Since its market release in late 1994, the FirstSTEP toolset developed by Interfacing Technologies of Montreal, Canada has been proven to be one of the most practical solutions for business process management initiatives. Being a methodology independent enterprise modeling and simulation application, FirstSTEP has been adopted by industry leaders from such diversified sectors as manufacturing, finance, telecom, healthcare, public, and others. Its concept and approach are compatible to the CIMOSA framework. Most notably is the user front-end simplicity that has enabled its acceptance by the typical business manager who is not usually academic in his/her approach. The paper presents the FirstSTEP tool suite, its concept and approach and demonstrates its capabilities using an application with a most recent FirstSTEP user - America Online. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
