Wand and Weber's good decomposition conditions for BPMN

2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 693-729 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Johannsen ◽  
Susanne Leist ◽  
Reinhold Tausch
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Process Modelling ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Modelling Language ◽  
Business Process Modelling ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Process Chains ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to specify the decomposition conditions of Wand and Weber for the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN). Therefore, an interpretation of the conditions for BPMN is derived and compared to a specification of the conditions for enhanced Event-Driven Process Chains (eEPCs). Based on these results, guidelines for a conformance check of BPMN and eEPC models with the decomposition conditions are shown. Further, guidelines for decomposition are formulated for BPMN models. The usability of the decomposition guidelines is tested with modelling experts. Design/methodology/approach – An approach building on a representational mapping is used for specifying the decomposition conditions. Therefore, ontological constructs of the Bunge-Wand-Weber ontology are mapped to corresponding modelling constructs and an interpretation of the decomposition conditions for BPMN is derived. Guidelines for a conformance check are then defined. Based on these results, decomposition guidelines are formulated. Their usability is tested in interviews. Findings – The research shows that the decomposition conditions stemming from the information systems discipline can be transferred to business process modelling. However, the interpretation of the decomposition conditions depends on specific characteristics of a modelling language. Based on a thorough specification of the conditions, it is possible to derive guidelines for a conformance check of process models with the conditions. In addition, guidelines for decomposition are developed and tested. In the study, these are perceived as understandable and helpful by experts. Research limitations/implications – Research approaches based on representational mappings are subjected to subjectivity. However, by having three researchers performing the approach independently, subjectivity can be mitigated. Further, only ten experts participated in the usability test, which is therefore to be considered as a first step in a more comprising evaluation. Practical implications – This paper provides the process modeller with guidelines enabling a conformance check of BPMN and eEPC process models with the decomposition conditions. Further, guidelines for decomposing BPMN models are introduced. Originality/value – This paper is the first to specify Wand and Weber's decomposition conditions for process modelling with BPMN. A comparison to eEPCs shows, that the ontological expressiveness influences the interpretation of the conditions. Further, guidelines for decomposing BPMN models as well as for checking their adherence to the decomposition conditions are presented.

scholarly journals Business processes exceptions in relation to operational performance

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 908-922 ◽  
Author(s):  
Remco Dijkman ◽  
Oktay Turetken ◽  
Geoffrey Robert van IJzendoorn ◽  
Meint de Vries
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Operational Performance ◽  
Normal Flow ◽  
Throughput Time ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose Business process models describe the way of working in an organization. Typically, business process models distinguish between the normal flow of work and exceptions to that normal flow. However, they often present an idealized view. This means that unexpected exceptions – exceptions that are not modeled in the business process model – can also occur in practice. This has an effect on the efficiency of the organization, because information systems are not developed to handle unexpected exceptions. The purpose of this paper is to study the relation between the occurrence of exceptions and operational performance. Design/methodology/approach The paper does this by analyzing the execution logs of business processes from five organizations, classifying execution paths as normal or exceptional. Subsequently, it analyzes the differences between normal and exceptional paths. Findings The results show that exceptions are related to worse operational performance in terms of a longer throughput time and that unexpected exceptions relate to a stronger increase in throughput time than expected exceptions. Practical implications These findings lead to practical implications on policies that can be followed with respect to exceptions. Most importantly, unexpected exceptions should be avoided by incorporating them into the process – and thus transforming them into expected exceptions – as much as possible. Also, as not all exceptions lead to longer throughput times, continuous improvement should be employed to continuously monitor the occurrence of exceptions and make decisions on their desirability in the process. Originality/value While work exists on analyzing the occurrence of exceptions in business processes, especially in the context of process conformance analysis, to the best of the authors’ knowledge this is the first work that analyzes the possible consequences of such exceptions.

scholarly journals Aggregate Metric Model for Evaluating Business Processes

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Chika Eleonu
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Process Modelling ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Business Process Modelling ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
Measurement Framework ◽  
Aggregate Measure ◽  
Modelling Approaches

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to present a business process measurement framework for the evaluation of a corpus of business processes modelled in different business process modelling approaches. The results of the application of the proposed measurement framework will serve as a basis for choosing business process modelling approaches. Design/methodology/approach - The approach uses ideas of the Goal Question Metric (GQM) framework to define metrics for measuring a business process where the metrics answer the questions to achieve the goal. The Weighted Sum Method (WSM) is used to aggregate the measure of attributes of a business process to derive an aggregate measure, and business process modelling approaches are compared based on the evaluation of business process models created in different business process modelling approaches using the aggregate measure. Findings - The proposed measurement framework was applied to a corpus of business process models in different business process modelling approaches and is showed that insight is gained into the effect of business process modelling approach on the maintainability of a business process model. From the results, business process modelling approaches which imbibed the principle of separation of concerns of models, make use of reference or base model for a family of business process variants and promote the reuse of model elements performed highest when their models are evaluated with the proposed measurement framework. The results showed that the applications of the proposed framework proved to be useful for the selection of business process modelling approaches. Originality - The novelty of this work is in the application of WSM to integrate metric of business process models and the evaluation of a corpus of business process models created in different business process modelling approaches using the aggregate measure.

The micro-processes during repatriate knowledge transfer: the repatriates’ perspective

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 735-755 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Burmeister ◽  
Jürgen Deller ◽  
Joyce Osland ◽  
Betina Szkudlarek ◽  
Gary Oddou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Transfer ◽  
Transfer Process ◽  
Organizational Support ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Process Perspective ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to add a process perspective to the literature on repatriate knowledge transfer (RKT) and to understand how the knowledge transfer process unfolds in the repatriation context. Thus, this qualitative study uses existing knowledge transfer process models to assess their applicability to the context of repatriation and explain the micro-processes during RKT. Design/methodology/approach – To provide a rich understanding of these processes from the repatriate perspective, critical incidents reported by 29 German and US American repatriates were content-analyzed. Findings – The findings are summarized in a proposed RKT process model, which describes the roles and knowledge transfer-related activities of repatriates, recipients and supervisors as well as their interaction during four transfer phases: assessment, initiation, execution and evaluation. Research limitations/implications – The experiences of repatriates from different geographic areas as well as the perspectives of knowledge recipients and supervisors were not studied but should be included in future research. In addition, future research could test the applicability of the identified micro-processes to different knowledge transfer contexts. Practical implications – Managers can use the findings to facilitate the RKT process more effectively because the type of organizational support offered can be aligned with the changing needs of repatriates, recipients and supervisors during the four identified phases. Originality/value – This is the first study that takes a process perspective to understand RKT. The integration of the current findings with the existing literature can enable a more nuanced view on RKT.

scholarly journals Identification and analysis of handovers in organisations using process model repositories

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
pp. 1599-1617 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Leyer ◽  
Deniz Iren ◽  
Banu Aysolmaz
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Scale Method ◽  
Model Repository ◽  
Practical Implications ◽  
Organisational Level ◽  
Telecommunications Company

PurposeIdentifying handovers is an important but difficult to achieve goal for companies as handovers have advantages allowing for specialisation in processes as well as disadvantages by creating erroneous interfaces.Design/methodology/approachConceptualisation of a method based on theory and evaluation with company data using a process model repository.FindingsThe method allows to evaluate handovers from the perspective of roles in processes and grouping of employees in organisational units. It uses existing process model repositories connected with organisational chart information in companies to determine the density of handovers. The method is successfully evaluated using the example of a major telecommunications company with 1,010 process models in its repository.Practical implicationsCompanies can determine on various levels, up to the overall organisational level, in which parts of the company efforts are best spent to manage handovers in an optimal way.Originality/valueThis paper is first in showing how handovers can be conceptualised and identified with a large-scale method.

scholarly journals Quality Evaluation of EPC to BPMN Business Process Model Transformation

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 207
Author(s):  
Ahsanun Naseh Khudori ◽  
Tri Astoto Kurniawan ◽  
Fatwa Ramdani
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Model Transformation ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Experimental Approach ◽  
Process Modelling ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Business Process Modelling ◽  
Scientific Approach

Due to the expressiveness of BPMN for representing the business processes, it has replaced EPC as a de-facto process modelling standard. As such, enterprises require to transform their existing EPC business process models to BPMN to keep their competitiveness. ARIS Architect & Designer, as a popular business process modelling tool, provides a model transformation feature, e.g., EPC to BPMN. For the sake of quality, it must guarantee that the resulting model has syntactic correctness and syntactic completeness. However, there is currently limited scientific approach available to evaluate the quality of the model transformation in ARIS Architect & Designer. This study proposes an evaluation of model transformation in ARIS Architect/Designer based on syntactic correctness and syntactic completeness criteria using an experimental approach. The result shows the model transformation in ARIS Architect/Designer has not completely fulfilled the criteria. The result opens further research challenges to improve the quality of EPC to BPMN model transformation.

scholarly journals Aggregate metric model for evaluating business processes

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Chika Eleonu
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Process Modelling ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Business Process Modelling ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
Measurement Framework ◽  
Aggregate Measure ◽  
Modelling Approaches

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a business process measurement framework for the evaluation of a corpus of business processes modelled in different business process modelling approaches. The results of the application of the proposed measurement framework will serve as a basis for choosing business process modelling approaches.Design/methodology/approachThe approach uses ideas of the goal question metric framework to define metrics for measuring a business process where the metrics answer the questions to achieve the goal. The weighted sum method (WSM) is used to aggregate the measure of attributes of a business process to derive an aggregate measure, and business process modelling approaches are compared based on the evaluation of business process models created in different business process modelling approaches using the aggregate measure.FindingsThe proposed measurement framework was applied to a corpus of business process models in different business process modelling approaches and is showed that insight is gained into the effect of business process modelling approach on the maintainability of a business process model. From the results, business process modelling approaches which imbibed the principle of separation of concerns of models, make use of reference or base model for a family of business process variants and promote the reuse of model elements performed highest when their models are evaluated with the proposed measurement framework. The results showed that the applications of the proposed framework proved to be useful for the selection of business process modelling approaches.Originality/valueThe novelty of this work is in the application of WSM to integrate metric of business process models and the evaluation of a corpus of business process models created in different business process modelling approaches using the aggregate measure.

scholarly journals Adaptive business rules framework for workflow management

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 948-971
Author(s):  
Kanana Ezekiel ◽  
Vassil Vassilev ◽  
Karim Ouazzane ◽  
Yogesh Patel
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Object Oriented ◽  
Process Modelling ◽  
Semantic Indexing ◽  
Business Rules ◽  
Business Process Modelling ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Content Type

Purpose Changing scattered and dynamic business rules in business workflow systems has become a growing problem that hinders the use and configuration of workflow-based applications. There is a gap in the existing research studies which currently focus on solutions that are application specific, without accounting for the universal logical dependencies between the business rules and, as a result, do not support adaptation of the business rules in real time. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach To tackle the above problems, this paper adopts a bottom-up approach, which puts forward a component model of the business process workflows and then adds business rules which have clear logical semantics. This allows incremental development of the workflows and semantic indexing of the rules which govern them during the initial acquisition. Findings The paper introduces an event-driven model for development of business workflows which is purely logic-based and can be easily implemented using an object-oriented technology, together with a model of the business rules dependencies which supports incremental semantic indexing. It also proposes a two-level inference mechanism as a vehicle for controlling the business process execution and the process of adaptation of the business rules at real time based on propagating the dependencies. Research limitations/implications The framework is strictly logical and completely domain-independent. It allows to account both synchronous and asynchronous triggering events as well as both qualitative and quantitative description of the conditions of the rules. Although our primary interest is to apply the framework to the business processes typical in the construction industry we believe our approach has much wider potential due to its strictly logical formalization and domain independence. In fact it can be used to control any business processes where the execution is governed by rules. Practical implications The framework could be applied to both large business process modelling tasks and small but very dynamic business processes like the typical digital business processes found in online banking or e-Commerce. For example, it can be used for adjusting security policies by adding the capability to adapt automatically the access rights to account for additional resources and new channels of operation which can be very interesting ion both B2C and B2B applications. Social implications The potential scope of the impact of the research reported here is linked to the wide applicability of rule-based systems in business. Our approach makes it possible not only to control the execution of the processes, but also to identify problems in the control policies themselves from the point of view of their logical properties – consistency, redundancies and potential gaps in the logics. In addition to this, our approach not only increases the efficiency, but also provides flexibility for adaptation of the policies in real time and increases the security of the overall control which improves the overall quality of the automation. Originality/value The major achievement reported in this paper is the construction of a universal, strictly logic-based event-driven framework for business process modelling and control, which allows purely logical analysis and adaptation of the business rules governing the business workflows through accounting their dependencies. An added value is the support for object-oriented implementation and the incremental indexing which has been possible thanks to the bottom-up approach adopted in the construction of the framework.

A Survey of Risk-Aware Business Process Modelling

2020 ◽  
pp. 1004-1016
Author(s):  
Hanane Lhannaoui ◽  
Mohammed Issam Kabbaj ◽  
Zohra Bakkoury
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Business Process Management ◽  
Process Management ◽  
Process Modelling ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Business Process Modelling ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
Related Information

For organizations, risk is a key concept when dealing with business process. Integrating risks aspects during business process management starts with an accurate consideration of risk's characteristics in the modelling phase. Most research is needed on integrating risk and business process modelling. Actually, the literature suggests various approaches to represent risk-related information in business process models. The diversity of those methods and the fact that this domain is still emerging make it difficult to choose the most suitable language. This paper aims to represent a survey of the existing risk-annotated business process model's notations.

A Survey of Risk-Aware Business Process Modelling

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 14-26
Author(s):  
Hanane Lhannaoui ◽  
Mohammed Issam Kabbaj ◽  
Zohra Bakkoury
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Business Process Management ◽  
Process Management ◽  
Process Modelling ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Business Process Modelling ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
Related Information

For organizations, risk is a key concept when dealing with business process. Integrating risks aspects during business process management starts with an accurate consideration of risk's characteristics in the modelling phase. Most research is needed on integrating risk and business process modelling. Actually, the literature suggests various approaches to represent risk-related information in business process models. The diversity of those methods and the fact that this domain is still emerging make it difficult to choose the most suitable language. This paper aims to represent a survey of the existing risk-annotated business process model's notations.

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