AN INTEGRATED LIFE CYCLE FOR WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT BASED ON LEARNING AND PLANNING

2006 ◽  
Vol 15 (04) ◽  
pp. 485-505 ◽  
Author(s):  
HUGO M. FERREIRA ◽  
DIOGO R. FERREIRA
Keyword(s):  
Process Model ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Inductive Logic ◽  
Workflow Management ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Planning Techniques ◽  
Successive Refinement ◽  
Business Goals ◽  
Learning Techniques ◽  
Build Time

The ability to describe business processes as executable models has always been one of the fundamental premises of workflow management. Yet, the tacit nature of human knowledge is often an obstacle to eliciting accurate process models. On the other hand, the result of process modeling is a static plan of action, which is difficult to adapt to changing procedures or to different business goals. In this article, we attempt to address these problems by approaching workflow management with a combination of learning and planning techniques. Assuming that processes cannot be fully described at build-time, we make use of learning techniques, namely Inductive Logic Programming (ILP), in order to discover workflow activities and to describe them as planning operators. These operators will be subsequently fed to a partial-order planner in order to find the process model as a planning solution. The continuous interplay between learning, planning and execution aims at arriving at a feasible plan by successive refinement of the operators. The approach is illustrated in two simple scenarios. Following a discussion of related work, the paper concludes by presenting the main challenges that remain to be solved.

Semantic Annotation of Business Process Templates

2011 ◽  
pp. 242-258
Author(s):  
Yun Lin ◽  
Darijus Strasunskas
Keyword(s):  
Value Chain ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Semantic Annotation ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Modeling Languages ◽  
Business Goals ◽  
A Value ◽  
Machine Readable

Process models represent valuable resources for integration and alignment of business processes. Nowadays, due to networked business and tighter integration along a value chain, the number of enterprises that need to orchestrate their workflows is increasing. These circumstances urge companies to improve management of process models and templates. Machine-readable and interoperable semantics of the process templates facilitate retrieval and reuse. However, the heterogeneity of both model representations and modeling languages makes it difficult to retrieve, comprehend, compare, and reuse the templates. Therefore, in this chapter we elaborate on the semantic annotation of process model templates consisting of three basic parts: meta-model, domain, and goal annotations. For this purpose, we use ontologies representing generic constructs of process models, concepts from a business domain, and business goals. We illustrate application of the approach in OWL and provide a case study with exemplary semantic queries.

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 Pengujian Unit Plugin Pemberian Anotasi Efek Secara Semantik pada Proses Bisnis BPMN

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 170
Author(s):  
Hilman Nuril Hadi
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Unit Testing ◽  
Business Process Model ◽  
Testing Technique ◽  
Modeling Tools ◽  
Path Testing ◽  
Future Business

Business process model was created to make it easier for business process stakeholders to communicate and discuss the structure of the process more effectively and efficiently. Business process models can also be business artifacts and media that can be analyzed further to improve and maintain organizational competitiveness. To analyze business processes in a structured manner, the effect/results of the execution of business processes will be one of the important information. The effect/result of the execution of certain activities or a business process as a whole are useful for managing business processes, including for improvements related to future business processes. This effect annotation approach needs to be supported by business process modeling tools to assist business analysts in managing business processes properly. In previous research, the author has developed a plugin that supports business analysts to describe the effects semantically attached to activities in the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) business process model. In this paper, the author describes the unit testing process and its results on the plugin of semantic effect annotation that have been developed. Unit testing was carried out using the basic path testing technique and has obtained three test paths. The results of unit test for plugin are also described in this paper.

scholarly journals Improving the performance of process discovery algorithms by instance selection

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 927-958
Author(s):  
Mohammadreza Sani ◽  
Sebastiaan van Zelst ◽  
Aalst van der
Keyword(s):  
Process Model ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Instance Selection ◽  
Event Data ◽  
Process Discovery ◽  
Selection Strategies ◽  
Speed Up ◽  
The Right ◽  
Discovery Algorithms

Process discovery algorithms automatically discover process models based on event data that is captured during the execution of business processes. These algorithms tend to use all of the event data to discover a process model. When dealing with large event logs, it is no longer feasible using standard hardware in limited time. A straightforward approach to overcome this problem is to down-size the event data by means of sampling. However, little research has been conducted on selecting the right sample, given the available time and characteristics of event data. This paper evaluates various subset selection methods and evaluates their performance on real event data. The proposed methods have been implemented in both the ProM and the RapidProM platforms. Our experiments show that it is possible to considerably speed up discovery using instance selection strategies. Furthermore, results show that applying biased selection of the process instances compared to random sampling will result in simpler process models with higher quality.

scholarly journals Collaborative method to maintain business process models updated

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 461-480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nuno Castela ◽  
Paulo Dias ◽  
Marielba Zacarias ◽  
José Tribolet
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Organizational Environment ◽  
Business Process Model ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Over Time

Business process models are often forgotten after their creation and its representation is not usually updated. This appears to be negative as processes evolve over time. This paper discusses the issue of business process models maintenance through the definition of a collaborative method that creates interaction contexts enabling business actors to discuss about business processes, sharing business knowledge. The collaboration method extends the discussion about existing process representations to all stakeholders promoting their update. This collaborative method contributes to improve business process models, allowing updates based in change proposals and discussions, using a groupware tool that was developed. Four case studies were developed in real organizational environment. We came to the conclusion that the defined method and the developed tool can help organizations to maintain a business process model updated based on the inputs and consequent discussions taken by the organizational actors who participate in the processes.

Ontology-Based Framework for Quality in Configurable Process Models

2020 ◽  
pp. 464-478
Author(s):  
Loubna El Faquih ◽  
Mounia Fredj
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Process Modeling ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Novel Method ◽  
Ontology Languages ◽  
Variability Management

In recent years, business process modeling has increasingly drawn the attention of enterprises. As a result of the wide use of business processes, redundancy problems have arisen and researchers introduced the variability management, in order to enhance the business process reuse. The most approach used in this context is the Configurable Process Model solution, which consists in representing the variable and the fixed parts together in a unique model. Due to the increasing number of variants, the configurable models become complex and incomprehensible, and their quality is therefore impacted. Most of research work is limited to the syntactic quality of process variants. The approach presented in this paper aims at providing a novel method towards syntactic verification and semantic validation of configurable process models based on ontology languages. We define validation rules for assessing the quality of configurable process models. An example in the e-healthcare domain illustrates the main steps of our approach.

Assigning Ontological Meaning to Workflow Nets

2012 ◽  
pp. 209-244
Author(s):  
Pnina Soffer ◽  
Maya Kaner ◽  
Yair Wand
Keyword(s):  
Petri Nets ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Actual Process ◽  
Workflow Nets ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
Business Goals ◽  
General Constraints ◽  
Process Behavior

A common way to represent organizational domains is the use of business process models. A Workflow-net (WF-net) is an application of Petri Nets (with additional rules) that model business process behavior. However, the use of WF-nets to model business processes has some shortcomings. In particular, no rules exist beyond the general constraints of WF-nets to guide the mapping of an actual process into a net. Syntactically correct WF-nets may provide meaningful models of how organizations conduct their business processes. Moreover, the processes represented by these nets may not be feasible to execute or reach their business goals when executed. In this paper, the authors propose a set of rules for mapping the domain in which a process operates into a WF-net, which they derived by attaching ontological semantics to WF-nets. The rules guide the construction of WF-nets, which are meaningful in that their nodes and transitions are directly related to the modeled (business) domains. Furthermore, the proposed semantics imposes on the process models constraints that guide the development of valid process models, namely, models that assure that the process can accomplish its goal when executed.

Database Support for Workflow Management Systems

2009 ◽  
pp. 208-213
Author(s):  
Francisco A.C. Pinheiro
Keyword(s):  
Process Model ◽  
Reference Model ◽  
Workflow Management ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Formal Structure ◽  
Work Processes ◽  
Software Applications ◽  
Process Enactment ◽  
Workflow Management Coalition ◽  
Process Structure

A workflow is a series of work processes performed under rules that reflect the formal structure of the organization in which they are carried out and the relationships between their various parts. Workflow applications are software applications used to automate part of workflow processes. They run under the control of a workflow management system (WfMS). The WfMS usually comprises an organizational model, describing the process structure, and a process model, describing the process logic. The Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC, 2008) publishes a set of workflow definitions and related material, including a reference model. Databases are commonly used as a WfMS supporting technology. Not only workflow data are maintained in databases but also the rules governing processes can be stored in database schemas. Database functionality can be used both for defining and managing process models as well as for environment notification and process enactment. This article shows how particular database-related technologies can be used to support WfMS.

scholarly journals A Pattern Based Method for Simplifying a BPMN Process Model

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 2322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mateo Ramos-Merino ◽  
Luis M. Álvarez-Sabucedo ◽  
Juan M. Santos-Gago ◽  
Francisco de Arriba-Pérez
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Automatic Method ◽  
Business Process Model ◽  
Two Phase ◽  
Intensive Use ◽  
Fully Automatic ◽  
Validation Testing

BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation) is currently the preferred standard for the representation and analysis of business processes. The elaboration of these BPMN diagrams is usually carried out in an entirely manual manner. As a result of this human-driven process, it is not uncommon to find diagrams that are not in their most simplified version possible (regarding the number of elements). This work presents a fully automatic method to simplify a BPMN process model document. A two-phase iterative algorithm to achieve this simplification is described in detail. This algorithm follows a heuristic approach that makes intensive use of a Pattern Repository. This software element is concerned with the description of feasible reductions and its enactment. The critical concept lies in the discovery of small reducible patterns in the whole model and their substitution with optimised versions. This approach has been verified through a double validation testing in total 8102 cases taken from real world BPMN process models. Details for its implementation and usage by practitioners are provided in this paper along with a comparison with other existing techniques concerned with similar goals.

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.

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