that you are locked into their product. They are more than happy to show you why their proprietary approach is better than the standard. This is the nature of the market place, and while vendors rarely act against standards that make sense, you should not expect adoption to be driven by vendors.
Vendors will implement and support standards if the customers ask for it. So if you really care about simulation, you really must ask whether the standard is supported. Ask about interoperability with other simulation tools.
Get the advice of industry experts:
Gartner: Analyst Jim Sinur is a known expert on business process simulation. Ask him what he thinks of the new standard, and who is implementing it.
Forrester: Analysts Clay Richardson and Connie Moore are both recognized experts in the BPM field, and might have a position on portability of simulation scenarios.
If you care about simulation of business processes, you should learn about BPSim.
Resources
- tmcnet: news 2013/01/23
- Industry Today: New standard to enhance simulation in bpm
- Silobreaker: New standard to enhance simulation in bpm
- IT-Analysis: news_release
- IT-Director: news_release
- Simul8: BPSim interchanging bpmn and simulation
- IDevNews: Leading BPM Vendors Collaborate on Next Gen Business Process Simulation Standard
