Detecting violation of business constraints in declarative process execution: a case study

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 1043-1063 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vitus S.W. Lam
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Process Modelling ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Business Rules ◽  
Business Rule ◽  
Efficient Manner ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Process Execution ◽  
Business Process Execution

Purpose Declarative process modelling is a constraint-centric approach that treats business rules as first-class citizens in business process models. Augmenting the declarative process modelling technique with capability to detect the constraint violations during business process execution is of crucial importance. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the modelling of business rules through a repository of pattern-oriented templates. Design/methodology/approach The semantics of the business rule templates is underpinned by linear temporal logic (LTL). Automated temporal reasoning is then conducted for determining whether process executions adhere to the business rules through the utilisation of the Logics Workbench (LWB). An application of the methodological framework is illustrated by a realistic case study on degree requirements verification. Findings To access the practicality of the approach, the case study of this paper is based on the verification of degree requirements, which is different from the domain area of the case study in the author’s prior work. The findings indicated that the temporal framework could be applied to the declarative process modelling in a consistent and efficient manner. Originality/value This paper is an extended version of the author’s earlier study. More details on the LTL and LWB are provided in the current study. The author introduces 17 new business rule templates and illustrates the utilisation of the new templates via a case study that belongs to a different domain area.

Constraint-based reasoning on declarative process execution with the logics workbench

2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 586-609 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vitus Lam
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Process Modelling ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Theorem Prover ◽  
Business Rules ◽  
Business Rule ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Formal Framework ◽  
Execution Trace ◽  
New Business

Purpose – An integral part of declarative process modelling is to guarantee that the execution of a declarative workflow is compliant with the respective business rules. The purpose of this paper is to establish a formal framework for representing business rules and determining whether any business rules are violated during the executions of declarative process models. Design/methodology/approach – In the approach, a business rule is phrased in terms of restricted English that is related to a constraint template. Linear temporal logic (LTL) is employed as a formalism for defining the set of constraint templates. By exploiting the theorem-proving feature of the Logics Workbench (LWB), business rule violations are then detected in an automatic manner. Findings – This study explored the viability of encoding: first, process executions by means of LTL and second, business rules in terms of restricted English that built upon pattern-oriented templates and LTL. The LWB was used for carrying out temporal reasoning through automated techniques. The applicability of the formal verification approach was exemplified by a case study concerning supply chain management. The findings showed that practical reasoning could be achieved by combining declarative process modelling, restricted English, pattern-oriented templates, LTL and LWB. Originality/value – First, new business rule templates are proposed; second, business rules are expressed in restricted English instead of graphical constructs; third, both finite execution trace and business rules are grounded in LTL. There is no need to deal with the semantic differences between different formalisms; and finally, the theorem prover LWB is used for the conformance checking of a finite execution trace against business rules.

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 Framework-Driven Comparison of Automata-Based Tools for Identifying Business Rule Conflicts

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (03) ◽  
pp. 433-455
Author(s):  
Vitus S. W. Lam
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Logic ◽  
Linear Temporal Logic ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Business Rules ◽  
Business Rule ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
Formal Framework ◽  
Automated Tools ◽  
Büchi Automaton

Drawing on business rules for constructing business process models by a constraint-driven methodology is a distinct characteristic of declarative process modeling. Given the intricacies of business rules, there is a pragmatic need to conduct conflict-free assessments for business rules in an automatic manner. In this paper, business rules are stated in terms of restricted English by harnessing a group of predefined business rule templates. With linear temporal logic that serves as a semantic foundation for the business rule templates, a pair of business rules represented as a linear temporal logic specification is translated into an associated Büchi automaton via LTL2BA, LTL3BA and ltl2tgba. A Büchi automaton that accepts the empty language signifies that the two business rules are in conflict with each other. The suitability of the formal framework and the three automated tools is evaluated by an industry-level case study.

Ownership relevance in aspect-oriented business process models

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 566-593 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julio Cesar Sampaio do Prado Leite ◽  
Flavia Maria Santoro ◽  
Claudia Cappelli ◽  
Thais Vasconcelos Batista ◽  
Fabiana Jack Nogueira Santos
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Process Modeling ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Business Process Modeling ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Business Process Modeling Notation ◽  
Representation Scheme

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a representation scheme based on the i* strategic actor model to represent the process owner information and show how to incorporate this approach into the event driven process chain and Business Process Modeling Notation-BPMN meta-models and also into the aspect-oriented business process modeling (BPM) context. Design/methodology/approach – The authors use a case study in a real setting to evaluate the proposal and a controlled experiment to get more evidence about its relevance. Findings – The authors presented evidence both from a case study in a real-world library showing the importance of representing – previously unavailable – process owner information, and from an experiment which involved participants analyzing the same models of the case study, confirming the preliminary evidences. It is important to stress the recognition that the proposed representation provided more transparency, in terms of ownership, than the usual BPM models. These benefits are due to the combination of the aspect-oriented approach and the strategic actor model, providing ownership information in a more transparent way. Originality/value – The authors not only argue the importance of clearly established process ownership, both of the core process and the aspectual process, but also the authors presented an approach to represent the actor involved in process and aspect ownership as an instantiation of the i* strategic actor. Using this approach, the process owner can be defined in terms of actors instead of the activities performed. It is also possible to define the aspect owner and to include the aspectual process concept in the business process model.

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 Synchronous gesture manipulation for collaboration and coordination of co-located Business Process Modelling

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brenda Scholtz ◽  
Andre Calitz ◽  
Irene Snyman
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Design Science ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Process Modelling ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Proof Of Concept ◽  
Business Process Modelling ◽  
Individual Contributions ◽  
Coordination And Collaboration

The purpose of this study was to investigate approaches (techniques and technologies) for the coordination of collaborative tasks using synchronous gesture manipulation. Business Process Modelling (BPM) tasks are often performed in teams of modellers who need to collaborate with each other in order to coordinate and integrate their individual contributions into the various process models in a co-located environment. These collaborative BPM tasks were used as a case study in order to develop the artifact (the BPM-Touch approach) as a proof of concept. The BPM-Touch approach allows for the coordination and collaboration of BPM tasks in co-located modelling teams using synchronous gesture manipulation approaches. The Design Science Research (DSR) methodology was used and several cycles of developing and evaluating the artifact took place. This paper reports on the last cycle and set of evaluations. The proposed approach was implemented in a BPM software package in order to provide empirical validation. Usability evaluations of the software were undertaken with both students and BPM professionals as participants. The empirical results of the evaluations revealed that the participants found the approach to be effective and rated the usability and satisfaction of the collaboration and gesture manipulation aspects of the software positively.

Mining business rules from business process model repositories

2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 820-836 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jantima Polpinij ◽  
Aditya Ghose ◽  
Hoa Khanh Dam
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Process Mining ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Sequential Patterns ◽  
Business Rules ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Market Growth ◽  
Business Process Models

Purpose – Business process has become the core assets of many organizations and it becomes increasing common for most medium to large organizations to have collections of hundreds or even thousands of business process models. The purpose of this paper is to explore an alternative dimension to process mining in which the objective is to extract process constraints (or business rules) as opposed to business process models. It also focusses on an alternative data set – process models as opposed to process instances (i.e. event logs). Design/methodology/approach – The authors present a new method of knowledge discovery to find business activity sequential patterns embedded in process model repositories. The extracted sequential patterns are considered as business rules. Findings – The authors find significant knowledge hidden in business processes model repositories. The hidden knowledge is considered as business rules. The business rules extracted from process models are significant and valid sequential correlations among business activities belonging to a particular organization. Such business rules represent business constraints that have been encoded in business process models. Experimental results have indicated the effectiveness and accuracy of the approach in extracting business rules from repositories of business process models. Social implications – This research will assist organizations to extract business rules from their existing business process models. The discovered business rules are very important for any organization, where rules can be used to help organizations better achieve goals, remove obstacles to market growth, reduce costly mistakes, improve communication, comply with legal requirements, and increase customer loyalty. Originality/value – There has very been little work in mining business process models as opposed to an increasing number of very large collections of business process models. This work has filled this gap with the focus on extracting business rules.

Non-disruptive knowledge and business processing in knowledge life cycles – aligning value network analysis to process management

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 651-686 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Stary
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Knowledge Claim ◽  
Life Cycles ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Change Processes ◽  
Double Loop ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Value Network

Purpose – This paper aims to achieve fully intertwined knowledge and business processing in change processes. It proposes streamlining situated articulation work, value network analyses (VNA) and subject-oriented business process modelling (S-BPM) and execution to provide non-disruptive single and double learning processes driven by concerned stakeholders. When implementing knowledge life cycles, such as Firestone and McElroy’s knowledge life cycle, the agility of organizations is significantly constrained, in particular, when surviving knowledge claims should be implemented in the business processing environment in a seamless way. Design/methodology/approach – The contribution is based on a conceptual analysis of knowledge life cycle implementations, learning loop developments and an exploratory case study in health care to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The solution towards non-disruptive knowledge and business processing allows stakeholders to actively participate in single- and double-loop learning processes. Findings – The introduced approach supports problem and knowledge claim formulation, knowledge claim evaluation and non-disruptive knowledge integration into a business process environment. Based on stakeholder articulation, the steps to follow are: holomapping, exchange analysis, impact analysis, value creation analysis, subject-oriented modelling, business process validation and execution. Seamless support of stakeholders is enabled through the direct mapping of stakeholder and activity descriptions from value network representations to behaviour specifications (process models) on the individual and organizational layer. Research limitations/implications – Current knowledge life cycle developments and implementations can now be analyzed in a structured way. Elements of the proposed approach could be integrated in disruptive implementations to overcome current limitations of knowledge life cycles. However, further case studies need to be performed to identify hindrances or barriers of combining VNA and S-BPM, both on the technological and methodological layer. What works for expert service industries might need to be adapted for production industries, and tools or tool chains might need to be configured accordingly. Finally, the socio-economic impact of the approach needs to be explored. Practical implications – The presented case study from health care reveals the potential of such a methodological combination, as cycle times can be reduced, in particular, due to the execution of role-specific process models in the respective business processing environment. It can be considered as a fundamental shift for existing change management procedures, as they require rework of the entire functional process models when addressing business processing. Now, stakeholder- or role-specific behaviour can be handled isolated and in parallel, without affecting the entire organization in case of modifications. Originality/value – The proposed methodological integration has not been done before. It enables stakeholders to perform single- and double-loop change processes in a seamless way.

Business process management – a construction case study

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bhargav Dave
Keyword(s):  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Process Improvement ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Business Process Management ◽  
Process Management ◽  
Process Modelling ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Construction Company ◽  
Improvement Effort

Purpose This paper aims to demonstrate the need for a structured business process improvement effort needed while restructuring organisational processes within a construction company. Through the longitudinal study, the study also highlights the importance of a continuous improvement initiative to sustain such an improvement effort. Design/methodology/approach The research followed an action research and the case study approach using semi-structured interviews and group workshops within the case organisation. Overall, six departments were analysed, 35 interviews with senior and middle managers were conducted, existing business process documents were studied and processes were documented. The data were compiled using a process modelling software and Business Process Markup Notation methodology. Additionally, a longitudinal analysis following the completion of process modelling exercise was carried out over a period of eight years. Findings The overall study highlights the importance of business process management (BPM) for construction organisations. The case study also demonstrated that even smaller business units and its processes affected the overall value chain in a major way and the importance to analyse the process interdependencies between organisational units. Research limitations/implications The main limitation of the research was that it is based on a single-case-study company based in the UK. More research is needed with other organisations with different work practices and culture and geographic location. Practical implications Primarily, the research outlines specific steps taken during a structured process improvement exercise in a construction company, including procedures for collecting data, developing process maps and analysis of data. The longitudinal study highlights the challenges in sustaining such an initiative. For practitioners, strengths and weaknesses of various process improvement methods and a detailed description of a BPM implementation can be used as a guideline for future projects. From a research point of view, the paper highlights the need for deeper and long-term analysis of such initiatives and the importance of immersion of researchers within the environment. Originality/value The paper provides deeper insights into the structured process improvement exercise within a construction company. Second and more importantly, the longitudinal study is one of its kind in the construction industry to shed light on the factors affecting sustainability of such initiatives.

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