Partial process models to manage business process variants

Business organizations maintain business processes with multiple variants because of varied business requirements of which the support of these multiple business process variants constitutes a big challenge. BPPLE tool demonstration presents an extension of Eclipse BPMN modeller to cope with the modelling, and customization of business processes at build time and run time to compose the business process variants it may have. BPPLE tool is based on the Business Process Product Line Engineering (BPPLE) approach, our proposed approach for managing a family of business process variants. We have applied BPPLE in the scenarios such as the student registration in a higher education institution. Tests carried out showed that BPPLE tool enables the customization of business process models or instances to compose business process variant models or instances, respectively.

Download Full-text

Supporting Customizable Business Process Models Using Graph Transformation Rules

International Journal of Information System Modeling and Design ◽

10.4018/ijismd.2016070103 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 7 (3) ◽

pp. 51-71 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Verena Geist ◽

Christa Illibauer ◽

Christine Natschläger ◽

Robert Hutter

Keyword(s):

Business Process ◽

Process Management ◽

Graph Transformation ◽

Research Area ◽

Process Models ◽

Process Variants ◽

Theoretical Approaches ◽

Active Research ◽

Definition Of ◽

Graph Transformation Systems

Business Process customization is an active research area in the process management field, dealing with variations/commonalities among processes of a given process family and runtime adaptations of single process instances. Many theoretical approaches have been suggested in the last years; however, practical implementations are rare and limited in their functionality. In this article, a new approach is proposed for capturing customizable process models based on well-known graph transformation techniques and with focus on practical aspects like definition of variation points, linking and propagation of changes, visual highlighting of differences in process variants, and dynamically selecting a specific variant at runtime. The suggested concepts are discussed within case studies, comprising different graph transformation systems for generating process variants supporting (a) variability by restriction, (b) variability by restriction and by extension, and (c) runtime adaptations due to the executing actor. The overall approach is being implemented in the FireStart BPM suite.

Download Full-text

Process Logic for Verifying the Correctness of Business Process Models

SSRN Electronic Journal ◽

10.2139/ssrn.1561312 ◽

2004 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Henry H. Bi ◽

J. Leon Zhao

Keyword(s):

Business Process ◽

Process Models ◽

Business Process Models

Download Full-text

Evaluation and Lessons Learned from a Campus as a Living Lab Program to Promote Sustainable Practices

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13041739 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (4) ◽

pp. 1739

Author(s):

Paul Save ◽

Belgin Terim Cavka ◽

Thomas Froese

Keyword(s):

Learning Curve ◽

Business Process ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

Process Models ◽

Sustainable Practices ◽

Business Process Models ◽

District Energy ◽

University Of British Columbia ◽

Living Lab ◽

The University

Any group that creates challenging goals also requires a strategy to achieve them and a process to review and improve this strategy over time. The University of British Columbia (UBC) set ambitious campus sustainability goals, including a reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions to 33% below the 2007 level by 2015, and 100% by 2050 (UBC, 2006). The University pursued these goals through a number of specific projects (such as major district energy upgrade and a bioenergy facility) and, more generally, through a “Campus as a Living Lab” (CLL) initiative to marry industry, campus operations, and research to drive innovative solutions. The CLL program has achieved significant successes while also demonstrating many opportunities for improvements and lessons learned. The aim of this study was to examine the UBC CLL program, to identify and formalize its operations, to extract key transferable characteristics, and to propose replicable processes that other universities and municipalities can follow to expand their sustainable practices in similar ways. There was a learning curve with implementing a CLL program at UBC; thus, the goal of this study was to potentially shorten this learning curve for others. The research involved an ethnographic approach in which researchers participated in the CLL process, conducted qualitative analysis, and captured the processes through a series of business process models. The research findings are shared in two parts: 1. generalized lessons learned through key transferrable characteristics; 2. a series of generic organizational charts and business process models (BPMs) culminated with learned strategies through defined processes that illustrate what was required to create a CLL program at UBC. A generalized future improvement plan for UBC CLL programs is defined, generic BPMs about CLL projects are evaluated, and the level of engagement of multiple stakeholders through phases of project life cycle given in the conclusion for future use of other Living Lab organizations.

Download Full-text

A Framework and Tool Support for Managing a Family of Business Process Variants

2021 The 4th International Conference on Information Science and Systems ◽

10.1145/3459955.3460604 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Henry Chika Eleonu

Keyword(s):

Business Process ◽

Tool Support ◽

Process Variants

Download Full-text

An Elaborate Preprocessing Phase (p3) in Composition and Optimization of Business Process Models

Computation ◽

10.3390/computation9020016 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (2) ◽

pp. 16

Author(s):

George Tsakalidis ◽

Kostas Georgoulakos ◽

Dimitris Paganias ◽

Kostas Vergidis

Keyword(s):

Computational Complexity ◽

Business Process ◽

Synthetic Data ◽

Search Space ◽

Positive Influence ◽

Process Models ◽

Library Size ◽

Solution Generation ◽

Improved Performance ◽

Business Process Optimization

Business process optimization (BPO) has become an increasingly attractive subject in the wider area of business process intelligence and is considered as the problem of composing feasible business process designs with optimal attribute values, such as execution time and cost. Despite the fact that many approaches have produced promising results regarding the enhancement of attribute performance, little has been done to reduce the computational complexity due to the size of the problem. The proposed approach introduces an elaborate preprocessing phase as a component to an established optimization framework (bpoF) that applies evolutionary multi-objective optimization algorithms (EMOAs) to generate a series of diverse optimized business process designs based on specific process requirements. The preprocessing phase follows a systematic rule-based algorithmic procedure for reducing the library size of candidate tasks. The experimental results on synthetic data demonstrate a considerable reduction of the library size and a positive influence on the performance of EMOAs, which is expressed with the generation of an increasing number of nondominated solutions. An important feature of the proposed phase is that the preprocessing effects are explicitly measured before the EMOAs application; thus, the effects on the library reduction size are directly correlated with the improved performance of the EMOAs in terms of average time of execution and nondominated solution generation. The work presented in this paper intends to pave the way for addressing the abiding optimization challenges related to the computational complexity of the search space of the optimization problem by working on the problem specification at an earlier stage.

Download Full-text

Influence of diagram layout and scrolling on understandability of BPMN processes: an eye tracking experiment with BPMN diagrams

Information Technology and Management ◽

10.1007/s10799-021-00327-7 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Daniel Lübke ◽

Maike Ahrens ◽

Kurt Schneider

Keyword(s):

Eye Tracking ◽

Business Process ◽

Process Modeling ◽

Business Models ◽

Business Process Modeling ◽

Process Models ◽

Software Systems ◽

Process Diagrams ◽

Style Guides ◽

Important Activity

AbstractBusiness process modeling is an important activity for developing software systems—especially within digitization projects and when realizing digital business models. Specifying requirements and building executable workflows is often done by using BPMN 2.0 process models. Although there are several style guides available for BPMN, e.g., by Silver and Richard (BPMN method and style, vol 2, Cody-Cassidy Press, Aptos, 2009), there has not been much empirical research done into the consequences of the diagram layout. In particular, layouts that require scrolling have not been investigated yet. The aim of this research is to establish layout guidelines for business process modeling that help business process modelers to create more understandable business process diagrams. For establishing benefits and penalties of different layouts, a controlled eye tracking experiment was conducted, in which data of 21 professional software developers was used. Our results show that horizontal layouts are less demanding and that as many diagram elements as possible should be put on the initially visible screen area because such diagram elements are viewed more often and longer. Additionally, diagram elements related to the reader’s task are read more often than those not relevant to the task. BPMN modelers should favor a horizontal layout and use a more complex snake or multi-line layout whenever the diagrams are too large to fit on one page in order to support BPMN model comprehension.

Download Full-text