Introduction
What problem the tool solves and which questions it can answer.
The problem
Most process diagrams only answer the question “in what order does it run”. When your boss asks “how long does one case take and how much does it cost”, the answer is usually a number estimated by gut feel: add up the time of every step, then halve it because “in practice it goes faster”.
That kind of adding up is wrong in three places, and all three are wrong in ways that are hard to predict:
- Parallel branches — when two teams work at the same time, the total time is the slowest step, not the sum of the two steps. But you still pay for both.
- Exclusive branches — a case only travels down one branch. Adding up every branch gives you a number that matches no case at all.
- Rework — 20% of cases being sent back does not mean “add 20%”. A loop can repeat many times, and that tail adds up to a lot.
What this tool does
You feed in the BPMN diagram you already have (draw.io, Camunda, Bizagi…), fill in the time and cost for each step, and declare the probabilities for the branches. The tool reads the graph structure and answers:
| Question | What you get back |
|---|---|
| How long does one case take on average? | Expected time, with rework and per-branch probabilities already accounted for |
| How much does it cost? | Expected cost, with parallel branches all added up |
| What SLA can I safely commit to? | P90 / P95 from a Monte Carlo simulation |
| Where does shortening actually help? | The critical path — the chain of steps that decides total time |
| Which step is quietly expensive? | The expected number of runs of each step (this is where rework shows up) |
What makes the difference
The calculation core takes no shortcuts. Loops are solved with an absorbing Markov chain, which means an infinite number of turns is computed exactly, through one system of linear equations — not “try 3 turns and stop”. Nested parallel blocks are reduced from the inside out before solving, so the result stays correct no matter how complex the structure gets.
Every formula is written out in the Formulas section, with a worked hand-calculated example so you can check it yourself. The test suite uses exactly those examples as its test cases.
Who it is for
- Business Analyst — quantify the current state before proposing an improvement, and prove how much that improvement is worth.
- Operations manager — know which turnaround time you can commit to and hold, and which team is the bottleneck.
- Process consultant / auditor — compare option A and option B on the same measure, with the transparent formula attached.