scholarly journals Strategies to Automatically Derive A Process Model From A Configurable Process Model Based on Event Data

Author(s):  
Mauricio Arriagada-Benítez ◽  
Marcos Sepúlveda ◽  
Jorge Munoz-Gama ◽  
Joos C. A. M. Buijs

Configurable process models are frequently used to represent business workflows and other discrete event systems among different branches of large organizations: they unify commonalities shared by all branches and describe their differences, at the same time. The configuration of such models is usually done manually, which is challenging. On the one hand, when the number of configurable nodes in the configurable process model grows, the size of the search space increases exponentially. On the other hand, the person performing the configuration may lack the holistic perspective to make the right choice for all configurable nodes at the same time, since choices influence each other. Nowadays, information systems that support the execution of business processes create event data reflecting how processes are performed. In this article, we propose three strategies (based on exhaustive search, genetic algorithms, and greedy heuristic) that use event data to automatically derive a process model from a configurable process model that better represents the characteristics of the process in a specific branch. These strategies have been implemented in our proposed framework, and tested in both business-like event logs as recorded in a higher educational ERP system, and a real case scenario involving a set of Dutch municipalities.

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 927-958
Author(s):  
Mohammadreza Sani ◽  
Sebastiaan van Zelst ◽  
Aalst van der

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.


Computing ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammadreza Fani Sani ◽  
Sebastiaan J. van Zelst ◽  
Wil M. P. van der Aalst

AbstractWith Process discovery algorithms, we discover process models based on event data, captured during the execution of business processes. The process discovery algorithms tend to use the whole event data. When dealing with large event data, it is no longer feasible to use standard hardware in a limited time. A straightforward approach to overcome this problem is to down-size the data utilizing a random sampling method. However, little research has been conducted on selecting the right sample, given the available time and characteristics of event data. This paper systematically evaluates various biased sampling methods and evaluates their performance on different datasets using four different discovery techniques. Our experiments show that it is possible to considerably speed up discovery techniques using biased sampling without losing the resulting process model quality. Furthermore, due to the implicit filtering (removing outliers) obtained by applying the sampling technique, the model quality may even be improved.


2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 908-922 ◽  
Author(s):  
Remco Dijkman ◽  
Oktay Turetken ◽  
Geoffrey Robert van IJzendoorn ◽  
Meint de Vries

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.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 170
Author(s):  
Hilman Nuril Hadi

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.


2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 461-480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nuno Castela ◽  
Paulo Dias ◽  
Marielba Zacarias ◽  
José Tribolet

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.


2020 ◽  
pp. 464-478
Author(s):  
Loubna El Faquih ◽  
Mounia Fredj

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.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 2322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mateo Ramos-Merino ◽  
Luis M. Álvarez-Sabucedo ◽  
Juan M. Santos-Gago ◽  
Francisco de Arriba-Pérez

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.


Author(s):  
Olga Korzachenko ◽  
Vadim Getman

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.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wil M. P. van der Aalst

Business Process Management (BPM) research resulted in a plethora of methods, techniques, and tools to support the design, enactment, management, and analysis of operational business processes. This survey aims to structure these results and provide an overview of the state-of-the-art in BPM. In BPM the concept of a process model is fundamental. Process models may be used to configure information systems, but may also be used to analyze, understand, and improve the processes they describe. Hence, the introduction of BPM technology has both managerial and technical ramifications and may enable significant productivity improvements, cost savings, and flow-time reductions. The practical relevance of BPM and rapid developments over the last decade justify a comprehensive survey.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Chika Eleonu

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to present a business process measurement framework for the evaluation of a corpus of business processes modelled in different business process modelling approaches. The results of the application of the proposed measurement framework will serve as a basis for choosing business process modelling approaches. Design/methodology/approach - The approach uses ideas of the Goal Question Metric (GQM) framework to define metrics for measuring a business process where the metrics answer the questions to achieve the goal. The Weighted Sum Method (WSM) is used to aggregate the measure of attributes of a business process to derive an aggregate measure, and business process modelling approaches are compared based on the evaluation of business process models created in different business process modelling approaches using the aggregate measure. Findings - The proposed measurement framework was applied to a corpus of business process models in different business process modelling approaches and is showed that insight is gained into the effect of business process modelling approach on the maintainability of a business process model. From the results, business process modelling approaches which imbibed the principle of separation of concerns of models, make use of reference or base model for a family of business process variants and promote the reuse of model elements performed highest when their models are evaluated with the proposed measurement framework. The results showed that the applications of the proposed framework proved to be useful for the selection of business process modelling approaches. Originality - The novelty of this work is in the application of WSM to integrate metric of business process models and the evaluation of a corpus of business process models created in different business process modelling approaches using the aggregate measure.


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