Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

Process-aware information systems should enable the flexible alignment of business processes to new requirements by supporting deviations from the predefined process model at runtime. To facilitate such dynamic process changes we have adopted techniques from case-based reasoning (CBR). In particular, our existing approach allows to capture the semantics of ad-hoc changes, to support their memorization, and to enable their reuse in upcoming exceptional situations. To further improve change reuse this paper presents an approach for discovering dependencies between ad-hoc modifications from change history. Based on this information better user assistance can be provided when dynamic process changes have to be made.

The theory of regions and the algorithms for synthesizing a Petri net model from a transition system, which are based on this theory, have interesting practical applications – in particular in the design of electronic circuits. In this paper, we show that this theory can be also applied for mining the underlying process from the user interactions with a document management system. To this end, we combine an algorithm that we called activity mining with such Petri net synthesis algorithms. We present the basic idea of this approach, show some first results, and compare them with classical process mining techniques. The main benefit is that, in combination, the activity mining algorithm and the synthesis algorithms do not need a log of the activities, which is not available when the processes are supported by a document management system only.

Complexity has undesirable effects on, among others, the correctness, maintainability, and understandability of business process models. Yet, measuring complexity of business process models is a rather new area of research with only a small number of contributions. In this paper, we survey findings from neighboring disciplines on how complexity can be measured. In particular, we gather insight from software engineering, cognitive science, and graph theory, and discuss in how far analogous metrics can be defined on business process models.

Bearing in mind the changeable and complicated needs of business environment, in this paper we examine the necessity of evolution in the traditional decision support techniques. Our aim is to intensify the need for integrated performance measurement and management, as a way to ameliorate the existing tools for decision making, which are currently based on historical data. Because of the nature of challenges and trends in the retail industry, it is considered to be an appropriate application scenario. In addition to that, a framework is proposed and a case study is described as a proof of our claim.

Mining, discovering, and integrating process-oriented services has attracted growing attention in the recent years. Workflow precedence graph and workflow block structures are two important factors for comparing and mining processes based on distance similarity measure. Some existing work has done on comparing workflow designs based on their precedence graphs. However, there lacks of standard distance metrics for comparing workflows that contain complex block structures such as parallel OR, parallel AND. In this paper we present a quantitative approach to modeling and capturing the similarity and dissimilarity between different workflow designs, focusing on similarity and dissimilarity between the block structures of different workflow designs. We derive the distance-based similarity measures by analyzing the workflow block structure of the participating workflow processes in four consecutive phases. We first convert each workflow dependency graph into a block tree by using our block detection algorithm. Second, we transform the block tree into a binary tree to provide a normalized reference structure for distance based similarity analysis. Third, we construct a binary branch vector by encoding the binary tree. Finally, we calculate the distance metric between two binary branch vectors.

A novel approach to model processes and workflows is presented. It is based on the OntoDLP language, an extension of Disjunctive Logic Programming with object-oriented features. Compared to traditional models, the approach enables knowledge inference on dynamic structures of the process, thanks to the reasoning capabilities of OntoDLP. Moreover, the approach can be also used to redefine and classify existing workflow schemes. Indeed, their execution traces, produced by workflow engines, can be easily imported through the mapping facilities of the underlying metamodel, and eventually organized into taxonomic structures for modeling different execution-patterns.

The agility of an enterprise increasingly depends on its ability to dynamically set up new business processes or to modify existing ones, and to quickly adapt its information systems to these process changes. Companies are therefore developing a growing interest in concepts, technologies and systems that help them to flexibly align their businesses and engineering processes to meet changing needs and to optimize their interactions with customers and business partners.

Management of dynamic processes in an important issue in rapidly changing organizations. Workflow management systems are systems that use detailed process models to drive the business processes. Current business process modelling languages and models are of nature – they strictly prescribe how to work. Systems that allow users to maneuver within the process model or even change the model while working are considered to be the most suitable for dynamic processes management. However, in many companies it is not realistic to expect that end-users are able to change their processes. Moreover, the imperative nature of these languages forces designer to over-specify processes, which results in frequent changes. We propose a fundamental paradigm shift for flexible process management and propose a more approach. Declarative models specify what should be done without specifying how it should be done. We propose the for modelling and enacting dynamic business processes. ConDec is based on temporal logic rather than some imperative process modelling language.

The coordination of complex process structures is a fundamental task for enterprises, such as in the automotive industry. Usually, such process structures consist of several (sub-)processes whose execution must be coordinated and synchronized. Effecting this manually is both ineffective and error-prone. However, we can benefit from the fact that these processes are correlated with product structures in many application domains, such as product engineering. Specifically, we can utilize the assembly of a complex real object, such as a car consisting of different mechanical, electrical or electronic subcomponents. Each sub-component has related design or testing processes, which have to be executed within an overall process structure according to the product structure. Our goal is to enable product-driven (i.e., data-driven) process modeling, execution and adaptation. We show the necessity of considering the product life cycle and the role of processes, which are triggering state transitions within the product life cycle. This paper discusses important issues related to the design, enactment and change of data-driven process structures. Our considerations are based on several case studies we conducted for engineering processes in the automotive industry.

Almost at every tier of software architecture, business rules crosscut several parts of process management such as workflows, task assignments, and business transactions. Managing business rules on its own hence improves the dynamism of processes in the sense of modeling, implementing, executing, and even maintenance. Moreover, seamless integration with the rest of the picture may offer further dynamism, but this requires smart and reasonably reflective application frameworks for industrial systems. Here, aspect orientation comes to rescue since it mainly aims the separation of crosscutting concerns such as business rules. This paper presents a practical Aspect-Oriented Framework for rule-based business process management where all aspects, facts, rules and rule-sets can be defined and managed dynamically by means of a GUI console. Moreover, this lightweight framework has been implemented in conformance to Adaptive Object Model to facilitate the process dynamism through declarative techniques for design and bytecode engineering for seamless integration.