scholarly journals Extending Conceptual Schemas with Business Process Information

2010 ◽  
Vol 2010 ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Brambilla ◽  
Jordi Cabot ◽  
Sara Comai
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Workflow Management ◽  
Extended Model ◽  
Current Case ◽  
Conceptual Schema ◽  
Small Organizations ◽  
Process Specification ◽  
Technological Platform ◽  
Relevant Domain

The specification of business processes is becoming a more and more critical aspect for organizations. Such processes are specified as workflow models expressing the logical precedence among the different business activities (i.e., the units of work). Typically, workflow models are managed through specific subsystems, called workflow management systems, to ensure a consistent behavior of the applications with respect to the organization business process. However, for small organizations and/or simple business processes, the complexity and capabilities of these dedicated workflow engines may be overwhelming. In this paper, we therefore, advocate for a different and lightweight approach, consisting in the integration of the business process specification within the system conceptual schema. We show how a workflow-extended conceptual schema can be automatically obtained, which serves both to enforce the organization business process and to manage all its relevant domain data in a unified way. This extended model can be directly processed with current CASE tools, for instance, to generate an implementation of the system (including its business process) in any technological platform.

The Design of Enterprise Cooperative Platform Based on Workflow

2014 ◽  
Vol 568-570 ◽  
pp. 1616-1620
Author(s):  
Min Qin ◽  
Shi Quan Qiao
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Management System ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Computer Network ◽  
Workflow Management ◽  
Workflow Management System ◽  
Workflow Engine ◽  
Operation Efficiency ◽  
Business Operation ◽  
Whole Process

At present, the enterprise has many business processes. It need transfer many forms involving personnel, procurement and other aspects. The workflow management system uses computer network to realize the automation of the business process. This paper analyses the workflow management system, describes the operational principle of the workflow engine and presents a cooperative platform design based on workflow. It can effectively track the whole process and realize standardized management. Otherwise, it can enhance the enterprise business operation efficiency.

Intelligent Networking and Business Process Innovation

2010 ◽  
pp. 1412-1424
Author(s):  
Richard A. Gershon
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Performance ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Process Innovation ◽  
Just In Time ◽  
Intelligent Network ◽  
Case Study Analysis ◽  
Small Organizations ◽  
Box Office ◽  
Intelligent Networking

Today, innovation is much more about much than just developing new products. It is about reinventing business processes and building entirely new markets to meet untapped customer needs. This chapter will examine the subject of business process innovation which involves creating systems and methods for improving organizational performance. Special attention is given to the topic of intelligent networking which represents the combination of software, technology, and electronic pathways that makes business process innovation possible for both large and small organizations alike. A central tenet is that the intelligent network is not one network, but a series of networks designed to enhance world-wide communication for business and residential users. Two very different kinds of intelligent networks are discussed in this chapter. The first involves satellite-to-cable television networking where the emphasis is on program distribution to the end consumer. The second is a supply chain management network where the emphasis is on just-in-time manufacturing. Each of the said networks represents a highly innovative business process and share the common goal of improving organizational performance. The information presented in this chapter is theory-based and supported by a case-study analysis of Home Box Office, Inc. and Dell Computers.

Business Process and Workflow Modeling in Web Services

2011 ◽  
pp. 466-470
Author(s):  
Vincent Yen
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Web Services ◽  
Web Service ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Workflow Management ◽  
Heterogeneous Systems ◽  
Application Integration ◽  
Enterprise Application ◽  
Computing Platforms

In large organizations, typical systems portfolios consist of a mix of legacy systems, proprietary applications, databases, off-the-shelf packages, and client-server systems. Software systems integration is always an important issue and yet a very complex and difficult area in practice. Consider the software integration between two organizations on a supply chain; the level of complexity and difficulty multiply quickly. How to make heterogeneous systems work with each other within an enterprise or across the Internet is of paramount interest to businesses and industry. Web services technologies are being developed as the foundation of a new generation of business-to-business (B2B) and enterprise application integration (EAI) architectures, and important parts of components as grid (www.grid.org), wireless, and automatic computing (Kreger, 2003). Early technologies in achieving software application integration use standards such as the common object request broker architecture (CORBA) of the Object Management Group (www.omg.org), the distributed component object model (DCOM) of Microsoft, and Java/RMI, the remote method invocation mechanism. CORBA and DCOM are tightly coupled technologies, while Web services are not. Thus, CORBA and DCOM are more difficult to learn and implement than Web services. It is not surprising that the success of these standards is marginal (Chung, Lin, & Mathieu, 2003). The development and deployment of Web services requires no specific underlying technology platform. This is one of the attractive features of Web services. Other favorable views on the benefits of Web services include: a simple, lowcost EAI supporting the cross-platform sharing of functions and data; and an enabler of reducing integration complexity and time (Miller, 2003). To reach these benefits, however, Web services should meet many technology requirements and capabilities. Some of the requirements include (Zimmermann, Tomlinson & Peuser, 2003): • Automation Through Application Clients: It is required that arbitrary software applications running in different organizations have to directly communicate with each other. • Connectivity for Heterogeneous Worlds: Should be able to connect many different computing platforms. • Information and Process Sharing: Should be able to export and share both data and business processes between companies or business units. • Reuse and Flexibility: Existing application components can be easily integrated regardless of implementation details. • Dynamic Discovery of Services, Interfaces, and Implementations: It should be possible to let application clients dynamically, i.e., at runtime, look for and download service address, service binding, and service interface information. • Business Process Orchestration Without Programming: Allows orchestration of business activities into business processes, and executes such aggregated process automatically. The first five requirements are technology oriented. A solution to these requirements is XML-based Web services, or simply Web services. It employs Web standards of HTTP, URLs, and XML as the lingua franca for information and data encoding for platform independence; therefore it is far more flexible and adaptable than earlier approaches. The last requirement relates to the concept of business workflow and workflow management systems. In supply chain management for example, there is a purchase order process at the buyer’s side and a product fulfillment process at the supplier’s side. Each process represents a business workflow or a Web service if it is automated. These two Web services can be combined into one Web service that represents a new business process. The ability to compose new Web services from existing Web services is a powerful feature of Web services; however, it requires standards to support the composition process. This article will provide a simplified exposition of the underlying basic technologies, key standards, the role of business workflows and processes, and critical issues.

Design of Workflow Engine Based on Relational Structures

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 34-43
Author(s):  
Song Ji ◽  
Weifang Zhai ◽  
Yiran Jiang
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Operation Mode ◽  
Workflow Management ◽  
Office Automation ◽  
Workflow Engine ◽  
Automation System ◽  
Relational Structures ◽  
The Core ◽  
Office Automation System

Workflow technology is the core technology to realize business process modeling, process operation, monitoring and management, and ultimately realize business process automation. Workflow-based office automation system can separate code writing and the operation mode. When business processes need to be changed, there is no need to modify the program. Users only need to customize the workflow through the visual process customization mode. The workflow engine is the core of the whole workflow management system and the control center of the whole system. This article designs a workflow engine based on a relational structure, including the design of workflow engine class, functional component, interface and database. Finally, a flexible office automation system with customizable business processes is implemented.

Integrated Business and Production Process Data Warehousing

2011 ◽  
pp. 88-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Draheim ◽  
Oscar Mangisengi
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Production Efficiency ◽  
Process Management ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Workflow Management ◽  
Numerical Control ◽  
Data Resource ◽  
Key Performance Indication ◽  
Resource Data

Nowadays tracking data from activity checkpoints of unit transactions within an organization’s business processes becomes an important data resource for business analysts and decision-makers to provide essential strategic and tactical business information. In the context of business process-oriented solutions, business-activity monitoring (BAM) architecture has been predicted as a major issue in the near future of the business-intelligence area. On the other hand, there is a huge potential for optimization of processes in today’s industrial manufacturing. Important targets of improvement are production efficiency and product quality. Optimization is a complex task. A plethora of data that stems from numerical control and monitoring systems must be accessed, correlations in the information must be recognized, and rules that lead to improvement must be identified. In this chapter we envision the vertical integration of technical processes and control data with business processes and enterprise resource data. As concrete steps, we derive an activity warehouse model based on BAM requirements. We analyze different perspectives based on the requirements, such as business process management, key performance indication, process and state based-workflow management, and macro- and micro-level data. As a concrete outcome we define a meta-model for business processes with respect to monitoring. The implementation shows that data stored in an activity warehouse is able to efficiently monitor business processes in real-time and provides a better real-time visibility of business processes.

BUSINESS PROCESS MODELING AND WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT

1995 ◽  
Vol 04 (02n03) ◽  
pp. 145-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
VOLKER GRUHN
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Process Modeling ◽  
Business Process Management ◽  
Process Management ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Workflow Management ◽  
Business Process Modeling ◽  
Activity Modeling ◽  
Organization Modeling ◽  
Activity Models

Most of today’s approaches to business process engineering (also called business process management) start from an activity-centered perspective. They describe activities to be carried out within a business process and their relationships, but they usually pay little attention to the objects manipulated within processes. In this article, we discuss an approach to business process modeling, model analysis, and business process enaction (also called workflow management) which is based on data modeling, activity modeling, and organization modeling. In fact, the ℒeu approach to business process management considers data models (describing types of objects to be manipulated in a business process and their relationships), activity models (describing activities to be carried out in a business process), and organization models (describing organizational entities involved in a business process) as separate, but equally important, facets of business processes.

scholarly journals Business process specification, verification, and deployment in a mono-cloud, multi-edge context

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 293-313
Author(s):  
Saoussen Cheikhrouhou ◽  
Slim Kallel ◽  
Ikbel Guidara ◽  
Zakaria Maamar
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Time Constraints ◽  
Real Case ◽  
Design Time ◽  
Process Specification ◽  
Time Latency ◽  
Specification And Verification ◽  
Edge Based

Despite the prevalence of cloud and edge computing, ensuring the satisfaction of time-constrained business processes, remains challenging. Indeed, some cloud/edge-based resources might not be available when needed leading to delaying the execution of these processes? tasks and/or the transfer of these processes? data. This paper presents an approach for specifying, verifying, and deploying time constrained business processes in a mono-cloud, multi-edge context. First, the specification and verification of processes happen at design-time and run-time to ensure that these processes? tasks and data are continuously placed in a way that would mitigate the violation of time constraints. This mitigation might require moving tasks and/or data from one host to another to reduce time latency, for example. A host could be either a cloud, an edge, or any. Finally, the deployment of processes using a real case-study allowed to confirm the benefits of the early specification and verification of these processes in mitigating time constraints violations.

Workflow Management Based on Mobile Agent Technology

2011 ◽  
pp. 1615-1623 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Flores-Badillo ◽  
Ernesto López-Mellado
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Mobile Agent ◽  
Process Management ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Workflow Management ◽  
Critical Issue ◽  
Agent Technology ◽  
Workflow Management Coalition ◽  
Manufacturing Applications ◽  
Definition Of

Nowadays Information Systems (IS) are designed for individual task execution control allowing coordinating, monitoring, and supporting the logistical aspects of a business process, in other words, the IS has to manage the flow of work through the organization. The WorkFlow Management represents a critical issue for achieving enterprise competitiveness among organizations. Many companies have realized that the business processes (BP) within their organizations, and between the companies and their partners have not been clearly described and there are not enough techniques and methods to automate the processes. The Workflow Management Coalition (WFMC) states that workflow (WF) is concerned with the automation of procedures where documents, information, or tasks are passed to the participants according to a defined set of rules to achieve, or contribute to, an overall business goal (WfMC, 1999). Another definition of WF can be found in (Rusinkiewicz & Seth, 1994) where workflows are activities involving the coordinated execution of multiple tasks performed by different processing entities (persons or machines). A task or process involves a piece of work and a process entity which executes the work. Workflow Management (WFM) is a fast evolving technology which is increasingly being exploited by businesses in a variety of industries. Its primary characteristic is the automation of processes involving combinations of human and machine-based activities (Aalst & Hee, 2002), (Aalst, 1998). A Workflow Management System (WFMS) provides procedural automation of a business process by management of the sequence of work activities and the invocation of appropriate human and/or IT resources associated with the various activity steps. Although the most prevalent use of WFMS is within the office environment in staff intensive operations such as insurance, banking, legal and general administrations, etc, it is also applicable to some classes of industrial and manufacturing applications (WfMC, 1995). WFMS needs to integrate other technologies such that agent technology, which provides flexible, distributed, and intelligent solutions for business process management. This work presents a methodology for mobile agentbased WFMS development. The proposed methodology consists of a modular and gradual specification of the system where a mobile agent guides the process through organizational units and executes different tasks. Several mobile agents evolve through the system executing concurrently their assigned task.

Enabling Technology: Ein J2EE-basiertes Business Process Management System zur Ausführung von BPEL- und Web Service-basierten Geschäftsprozessen (Enabling Technology: A J2EE based Business Process Management System for BPEL and Web services based business processes)

2004 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Kloppmann ◽  
Dieter König ◽  
Frank Leymann ◽  
Gerhard Pfau ◽  
Dieter Roller
Keyword(s):  
Web Services ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Management System ◽  
Business Process Management ◽  
Process Management ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Workflow Management ◽  
Workflow Management System ◽  
Enabling Technology ◽  
Business Process Execution

ZusammenfassungMithilfe von Web Services und BPEL (Business Process Execution Language for Web Services) können Geschäftsprozesse und deren Interaktion mit verschiedenen Partnern beschrieben werden. Zur Ausführung der Geschäftsprozesse finden Workflow Management Systeme Verwendung. Dieser Artikel beschäftigt sich, basierend auf den Grundlagen von Web Services und BPEL, mit der Implementierung eines Workflow Management Systems. Um den Anforderungen der Geschäftswelt zu genügen, muss ein Workflow Management System sowohl langlaufende, unterbrechbare als auch kurzlaufende Geschäftsprozesse mit ihren unterschiedlichen Quality-of-Service Eigenschaften unterstützen. Die Systeme müssen robust sein, sicher und hoch verfügbar. Der Artikel beschreibt die Implementierung eines J2EE-basierten Workflow Management System, das diesen Anforderungen entspricht. Dabei wird auf die Verwendung von Message Queuing Systemen und Datenbanken eingegangen, ebenso wie auf die Integration in einen Standard Application Server und die Verwendung dort zur Verfügung stehender Transaction Manager, EJB Container, People Directory und Deployment Infrastruktur.

scholarly journals Generating Block-Structured Parallel Process Models by Demonstration

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 1876
Author(s):  
Julijana Lekić ◽  
Dragan Milićev ◽  
Dragan Stanković
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Process Mining ◽  
Original Method ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Programming By Demonstration ◽  
Event Logs ◽  
Process Specification ◽  
Common Purpose ◽  
Block Structured

Programming by demonstration (PBD) is a technique which allows end users to create, modify, accommodate, and expand programs by demonstrating what the program is supposed to do. Although the ideal of common-purpose programming by demonstration or by examples has been rejected as practically unrealistic, this approach has found its application and shown potentials when limited to specific narrow domains and ranges of applications. In this paper, the original method of applying the principles of programming by demonstration in the area of process mining (PM) to interactive construction of block-structured parallel business processes models is presented. A technique and tool that enable interactive process mining and incremental discovery of process models have been described in this paper. The idea is based on the following principle: using a demonstrational user interface, a user demonstrates scenarios of execution of parallel business process activities, and the system gives a generalized model process specification. A modified process mining technique with the α|| algorithm applied on weakly complete event logs is used for creating parallel business process models using demonstration.

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