Activeprocess: A Process-Driven and Agent-Based Approach to Supporting Collaborative Engineering

1999 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yan Jin ◽  
Li Zhao ◽  
Arun Raghunath
Keyword(s):  
Process Model ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Team Work ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Prototype System ◽  
Collaborative Engineering ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Engineering Team ◽  
High Level ◽  
Support Engineering

Abstract Collaborative engineering involves multiple engineers and managers working together to develop engineering products. As engineering problems become more and more complex, such as the development of a modern automobile, new technologies are demanded to maintain both effectiveness and efficiency of collaborative engineering. While process models and technologies have been developed to support engineering team work, most of the support remains at project management level. Our research proposes a process-driven and agent-based framework, called ActivePROCESS, to support collaborative engineering. ActivePROCESS is composed of a process model APM that captures both high level and low level activity dependencies, and an agent network that monitors process execution and facilitates coordination among engineers. One important feature of this framework is that the agents can capture emergent dependencies between activities dynamically and provides guidance for coordination by managing and applying the dependencies. In this paper, we first present our process-driven approach to collaborative engineering, and then describe the process model APM and the ActivePROCESS prototype system being developed. We will also describe a case example and discuss several issues experienced from the case study.

Modeling Collaborative Engineering Design Process Using Petri-Net

2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Zhao ◽  
Yan Jin
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Petri Net ◽  
Collaborative Design ◽  
Process Model ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Collaborative Engineering ◽  
Routine Design ◽  
High Level

Abstract Collaborative engineering involves multiple engineers and managers working together to develop engineering products. As the engineering problems become more and more complicated, new technologies are required to achieve better effectiveness and efficiency. While process models management and technologies have been developed to support engineering design, most of them apply only to routine design tasks and do not explicitly deal with the change of processes during execution. Our research proposes a process-driven framework to support collaborative engineering. The framework is composed of a process model that captures both high level and low level activity dependencies, an agent network that monitors process execution and facilitates coordination among engineers, and a Petri-net based modeling tool to represent and analyze process features and predict the performance of engineering processes. In this paper, we first describe a simple collaborative design problem and our proposed ActivePROCESS collaborative engineering framework. After that we present our Petri-net based analytical model of collaborative design process and discuss the model along with a case example.

scholarly journals Improvement of Business-Activities in Telecommunication Enterprises by the eTOM Business-Process Structural Model Implementation

2010 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-50
Author(s):  
Olga Korzachenko ◽  
Vadim Getman
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Process Management ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Structural Model ◽  
Foreign Market ◽  
Process Models ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Telecommunication Companies ◽  
High Level

Improvement of Business-Activities in Telecommunication Enterprises by the eTOM Business-Process Structural Model Implementation For now, in front of telecommunication branch enterprises of Ukraine, there is a problem of activity improvement with the purpose of granting high-quality services and maintenance of competitive position, both on internal, and on a foreign market. To solve this problem, telecommunication companies appropriate to use the mechanisms of business-oriented process management and improvement of end-to-end business-processes. The purpose of this article is a choice of effective business-process model that will allow telecommunications companies to provide modern, high quality and cost competitive services. During research, conditions of the telecommunication branch enterprises of Ukraine were investigated and key problems of their activity were revealed. Existing business-process models have been considered and analyzed and the optimal model was chosen, according to the put criteria. By results of the analysis a conclusion was drawn, that to the enterprises for business-process modeling is expedient for using eTOM - high-level system business-oriented model aimed for providing of any technological services, including IT. As advantages from introduction eTOM at the Ukrainian enterprises were analyzed.

BUSINESS PROCESS MODEL ABSTRACTION BASED ON SYNTHESIS FROM WELL-STRUCTURED BEHAVIORAL PROFILES

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (01) ◽  
pp. 55-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
SERGEY SMIRNOV ◽  
MATTHIAS WEIDLICH ◽  
JAN MENDLING
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Control Flow ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Coarse Grained ◽  
Business Process Model ◽  
Model Abstraction ◽  
Behavioral Profiles ◽  
Level Model ◽  
High Level

There are several motives for creating process models ranging from technical scenarios in workflow automation to business scenarios in which management decisions are taken. As a consequence, companies typically have different process models for the same process, which differ in terms of granularity. In this context, business process model abstraction serves as a technique that takes a process model as an input and derives a high-level model with coarse-grained activities and the corresponding control flow between them. In this way, business process model abstraction reduces the number of models capturing the same business process on different abstraction levels. In this article, we provide a solution to the problem of deriving the control flow of an abstract process model for the case that an arbitrary grouping of activities is permitted. To this end, we use behavioral profiles and prove that the soundness of the synthesized process model requires a notion of well-structuredness of the abstract model behavioral profile. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the activities can be grouped according to the data flow of the model in a meaningful way, and that this grouping does not directly coincides with a structural decomposition of the process, which is generally assumed by other abstraction approaches. This finding emphasizes the need for handling arbitrary activity groupings in business process model abstraction.

Agent-Based Knowledge Management for Collaborative Engineering

1999 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yan Jin ◽  
Weihua Zhou
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Management ◽  
Intelligent Agents ◽  
Knowledge Work ◽  
Basic Knowledge ◽  
Prototype System ◽  
Knowledge Level ◽  
Collaborative Engineering ◽  
Knowledge Application ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Knowledge Infrastructure

Abstract Collaborative engineering is knowledge work in the sense that engineers and managers must apply their knowledge to solve their problems and proceed with their work. The knowledge that is applied spans from the basic knowledge they learned from schools, application knowledge acquired from the industry, and experiential knowledge obtained from years of working experience. Most of the current research on collaborative engineering support focuses on providing communication and data sharing support for effective coordination. We argue that in order to increase the productivity of current practice of collaborative engineering, we need mechanisms that can not only facilitate information flow, but also provide active knowledge level support for engineers. Our research on KICAD — a Knowledge Infrastructure for Collaborative and Agent-based Design — attempts to develop a network of intelligent agents that capture knowledge from their associated human engineers and provide knowledge level support to them when needed. Among the issues involved in developing such a framework is the issue of knowledge management — how can we model knowledge, how can agents capture, update, manage, and utilize the knowledge for human support? In this paper, we first briefly introduce the KICAD research program and describe the issue of knowledge management in KICAD. After that we present a general knowledge application model (GKAM), the basic conceptual framework of knowledge management in KICAD. An example of applying GKAM in a prototype system will also be discussed.

Modeling Knowledge Structure for Collaborative Engineering

2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weihua Zhou ◽  
Yan Jin
Keyword(s):  
Intelligent Agents ◽  
Information Exchange ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Knowledge Structure ◽  
Knowledge Level ◽  
Collaborative Engineering ◽  
Knowledge Infrastructure ◽  
Engineering Team ◽  
Application Decision ◽  
And Control

Abstract A collaborative engineering team can be viewed as a collection of human engineers and intelligent computer systems, called intelligent agents. The process of collaborative engineering involves application of knowledge by engineers and intelligent agents, transmitting reports and commands between the engineers, and exchange of information between relevant parties. As engineering problems become more complex and time-to-market more demanding, new technologies must be developed to support knowledge application, decision-making and control, and information exchange. Most of the current research on collaborative engineering support focuses on providing communication and data sharing support for effective coordination. We argue that in order to increase the productivity of collaborative engineering, we need mechanisms that can provide active knowledge level support for engineers. Our research on K1CAD — a Knowledge Infrastructure for Collaborative and Agent-based Design — attempts to develop a network of intelligent agents that capture knowledge from their associated human engineers and provide knowledge level support to them when needed. One important issue involved in developing such a framework is how can we define and assess the role of knowledge and how different ways of organizing knowledge may impact on the overall performance of a collaborative engineering team? In this paper, we introduce the notion of knowledge structure, and present our initial model of knowledge structure that identifies the roles of knowledge and provides measures to assess how knowledge structure may impact on team performance. An example is presented to illustrate some interesting features of the model.

scholarly journals A COMPOSITIONAL KNOWLEDGE LEVEL PROCESS MODEL OF REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING

2002 ◽  
Vol 12 (01) ◽  
pp. 41-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
DANIELA E. HERLEA ◽  
CATHOLIJN M. JONKER ◽  
JAN TREUR ◽  
NIEK J. E. WIJNGAARDS
Keyword(s):  
Requirements Engineering ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Knowledge Level ◽  
Compositional Process ◽  
Specific Kind ◽  
Modelling Techniques ◽  
High Level ◽  
Level Process ◽  
Generic Process

In current literature few detailed process models for Requirements Engineering are presented: usually high-level activities are distinguished, without a more precise specification of each activity. In this paper the process of Requirements Engineering has been analyzed using knowledge-level modelling techniques, resulting in a well-specified compositional process model for the Requirements Engineering task. This process model is considered to be a generic process model: it can be refined (by instantiation or specialisation) into a process model for a specific kind of Requirements Engineering process.

scholarly journals Analysis of the process model of airport: creating the high level process map

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (12) ◽  
pp. 18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Buldakova ◽  
Denisa Dociová ◽  
Peter Vittek
Keyword(s):  
Process Model ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Font Size ◽  
Process Map ◽  
High Level ◽  
Level Process

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'MS Mincho'; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;" lang="EN-GB">This article describe the analysis of the process models of airport, which are described in Ground Operation Manual. The main goal is creating high level process map. </span>

A quantitative approach for measuring the degree of flexibility of business process models

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 1023-1049
Author(s):  
Asma Mejri ◽  
Sonia Ayachi-Ghannouchi ◽  
Ricardo Martinho
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Actual Process ◽  
Process Flexibility ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
Flexibility Measurement ◽  
High Level ◽  
Measurement Approach

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to measure the flexibility of business process models. The authors give the notions of flexible process distance, which corresponds to the number of change operations needed for transforming one process model into another, considering the different perspectives (functional, operational, behavioral, informational, and organizational). Design/methodology/approach The proposed approach is a quantitative-based approach to measure the flexibility of business process models. In this context, the authors presented a method to compute the distance between two process models. The authors measured the distance between a process model and a process variant in terms of the number of high-level change operations (e.g. to insert or delete actors) needed to transform the process model into the respective variant when a change occurred, considering the different perspectives and the flexible features. Findings To evaluate the flexibility-measurement approach, the authors performed a comprehensive simulation using an emergency care (EC) business process model and its variants. The authors used a real-world EC process and illustrated the possible changes faced in the emergency department (possible variants). Simulation results were promising because they fit the flexibility needs of the EC process users. This was validated using the authors’ previous work which consists in a guidance approach for business process flexibility. Research limitations/implications The authors defined six different distances between business process models, which are summarized in the definition of total process distance. However, changes in one perspective may lead to changes in other perspectives. For instance, adding a new activity may lead to adding a new actor. Practical implications The results of this study would help companies to obtain important information about their processes and to compare the desired level of flexibility with their actual process flexibility. Originality/value This study is probably the first flexibility-measurement approach which incorporates features for capturing changes affecting the functional, operational, informational, organizational, and behavioral perspectives as well as elements related to approaches enhancing flexibility.

THE FUNSOFT NET APPROACH TO SOFTWARE PROCESS MANAGEMENT

1994 ◽  
Vol 04 (02) ◽  
pp. 229-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
WOLFGANG DEITERS ◽  
VOLKER GRUHN
Keyword(s):  
Process Modeling ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Process Management ◽  
Software Process ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Complete Life Cycle ◽  
Software Process Modeling ◽  
Software Processes ◽  
High Level ◽  
Software Process Management

Software processes are usually described by guidelines and advices. These guidelines are claimed to be valid for many projects. This understanding leads to software processes which deviate from initial plans and which frequently yield insufficient results. System-atic management of software processes can help to overcome these shortcomings. In this paper, we introduce an incremental approach to software process management. This approach covers the complete life-cycle of software process models, i.e., it deals with software process modeling, software process model analysis, and software process model enaction. It is based on a net-based software process modeling language called FUNSOFT nets. FUNSOFT nets are high-level Petri nets adapted to the application domain of software process management. We model software processes by means of different views onto a software process model. Our approach is implemented in a software process management environment called MELMAC.

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