Integration of Diagrammatic Business Modeling Tools

Author(s):  
Dina Neiger ◽  
Leonid Churilov

Historically, diagrammatic representations of processes have been widely used to effectively communicate complex and interrelated ideas and concepts (Albarn & Smith, 1977; Elder, 1992). Business processes are no exception. As businesses (and consequently business processes) became more complex, the diagram, with its ability to combine “verbal, numerical and visual functions with analytic and associative processes of thought” (Albarn & Smith), became an essential tool in the array of instruments used by business analysts and modelers (Clemen & Reilly, 2001; Davis, 2001; Elder; Howard & Matheson, 1989; Keller & Teufel, 1998; Kirkwood, 1998/2001; Klaus, Rosemann, & Gable, 2000; Kros, 2001; Nuttgens, Field, & Zimmerman, 1998; Scheer, 1999, 2000). In this article, we review a unified approach to the use of diagrams for business process and decision modeling in the context of decision support. Modeling features that can be regarded as relative weaknesses for one class of diagrams (e.g., decision modeling diagrams) are, in fact, the strong points for the other suggested class (e.g., process modeling diagrams). It is therefore natural to expect that a suitable combination of process and decision modeling approaches would increase the power of the resulting diagram as an effective tool for business analysis and modeling.

Author(s):  
Gábor Kovács

This chapter gives an overview of modeling languages used for modeling business environment, abstract workflows, executable business processes, and business data. The languages are either abstract that primarily serve the purposes of business modeling or executable that can be run in a business process engine. The business process modeling languages BPMN (Business Process Modeling Language) and BPEL (Business Process Execution Language) are in the center of the discussion; however, the core concepts and application area of other languages are given as well. An important part of business modeling is the description of business collaboration and the format of business information exchanged. XML based data modeling languages are used for describing such contracts. Throughout the chapter the focus is on the underlying concepts of these languages rather than the syntax.


Author(s):  
Jorge Lima de Magalhães ◽  
Daniele Alves de Oliveira ◽  
Jorge Carlos Santos da Costa ◽  
Zulmira Hartz

Organizations, to achieve their strategic targets, are frequently making decisions facing modern competitive scenarios. The increment of the transparency requirements in the transactions executed is one of the factors that explain the interest in the process modeling, since it can act as a control instrument because it allows one to constantly review the base of the structure and point out problems and failures which will be reflected in chain by the other instruments used by the organizations. The literature review and the experience in the industry of productive processes shows the need to apply better management models to remain in the competitive edge of business, modeling orientation focused on the activities of each area with interfaces involved in the all productive processes. The proposal of this model is to establish the interfaces and dialogues with interaction and participation of the production areas: quality control, regulatory policies, and industrial engineering advisory to contribute technically with information to subsidize the better elaboration of the master production plan.


Author(s):  
Donald R. Chand ◽  
Alina M. Chircu

This chapter presents a variety of business process modeling notations that range from programming logic flowcharts to the new standard, BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation), as put forth by the Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI) (http://www.bpmi.org). Specifically, it discusses (1) the use of unstructured programming flowcharts in modeling business processes and their adaptation in process flow diagramming notation, (2) the UML activity diagram, and (3) BPMN, a comprehensive notation for documenting and modeling complex business processes. Using simple examples, this chapter brings out the inherent complexity of modeling business processes and the need for modeling tools that synchronize and align the mental models of business users, process analyst and information technology (IT) systems developers in order to correctly represent the intended process.


1998 ◽  
Vol 08 (01) ◽  
pp. 21-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. M. P. VAN DER AALST

Workflow management promises a new solution to an age-old problem: controlling, monitoring, optimizing and supporting business processes. What is new about workflow management is the explicit representation of the business process logic which allows for computerized support. This paper discusses the use of Petri nets in the context of workflow management. Petri nets are an established tool for modeling and analyzing processes. On the one hand, Petri nets can be used as a design language for the specification of complex workflows. On the other hand, Petri net theory provides for powerful analysis techniques which can be used to verify the correctness of workflow procedures. This paper introduces workflow management as an application domain for Petri nets, presents state-of-the-art results with respect to the verification of workflows, and highlights some Petri-net-based workflow tools.


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.


Author(s):  
Ned Kock

This paper reports on a quasi-experimental field study in which business process redesign groups in four different US organizations used two different business process representation types. One of the representation types emphasized an activity flow (or workflow) view of business processes, which appears to currently be the most prevalent in actual operational-level business process redesign projects; the other emphasized a communication flow view. The study suggests that, contrary to assumptions likely underlying most of the current business process redesign practice, communication flow-oriented representations of business processes are perceived by those involved in their redesign as significantly more useful in the following aspects than activity flow-oriented representations: identification of opportunities for process improvement, application of process redesign guidelines, visualization of process changes, and development of generic information technology solutions to implement new business processes. Important implications for managers and researchers stemming from these results are discussed.


Author(s):  
Evellin Cardoso ◽  
João Paulo A. Almeida ◽  
Renata S. S. Guizzardi ◽  
Giancarlo Guizzardi

While traditional approaches in business process modeling tend to focus on “how” the business processes are performed (adopting a behavioral description in which business processes are described in terms of procedural aspects), in goal-oriented business process modeling, the proposals strive to extend traditional business process methodologies by providing a dimension of intentionality to business processes. One of the key difficulties in enabling one to model goal-oriented processes concerns the identification or elicitation of goals. This paper reports on a case study conducted in a Brazilian hospital, which obtained several goal models represented in i*/Tropos, each of which correspond to a business process also modeled in the scope of the study. NFR catalogues were helpful in goal elicitation, uncovering goals that did not come up during previous interviews prior to these catalogues’ use.


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.


2010 ◽  
pp. 1627-1638
Author(s):  
Dimitris Folinas ◽  
Tania Pavlou ◽  
Bill Karakostas ◽  
Vicky Manthou

Among different approaches in business processes modelling procedure are those in virtual and dynamic organizational environments. In this paper, a conceptual framework for modelling business processes in Virtual Organizations is suggested, by introducing Web Services technology. Web Services can be the business enabler for the new organizational form, which is particularly well suited to meet the demands arising from today’s turbulent changes in the firms’ environment. The proposed framework consists of several steps in a bottom-up approach, aiming to support the modelling and coordination of the complex and shared business processes in the examined environment.


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