scholarly journals Decision-making support for input data in business processes according to former instances

Author(s):  
Miguel Hose Pérez Álvarez ◽  
Luisa Parody ◽  
María Teresa Gómez-López ◽  
Rafael Gasca ◽  
Paolo Ceravolo

Business Processes facilitate the execution of a set of activities to achieve the strategic plans of a company. During the execution of a business process model, several decisions can be made that frequently involve the values of the input data of certain activities. The decision regarding the value of these input data concerns not only the correct execution of the business process in terms of consistency, but also the compliance with the strategic plans of the company. Smart decision-support systems provide information by analyzing the process model and the business rules to be satisfied, but other elements, such as the previous temporal variation of the data during the former executed instances of similar processes, can also be employed to guide the input data decisions at instantiation time. Our proposal consists of learning the evolution patterns of the temporal variation of the data values in a process model extracted from previous process instances by ap plying Constraint Programming techniques. The knowledge obtained is applied in a Decision Support System (DSS) which helps in the maintenance of the alignment of the process execution with the organizational strategic plans, through a framework and a methodology. Finally, to present a proof of concept, the proposal has been applied to a complete case study.

2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (04) ◽  
pp. 1450003 ◽  
Author(s):  
María Teresa Gómez-López ◽  
Rafael M. Gasca ◽  
José Miguel Pérez-Álvarez

In a business process, the information that flows between the activities can be introduced by those users who interact with the process. This introduced information could be incorrect due to a lack of knowledge or a mistake. For this reason and to make the business process execution consistent, we propose a Decision Support System (DSS) to inform the user about the possible and correct values that the input data can take. The DSS takes into account the business process model and the policy of the company. The policy concerning the input data and dataflow that the company manages can be represented by constraints (called Business Data Constraints (BDCs)). In order to ascertain all the possible values of the input data that permit the execution of the process following the defined goals, the DSS analyzes the business process model and the BDC, using the constraint programming paradigm.


2018 ◽  
Vol 210 ◽  
pp. 02012
Author(s):  
Robert Waszkowski ◽  
Tadeusz Nowicki ◽  
Kazimierz Worwa

The paper outlines the concept for using the Business Process Management System (BPMS) to improve processes in a rental company. It also presents a case study of the implementation of the process approach in a medium-sized company dealing in the production, rental and service of work and protective clothing. The aim of the paper is to prepare reference business process models that allow you to measure and improve all the corporate activities. The process models were prepared in accordance with the BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation). The results of the conducted research prove that well designed business processes may not only be managed but also easily enhanced and automated in a way that allows organization to improve its performance in meaningful ways. The paper describes in detail - in subsequent chapters - sales, warehouse delivery, incoming correspondence handling, and cost accounting processes. In the last chapter the system architecture is presented. The proess models are prepared in an innovative way that allows easy process automation.


2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (01) ◽  
pp. 1650002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Pflug ◽  
Stefanie Rinderle-Ma

The optimization of their business processes is a crucial challenge for many enterprises. This applies especially for organizations using complex cooperative information systems to support human work, production lines, or computing services. Optimizations can touch different aspects such as costs, throughput times, and quality. Nowadays, improvements in workflows are mostly achieved by restructuring the process model. However, in many applications there is a huge potential for optimizations during runtime as well. This holds particularly true for collaborative processes with critical activities, i.e. activities that require a high setup or changeover time, typically leading to waiting queues in instance processing. What is usually suggested in this situation is to bundle several instances in order to execute them as a batch. How the batching is achieved, however, has been only decided on static rules so far. In this paper, we feature dynamic instance queuing (DIQ) as an approach towards clustering and batching instances based on the current conditions in the process, e.g. attribute values of the instances. Specifically, we extend our previous work on applying DIQ at single activities towards a queuing approach that spans activity sequences (DIQS). The approach is evaluated based on a real-world case study from the manufacturing domain. We discuss limitations and further applications of the DIQ idea, e.g. with respect to collaborative human tasks.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 3438
Author(s):  
Jorge Fernandes ◽  
João Reis ◽  
Nuno Melão ◽  
Leonor Teixeira ◽  
Marlene Amorim

This article addresses the evolution of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) in the automotive industry, exploring its contribution to a shift in the maintenance paradigm. To this end, we firstly present the concepts of predictive maintenance (PdM), condition-based maintenance (CBM), and their applications to increase awareness of why and how these concepts are revolutionizing the automotive industry. Then, we introduce the business process management (BPM) and business process model and notation (BPMN) methodologies, as well as their relationship with maintenance. Finally, we present the case study of the Renault Cacia, which is developing and implementing the concepts mentioned above.


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.


Organizacija ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 204-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dalibor Šimek ◽  
Roman Šperka

Abstract Background and Purpose: Motivation of this research is to explore the current trend in automating the business processes through software robots (Robotic Process Automation – RPA) and its managing within enterprise environment where most of the processes are executed by human workforce. As the RPA technology expands the demand for its coordinating grows as well. The possible solution to this challenge is shown in case study research in form of implementing orchestration platform to a concrete business process of onboarding in HR department of a multinational company. The aim of this paper is to explore the phases and activities of the pilot project implementation of Robotic Service Orchestration (RSO) in combination with RPA technology and to assess the potential benefits. Design/Methodology/Approach: Case study research approach was selected to explore the research phenomena, which is the implementation of RSO platform in combination with RPA technology and assessing incoming benefits. The case is formed with 2 companies – (1) multinational company with ongoing effort of automating onboarding process, (2) technology and consulting company delivering the automation solution. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with respondents from two involved companies and by analysing internal documents. Results: The analysis of case provided in this paper revealed some key insights: (1) strategical position of RSO and tactical position of RPA towards the existing legacy systems, (2) need for increased focus on initial process modelling phase, (3) Application Programming Interface (API) integration is more viable solution for RPA, (4) the biggest benefit of RPA - its agility, (5) future potential of the RSO replacing the BPMS. Conclusions: First of all, there is a need of higher number of software robots adopted in a company before orchestration could pay off. On the other side, current Business Process Management Systems (BPMS) solutions don’t offer functionalities for managing human and software robots workforce altogether. RPA is expected to expand and without proper orchestration the effectivity will not grow constantly.


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.


Information ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 362
Author(s):  
Le Zhang ◽  
Qi Gao ◽  
Tingyu Li

With the continuous complexity and frequent changes in business application scenarios, companies urgently need to establish a flexible business process management mechanism that includes dynamic rules, in which dynamic adaptation methods of business processes play a vital role. Aiming at the problem that the current methods only use the preset process template and the decision-making database, it cannot respond quickly to business changes and reconfigure the business process. This research proposes a dynamic adaptation method of business process based on the hierarchical feature model, builds a hierarchical feature model of complex processes, then establishes a hierarchical business policy set to achieve an agile response to business emergencies. By constructing a mapping model, the feature model is associated with the BPMN model to realize the rapid execution of the reconfiguration process model. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method are verified by process examples and the developed business process dynamic adaptation tool.


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