Combining Flexibility and Data Handling in Business Process Models

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 14-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giorgio Bruno
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Data Handling ◽  
Task Selection ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
Human Decision ◽  
Business Entities ◽  
High Level ◽  
Customer Orders

Flexibility and data handling are two hot topics in current research on business process models. However, these issues are tackled separately through declarative languages and artifact-centric approaches, respectively. It follows that the situations in which the choice of the task to perform is a human decision affected by the presence of suitable input entities are not adequately handled; unfortunately, these situations are common in several industrial processes such as build-to-order ones. An integrated approach able to combine flexibility and data handling is needed and to this end this paper presents a notation named ENTA (ENtities and TAsks): it makes both business entities and tasks first-class citizens in process models and it provides high-level descriptions of the tasks in terms of intended effects and constraints to be met. Some examples of order handling processes are used to explain the issues of entity selection and task selection: deciding which customer orders can be associated with the same supplier order is a case of entity selection while deciding whether to generate a new supplier order for the customer orders selected or to add them to an existing supplier order is a case of task selection.

Handling the Dataflow in Business Process Models

2020 ◽  
pp. 1681-1695
Author(s):  
Giorgio Bruno
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Task Selection ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
Business Entities ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Order Handling

This chapter stresses the importance of the dataflow in business process models and illustrates a notation called DMA that is meant to fulfill two major goals: promoting the integration between business processes and information systems and leveraging the dataflow to provide flexibility in terms of human decisions. The first goal is fulfilled by considering both tasks and business entities as first-class citizens in process models. Business entities form the dataflow that interconnects the tasks: tasks take the input entities from the input dataflow and deliver the output entities to the output dataflow. Human decisions encompass the selection of the input entities when a task needs more than one, and the selection of the task with which to handle the input entities when two or more tasks are admissible. DMA provides a number of patterns that indicate how tasks affect the dataflow. In addition, two compound patterns, called macro tasks, can be used to represent task selection issues. An example related to an order handling process illustrates the notation.

Handling the Dataflow in Business Process Models

2018 ◽  
pp. 137-151
Author(s):  
Giorgio Bruno
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Business Process ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Task Selection ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
Business Entities ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Order Handling

This chapter stresses the importance of the dataflow in business process models and illustrates a notation called DMA that is meant to fulfill two major goals: promoting the integration between business processes and information systems and leveraging the dataflow to provide flexibility in terms of human decisions. The first goal is fulfilled by considering both tasks and business entities as first-class citizens in process models. Business entities form the dataflow that interconnects the tasks: tasks take the input entities from the input dataflow and deliver the output entities to the output dataflow. Human decisions encompass the selection of the input entities when a task needs more than one, and the selection of the task with which to handle the input entities when two or more tasks are admissible. DMA provides a number of patterns that indicate how tasks affect the dataflow. In addition, two compound patterns, called macro tasks, can be used to represent task selection issues. An example related to an order handling process illustrates the notation.

Compiling Business Process Models into Executable Code

2011 ◽  
pp. 218-337
Author(s):  
Cesare Pautasso
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Process Modeling ◽  
Workflow Management ◽  
Workflow Engine ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Management Tool ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
Model Driven ◽  
Java Bytecode ◽  
High Level

Model-driven architecture (MDA), design and transformation techniques can be applied with success to the domain of business process modeling (BPM) with the goal of making the vision of business-driven development a reality. This chapter is centered on the idea of compiling business process models for executing them, and how this idea has been driving the design of the JOpera for Eclipse workflow management tool. JOpera presents users with a simple, graph-based process modeling language with a visual representation of both control and data-flow aspects. As an intermediate representation, the graphs are converted into Event-Condition-Action rules, which are further compiled into Java bytecode for efficient execution. These transformations of process models are performed by the JOpera process compiler in a completely transparent way, where the generated executable artefacts are kept hidden from users at all times (i.e., even for debugging process executions, which is done by augmenting the original, high level notation). The author evaluates his approach by discussing how using a compiler has opened up the several possibilities for performing optimization on the generated code and also simplified the design the corresponding workflow engine architecture.

Representations of Artifact-Centric Business Processes

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 45-61
Author(s):  
Giorgio Bruno
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Life Cycles ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
Structure Dynamics ◽  
Pros And Cons ◽  
Business Entities

Current approaches to the representation of business processes can be divided into two major categories, referred to as activity-centric and artifact-centric. The former underline the tasks as the basic units of work, and the latter stress the importance of the life cycles of the artifacts (i.e., the business entities). This paper analyzes the major issues that characterize the artifact-centric approach, i.e., structure, dynamics and coordination. These issues can be dealt with in various ways, ranging from separate models to holistic ones. The pros and cons of separate models and compact ones are analyzed on the basis of how they cope with three relevant aspects, i.e., aggregation, synchronization and matching. A number of motivating examples are presented along with the notation used to define them. This notation, named ARTS (ARtifacts and TAsks), considers both artifacts and tasks as first-class citizens of business process models.

Viewpoints on Business Process Models

2018 ◽  
pp. 788-798
Author(s):  
Giorgio Bruno
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Role Models ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Life Cycles ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
Business Entities ◽  
Operational Activities

Over the past few years a number of viewpoints have influenced the design of notations for business processes. They emphasize the different elements (tasks, business entities and roles) that compose business process models; for this reason, they are referred to as activity-centric, data-centric, and role-centric viewpoints. The activity-centric viewpoint focuses on the orchestration of operational activities, which encompass human tasks and automatic ones. On the contrary, the data-centric viewpoint stresses the identification of the key business entities and their life cycles consisting of states and transitions. In the role-centric viewpoint, a process model is made up of several “role” models; each role model provides a restricted view of the process limited to the behavior of the role under consideration. This article illustrates how the above-mentioned viewpoints can be extracted from a global model, with the help of an example concerning the submission of papers to conferences.

Transforming Activity-Centric Business Process Models into Information-Centric Models for SOA Solutions

2010 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 14-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rong Liu ◽  
Frederick Y. Wu ◽  
Santhosh Kumaran
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Process Modeling ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Service Oriented Architecture ◽  
Empirical Evaluation ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
Service Oriented ◽  
Transforming Activity ◽  
Business Entities

Much of the prior work in business process modeling is activity-centric. Recently, an information-centric approach has emerged, where a business process is modeled as the interacting lifecycles of business entities. The benefits of this approach are documented in a number of case studies. In this paper, the authors formalize the information-centric approach and derive the relationships between the two approaches. The authors formally define the notion of a business entity, provide an algorithm to transform an activity-centric model into an information-centric process model, and demonstrate the equivalence between these two models. Further, they show the value of transforming from the activity-centric paradigm to the information-centric paradigm in business process componentization and Service-Oriented Architecture design and also provide an empirical evaluation.

Integrating Security Aspects into Business Process Models

2013 ◽  
Vol 55 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Achim D. Brucker
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Common Language ◽  
Domain Experts ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
Modelling Languages ◽  
Modern Enterprise ◽  
Compliance Requirements ◽  
Increasing Demand ◽  
High Level

AbstractModern enterprise systems are often process-driven and, thus, rely heavily on process-aware information systems. In such systems, high-level process-models play an important role both for communicating business requirements between domain experts and system experts as well as basis for the system implementation. Since several years, enterprise system need to fulfil an increasing number of the security and compliance requirements. Thus, there is an increasing demand for integrating high-level security and compliance requirements into process models, i. e. a common language for domain experts, system experts, and security experts. We present a security modelling language, called SecureBPMN, that can easily be integrated into business process modelling languages. In this paper, we exemplary integrate SecureBPMN into BPMN and, thus, present a common language for describing business process models together with their security and compliance requirements.

A quantitative approach for measuring the degree of flexibility of business process models

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 1023-1049
Author(s):  
Asma Mejri ◽  
Sonia Ayachi-Ghannouchi ◽  
Ricardo Martinho
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Actual Process ◽  
Process Flexibility ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
Flexibility Measurement ◽  
High Level ◽  
Measurement Approach

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to measure the flexibility of business process models. The authors give the notions of flexible process distance, which corresponds to the number of change operations needed for transforming one process model into another, considering the different perspectives (functional, operational, behavioral, informational, and organizational). Design/methodology/approach The proposed approach is a quantitative-based approach to measure the flexibility of business process models. In this context, the authors presented a method to compute the distance between two process models. The authors measured the distance between a process model and a process variant in terms of the number of high-level change operations (e.g. to insert or delete actors) needed to transform the process model into the respective variant when a change occurred, considering the different perspectives and the flexible features. Findings To evaluate the flexibility-measurement approach, the authors performed a comprehensive simulation using an emergency care (EC) business process model and its variants. The authors used a real-world EC process and illustrated the possible changes faced in the emergency department (possible variants). Simulation results were promising because they fit the flexibility needs of the EC process users. This was validated using the authors’ previous work which consists in a guidance approach for business process flexibility. Research limitations/implications The authors defined six different distances between business process models, which are summarized in the definition of total process distance. However, changes in one perspective may lead to changes in other perspectives. For instance, adding a new activity may lead to adding a new actor. Practical implications The results of this study would help companies to obtain important information about their processes and to compare the desired level of flexibility with their actual process flexibility. Originality/value This study is probably the first flexibility-measurement approach which incorporates features for capturing changes affecting the functional, operational, informational, organizational, and behavioral perspectives as well as elements related to approaches enhancing flexibility.

Viewpoints on Business Process Models

2019 ◽  
pp. 405-416
Author(s):  
Giorgio Bruno
Keyword(s):  
Business Process ◽  
Role Models ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Global Model ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Business Process Models ◽  
Business Entities ◽  
Operational Activities

Over the past few years, a number of viewpoints have influenced the design of notations for business processes. They emphasize the different elements (tasks, business entities, and roles) that compose business process models; for this reason, they are referred to as activity-centric, data-centric, and role-centric viewpoints. The activity-centric viewpoint focuses on the orchestration of operational activities, which encompass human tasks and automatic ones. On the contrary, the data-centric viewpoint stresses the identification of the key business entities and their lifecycles consisting of states and transitions. In the role-centric viewpoint, a process model is made up of several “role” models; each role model provides a restricted view of the process limited to the behavior of the role under consideration. This chapter illustrates how the above-mentioned viewpoints can be extracted from a global model, with the help of an example concerning the submission of papers to conferences.

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