Understanding BPMN Pools and Lanes with a True Aqua Distilled Water Case Study

In a swimming pool, lanes are designed for swimmers so they do not cross each other; the lane concept also exists in BPMN.

In BPMN, a lane (also called a swimlane) is a rectangular container that represents a business process participant. Lanes can contain flow objects performed by that participant and may be arranged horizontally or vertically, with horizontal lanes flowing left‑to‑right and vertical lanes flowing top‑to‑bottom. Examples include customers, departments, payment gateways, and development teams.

There are two types of swim structures: pools and lanes.

Pools

A pool represents a participant in a business process. It can be a specific entity such as a department or a role such as an assistant manager, doctor, student, or supplier.

Within a pool are flow elements that denote the work the participant must perform. A pool may also be a "black‑box" pool, which contains no internal flow and is used to model external entities whose internal processes are irrelevant to the diagram.

Lanes

A lane is a sub‑division of a pool. For example, within a department pool you might create separate lanes for a manager and regular staff. Like pools, lanes can represent specific entities or roles involved in the process.

Lanes can be nested, but BPMN recommends using nesting only when it adds value; otherwise, an organizational chart may be more appropriate.

Case Study – True Aqua Distilled Water Company

True Aqua is a young distilled‑water supplier aiming to increase its market share from 5% to 10% within 12‑18 months by improving operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.

As a business analyst, you have gathered the ordering process details and will model them using BPMN.

Customers can place orders via a hotline (90% of orders) or email (10%). The service assistant checks whether the customer is new; if so, an account is created before processing the order.

Deliveries occur weekly on Wednesday. The service assistant forwards orders to the logistics department, whose manager schedules delivery, assigns workers, prints schedules, and the workers deliver the water to customers.

Now you will use BPMN to model this process, starting with the creation of appropriate pools and lanes.

From the application toolbar select Project > New and click “Create Blank Project”.

Choose Diagram > New to create a new Business Process Diagram.

In the New Diagram window select “Business Process Diagram” and click Next.

Enter “True Aqua Distilled Water Order Process” as the diagram name and click OK.

The application toolbar provides access to various modeling actions, while the diagram editor is the canvas where you build the diagram.

Read the collected ordering‑process details and identify the entities to model: Customer, Service Assistant, Logistics Manager, and Worker.

Right‑click the diagram canvas, select “Add Pool”, name it “Customer”, and press Enter.

Note that a pool spans the entire width of the diagram horizontally.

Create a second pool for “True Aqua Distilled Water Company” and add lanes for the Service Assistant and Logistics Department.

Right‑click the company pool and choose “Add Lane” to create the Service Assistant lane.

Enter the lane name, press Enter, then add a child lane for the Logistics Department.

Enter “Logistics” as the lane name, confirm, and adjust lane sizes by dragging the borders.

The diagram should now look like this:

Inside the Logistics lane, add child lanes for “Manager” and “Worker”.

Enter “Manager”, press Enter, then insert a lane after it named “Worker”.

Introducing Other BPMN Elements

Part 1 – BPMN Introduction

Part 3 – Flow and Connection Objects

Part 4 – Data and Artifacts

Resources

True Aqua Distilled Water – Part 2 (completed)

Additional reading: What is a Data Flow Diagram (DFD) and how to draw one?

How to write effective use cases?

DFD example – ordering system

How to model relational databases with ERD?

How to develop existing and future business processes?

Thank you for following, sharing, and liking this tutorial.