Oussama Mohammed Kherbouche

Bio: Oussama Mohammed Kherbouche is an academic researcher from university of lille. The author has contributed to research in topics: Business process modeling & Business rule. The author has an hindex of 5, co-authored 6 publications receiving 66 citations.

Using model checking to control the structural errors in BPMN models

Abstract: The emergence of BPMN as a standard notation to express the business processes is based on its simplicity of notations and its exhaustive expressiveness. Nevertheless the lack of formal semantics in the BPMN can cause syntactic and structural errors. The former requires less effort to be checked, while the later usually requires attention to prove some properties, like deadlock-freedom and livelock-freedom. In this paper, we address the issue of detecting the structural errors with an approach based on model checking. It verifies the soundness of business process model and helps the business modelers to avoid the deadlocks, livelocks, and multiple terminations errors.

Analyzing the ripple effects of change in business process models

Abstract: Change management is a critical task to control the side effects of a modification during the business process evolution. The evolution of business processes is an essential activity for the companies to better fulfill the requirements of their customers and different stakeholders. In this respect, the enterprises should adopt an effective mechanism in order to achieve the flexible business process models. It is important to identify and highlight the ripple effects of a change for minimizing their impact on other parts or entities of the system and associated services. This paper proposes a dependency-centric approach for change impact analysis. We attempt to demonstrate the change impact propagation in business process models by detecting and analyzing the interdependencies among all parts of business processes along with associated services. It can support the maintenance and evolution of business process models. The major objective is to help the modelers and business experts to assess the associated risk of intended changes and estimate the effort required for their accomplishments.

Detecting structural errors in BPMN process models

Abstract: Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) has emerged as a standard notation to express the business process models. A lack of formal semantics in the BPMN can cause the syntactic and structural errors. The former requires less effort to be checked, while the later usually needs a complex state-space analysis to prove some properties, like the deadlock-freedom and the livelock-freedom. In this paper, we present an approach based on model checking for the automated verification of business process models. We illustrate the deadlocks, livelocks, and multiple termination problems, which can help the business modelers to avoid structural errors.

Ontology-Based Change Impact Assessment in Dynamic Business Processes

Abstract: The business process models are often subjected to change rapidly in order to cope with the market demands. It may be useful for companies to adapt a monitoring mechanism to achieve flexible business process models. It is also desirable to control the ripple effects of a change on whole or part of the business process and its running instances. It requires an exhaustive understanding of concerned changes and their application levels. In this article, we propose a methodology based on dependency analysis for an a priori change impact analysis in the business process models. The approach is based on the ontology definitions to describe the dependency relationships. The major objective is to obtain a knowledge base to help the designers and business experts to estimate the associated risk of intended changes and the effort required for their implementation.

Formal approach for compliance rules checking in business process models

Abstract: The business process models should comply with a set of rules describing the operations, policies and constraints that an organization must respect under financial authorities. However, the large number of rules and their frequency of changes make the traditionally used manual compliance checking a time-consuming task. As a result an automated compliance checking should be adopted. This paper proposes a formal approach for automated compliance checking. It proposes to map BPMN models directly to finite state machines (i.e., Kripke structures) and to express the compliance rules in a graphical language for better understandability. Subsequently, these are translated into linear temporal logic formulae for their integration. The compliance of business process models can be verified by means of model checking technology. The main goal is to increase the efficiency of the deployment of business process models while minimizing the risks and cost of the compliance inspection.

Business Process Management: A Survey

Abstract: Business Process Management (BPM) includes methods, techniques, and tools to support the design, enactment, management, and analysis of operational business processes. It can be considered as an extension of classical Workflow Management (WFM) systems and approaches. Although the practical relevance of BPM is undisputed, a clear definition of BPM and related acronyms such as BAM, BPA, and STP are missing. Moreover, a clear scientific foundation is missing. In this paper, we try to demystify the acronyms in this domain, describe the state-of-the-art technology, and argue that BPM could benefit from formal methods/languages (cf. Petri nets, process algebras, etc.).

Transformation of Business Process Model and Notation models onto Petri nets and their analysis

Abstract: Business Process Model and Notation is known as a widely used standard for business processes modeling. However, its main drawback is that it lacks formal semantics, leading to some undesirable pro...

On the Understandability of Temporal Properties Formalized in Linear Temporal Logic, Property Specification Patterns and Event Processing Language

Abstract: Temporal properties are important in a wide variety of domains for different purposes. For example, they can be used to avoid architectural drift in software engineering or to support the regulatory compliance of business processes. In this work, we study the understandability of three major temporal property representations: (1) Linear Temporal Logic (LTL) is a formal and well-established logic that offers temporal operators to describe temporal properties; (2) Property Specification Patterns (PSP) are a collection of recurring temporal properties that abstract underlying formal and technical representations; (3) Event Processing Language (EPL) can be used for runtime monitoring of event streams using Complex Event Processing. We conducted two controlled experiments with 216 participants in total to study the understandability of those approaches using a completely randomized design with one alternative per experimental unit. We hypothesized that PSP, as a highly abstracting pattern language, is easier to understand than LTL and EPL, and that EPL, due to separation of concerns (as one or more queries can be used to explicitly define the truth value change that an observed event pattern causes), is easier to understand than LTL. We found evidence supporting our hypotheses which was statistically significant and reproducible.

A Formal Model for Compliance Verification of Service Compositions

Abstract: Business processes design and execution environments increasingly need support from modular services in service compositions to offer the flexibility required by rapidly changing requirements. With each evolution, however, the service composition must continue to adhere to laws and regulations, resulting in a demand for automated compliance checking. Existing approaches, if at all, either offer only verification after the fact or linearize models to such an extent that parallel information is lost. We propose a mapping of service compositions to Kripke structures by using colored Petri nets. The resulting model allows preventative compliance verification using well-known temporal logics and model checking techniques while providing full insight into parallel executing branches and the local next invocation. Furthermore, the mapping causes limited state explosion, and allows for significant further model reduction. The approach is validated on a case study from a telecom company in Australia and evaluated with respect to performance and expressiveness. We demonstrate that the proposed mapping has increased expressiveness while being less vulnerable to state explosion than existing approaches, and show that even large service compositions can be verified preventatively with existing model checking techniques.