London Borough of Lambeth pioneers enterprise architecture modeling with IBM Rational System Architect.

For the past four years, the London Borough of Lambeth has restructured its business processes to support improvements in customer service and overall efficiency.

“Lambeth needed to create and maintain a corporate view of our data in order to improve customer service, integrate our systems and provide management reports to assist in policy formulation and service delivery,” said Darryl Byrne, Data Analyst for the London Borough of Lambeth. “To achieve this goal, we launched a project to build physical and logical models of key Lambeth systems, which in turn would feed into a strategic high-level model for the authority as a whole.”

To succeed with this initiative, Lambeth needed an enterprise architecture (EA) application that could quickly produce business process models for analysis and peer review. These models would provide the foundation for subsequent process improvements.

Embracing the need for robust modeling software
IBM® Rational® System Architect® software met Lambeth’s requirements for a robust and intuitive EA solution with in-depth modeling functionality. “The ability to share models in a common repository was deemed especially useful, since this would allow for easy peer review of any models that were built,” Byrne said. “Our purchase decision was also influenced by analyst studies that showed IBM® Rational® to be a market leader for enterprise architecture products.”

In 2003, Lambeth ICT services began a phased implementation of the Rational System Architect solution in the strategy, transformation and technology division, which provides business transformation and ICT services to all departments and users within the council.

“Lambeth’s large-scale commitment to System Architect has made us one of the first local authorities to fully embrace the need for good modeling software,” Byrne said. “We acknowledge that good business and data modeling should be integral to the way we assess and improve the services we offer across all departments.”

Invaluable insight for better decisions
Several BPMN business process models have been created with System Architect software to provide readable and accessible illustrations of current functionality. After several iterations, these models will become the basis for business process re-engineering for the department. Since the models are stored on a central repository, they are immediately available for peer review.

Lambeth also assessed several of their legacy systems to determine whether to upgrade or replace them. Using Rational System Architect software, Lambeth ICT Services reverse-engineered the systems’ databases into physical models that provided readable diagrams of how and where relevant business data was stored. These models formed the basis of subsequent logical models, broken down into specific subject areas, which can then be mapped to Lam­beth’s BPMN models. The models will also support impact analysis if Lambeth decides to migrate data from legacy applications to other systems.

“Both the BPMN and data models created with System Architect software will provide invaluable insight when these systems are evaluated against the needs of the council,” Byrne said. “The data models will help with the gap analysis when the new business processes are finalized. Additionally, the models will form the backbone of any impact analysis if a decision is made to migrate data from a legacy application to another system.”

Byrne notes that Rational System Architect users are happy with its functionality and ease-of-use. Even non-users are impressed with the clarity of the models that provide visibility into business systems and processes.

The benefits
IBM Rational System Architect software facilitates the “common language” of BPMN within Lambeth for all project stakeholders. The result is less ambiguity, better process improvement and faster project completion. Other key benefits include:

• More informed decision making
• Better communication and collaboration across multiple sites
• Easier sharing of models across the enterprise

For more information
To learn more about IBM Rational System Architect software, contact your IBM representative or IBM Business Partner, or visit:

ibm.com/software/rational