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Showing papers on "Business Process Model and Notation published in 2013"


Book
01 Mar 2013
TL;DR: The fundamentals of business process management (BPM) is presented in this article, where concepts, methods and tools from business management, computer science and industrial engineering are blended into one comprehensive and inter-disciplinary approach.
Abstract: Business Process Management (BPM) is the art and science of how work should be performed in an organization in order to ensure consistent outputs and to take advantage of improvement opportunities, e.g. reducing costs, execution times or error rates. Importantly, BPM is not about improving the way individual activities are performed, but rather about managing entire chains of events, activities and decisions that ultimately produce added value for an organization and its customers. This textbook encompasses the entire BPM lifecycle, from process identification to process monitoring, covering along the way process modelling, analysis, redesign and automation. Concepts, methods and tools from business management, computer science and industrial engineering are blended into one comprehensive and inter-disciplinary approach. The presentation is illustrated using the BPMN industry standard defined by the Object Management Group and widely endorsed by practitioners and vendors worldwide. In addition to explaining the relevant conceptual background, the book provides dozens of examples, more than 100 hands-on exercises many with solutions as well as numerous suggestions for further reading. The textbook is the result of many years of combined teaching experience of the authors, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels as well as in the context of professional training. Students and professionals from both business management and computer science will benefit from the step-by-step style of the textbook and its focus on fundamental concepts and proven methods. Lecturers will appreciate the class-tested format and the additional teaching material available on the accompanying website fundamentals-of-bpm.org.

747 citations


Book
01 Jan 2013
TL;DR: Students following data analysis and data mining courses looking for a systematic and broad coverage of topics in operations research and mathematical models for decision-making will find this an invaluable guide.
Abstract: Business intelligence is a broad category of applications and technologies for gathering, providing access to, and analyzing data for the purpose of helping enterprise users make better business decisions. The term implies having a comprehensive knowledge of all factors that affect a business, such as customers, competitors, business partners, economic environment, and internal operations, therefore enabling optimal decisions to be made. Business Intelligence provides readers with an introduction and practical guide to the mathematical models and analysis methodologies vital to business intelligence. This book: Combines detailed coverage with a practical guide to the mathematical models and analysis methodologies of business intelligence. Covers all the hot topics such as data warehousing, data mining and its applications, machine learning, classification, supply optimization models, decision support systems, and analytical methods for performance evaluation. Is made accessible to readers through the careful definition and introduction of each concept, followed by the extensive use of examples and numerous real-life case studies. Explains how to utilise mathematical models and analysis models to make effective and good quality business decisions. This book is aimed at postgraduate students following data analysis and data mining courses. Researchers looking for a systematic and broad coverage of topics in operations research and mathematical models for decision-making will find this an invaluable guide.

448 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article proposes a typology of business models that emphasizes the connecting of traditional value chain descriptors with how customers are identified and satisfied, and how the firm monetizes its value, to extend current work on cognitive categorization and open up new possibilities for organization research.
Abstract: Most research on business models lies in the literature on strategy and competitive advantage and focuses on their role as descriptors of actual phenomenon, often by reference to taxonomic categories. In this article, we explore how business models can be seen as a set of cognitive configurations that can be manipulable in the minds of managers (and academics). By proposing a typology of business models that emphasizes the connecting of traditional value chain descriptors with how customers are identified and satisfied, and how the firm monetizes its value, we explore how business model configurations can extend current work on cognitive categorization and open up new possibilities for organization research.

337 citations


01 Jan 2013
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate what these subsets are, and how they differ between academic, consulting, and general use of BPMN, and find that less than 20% of its vocabulary is regularly used and some constructs did not occur in any of the models they analyzed.
Abstract: The Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) is an increasingly important industry standard for the graphical representation of business processes. BPMN offers a wide range of modeling constructs, significantly more than other popular languages. However, not all of these constructs are equally important in practice as business analysts frequently use arbitrary subsets of BPMN. In this paper we investigate what these subsets are, and how they differ between academic, consulting, and general use of the language. We analyzed 120 BPMN diagrams using mathematical and statistical techniques. Our findings indicate that BPMN is used in groups of several, well-defined construct clusters, but less than 20% of its vocabulary is regularly used and some constructs did not occur in any of the models we analyzed. While the average model contains just 9 different BPMN constructs, models of this complexity have typically just 4-5 constructs in common, which means that only a small agreed subset of BPMN has emerged. Our findings have implications for the entire ecosystems of analysts and modelers in that they provide guidance on how to reduce language complexity, which should increase the ease and speed of process modeling.

332 citations


01 Jan 2013

227 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Special Issue Alexander Osterwalder Business Model Foundry: The Foundry of Innovation and Entrepreneurship - A Roadmap for the 21st Century.
Abstract: Special Issue Alexander Osterwalder Business Model Foundry osterwalder@gmail.com

217 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The term business model roadmapping is coined as an approach to define the transition path from a current to a desired business model and is developed based on core concepts from business model literature as well as technology roadmapped.
Abstract: Literature on business models deals extensively with how to design new business models, but hardly with how to make the transition from an existing to a newly designed business model. The transition to a new business model raises several practical and strategic issues, such as how to replace an existing value proposition with a new one, when to acquire new resources and capabilities, and when to start new partnerships. In this paper, we coin the term business model roadmapping as an approach to define the transition path from a current to a desired business model. We develop our approach based on core concepts from business model literature as well as technology roadmapping. The approach is illustrated using a simplified case study. We find that visualizing business model road maps elicits how operational actions and business model impacts are interrelated. The merits of business model roadmapping not only lie in defining a road map of actions and business model changes, but also in identifying and discussing trade-offs between strategic business model issues and operational activities. Especially if an organization still has to choose between different alternative business models, business model roadmapping may help to identify overlapping paths, path dependencies and points of no return.

194 citations


Book ChapterDOI
17 Jun 2013
TL;DR: This paper identifies and integrates IoT resources as a novel automatic resource type on the business process layer beyond the classical human resource task-centric view of the businessprocess model in order to face expanding resource planning challenges of future enterprise environments.
Abstract: The Internet of Things (IoT) has grown in recent years to a huge branch of research: RFID, sensors and actuators as typical IoT devices are increasingly used as resources integrated into new value added applications of the Future Internet and are intelligently combined using standardised software services. While most of the current work on IoT integration focuses on areas of the actual technical implementation, little attention has been given to the integration of the IoT paradigm and its devices coming with native software components as resources in business processes of traditional enterprise resource planning systems. In this paper, we identify and integrate IoT resources as a novel automatic resource type on the business process layer beyond the classical human resource task-centric view of the business process model in order to face expanding resource planning challenges of future enterprise environments.

170 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
Karan Girotra1, Serguei Netessine1
TL;DR: A conceptual framework that is developed to systematize the study and identification of new business models and advises that generated business models should be analyzed and experimented with to identify the most promising ones.
Abstract: A systematic approach to innovating business models can help identify new business models that encourage sustainable use of products and services, or facilitate wider adoption of new environmentally friendly technologies. This paper provides a brief summary of a conceptual framework that we have developed to systematize the study and identification of new business models. Our approach advocates that the key to identifying new business models is understanding the context of decision making in existing models and the associated inefficiencies. We propose a three-step approach: First, existing business models must be audited for identifying information and incentive misalignment inefficiencies that destroy value. Next, new business models can be identified by changing the context of the decision associated with the most consequential of these inefficiencies. We conjecture that four elements of the decision context are most significant: WHAT decisions are made, WHEN they are made, WHO makes them, and WHY they are made. We provide a set of idea triggers to stimulate brainstorming of new business models by changing one of these four Ws. Finally, we advise that generated business models should be analyzed and experimented with to identify the most promising ones. We close the paper by describing the design of a pedagogical program based on this framework.

140 citations


Book ChapterDOI
26 Aug 2013
TL;DR: This paper extends BPMN data objects with few annotations to allow data dependency handling as well as data instance differentiation and introduces a pattern-based approach to derive SQL queries from process models utilizing the above mentioned extensions.
Abstract: Enacting business processes in process engines requires the coverage of control flow, resource assignments, and process data. While the first two aspects are well supported in current process engines, data dependencies need to be added and maintained manually by a process engineer. Thus, this task is error-prone and time-consuming. In this paper, we address the problem of modeling processes with complex data dependencies, e.g., m:n relationships, and their automatic enactment from process models. First, we extend BPMN data objects with few annotations to allow data dependency handling as well as data instance differentiation. Second, we introduce a pattern-based approach to derive SQL queries from process models utilizing the above mentioned extensions. Therewith, we allow automatic enactment of data-aware BPMN process models. We implemented our approach for the Activiti process engine to show applicability.

117 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: An event based analysis strategy developed to study processes in business networks is introduced, enabling the researcher to trace and understand processes beyond mere structural change, and to capture their evolution in a multilayered network context.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The artifact-centric approach to model compliance rules is extended to model Compliance by design and it is shown how compliant business processes can be synthesized automatically.

Patent
02 Dec 2013
TL;DR: In this article, a method for refining a business process model includes receiving business process data pertaining to a first phase of business process definition from a first class of users, creating a model of a business processes using the business process using the data received from the first class, and augmenting the model of the business processes based on the data obtained from the second class.
Abstract: In one embodiment, a method for refining a business process model includes receiving business process data pertaining to a first phase of a business process definition from a first class of users, creating a model of a business process using the business process data received from the first class of users, receiving business process data pertaining to a second phase of the business process definition from a second class of users, and augmenting the model of the business process based on the business process data received from the second class of users. The method further includes iteratively refining the model of the business process in response to input provided by the first class of users and/or the second class of users.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the opportunities and challenges for service mining, i.e., applying process mining techniques to services, and highlight challenges specific for service-oriented systems.
Abstract: Web services are an emerging technology to implement and integrate business processes within and across enterprises. Service orientation can be used to decompose complex systems into loosely coupled software components that may run remotely. However, the distributed nature of services complicates the design and analysis of service-oriented systems that support end-to-end business processes. Fortunately, services leave trails in so-called event logs and recent breakthroughs in process mining research make it possible to discover, analyze, and improve business processes based on such logs. Recently, the task force on process mining released the process mining manifesto. This manifesto is supported by 53 organizations and 77 process mining experts contributed to it. The active participation from end-users, tool vendors, consultants, analysts, and researchers illustrate the growing significance of process mining as a bridge between data mining and business process modeling. In this paper, we focus on the opportunities and challenges for service mining, i.e., applying process mining techniques to services. We discuss the guiding principles and challenges listed in the process mining manifesto and also highlight challenges specific for service-orientated systems.

30 Jun 2013
TL;DR: The Business Model Cube as mentioned in this paper was developed as an output of the work mentioned in Chapters 1 to 3 and several years of BM research and empirical BM cube testing and its related dimensions and components.
Abstract: The Business Model Cube was developed as an output of the work mentioned in Chapters 1 to 3 and several years of BM research and empirical BM cube testing. Several researchers contributed to the formation and verification of the BM Cube and its related dimensions and components. Associate Professor Yariv Taran, in particular, contributed to the hypothetical concept of the BM with seven dimensions. Sigitas Pleikys contributed to the cube framework and digital visualization of the BM Cube (Figure 4.1). Ole Horn Rasmussen contributed to the relations axiom framework, which will be covered in detail in Chapter 7. This chapter explains in detail the arguments of how and why the BM Cube could be a proposal for a generic BM framework and BM language. Further, it shows case examples of the use of the BM Cube in the different businesses we have studied. 4.1 Dimensions, Concepts and Language of a Business Model The term “business” has been defined by reputed academics from several viewpoints and dimensions. Abell (1980) defined a business by just three dimensions – customer functions (what) (values); customer groups (who) (customers); and customer technology (how) (production technologies and process technologies) (Figure 4.2). So, interestingly, Abell had already indicated in 1980 a cube which formed the “borders” of a business – in three dimensions, however Porter (1985) argued that a business should be defined by its suppliers, buyers (customers) and value chain activities. Hamel and Prahalad (1994) argued that a business could be defined by its competences and its core competences. Vervest et al. (2005) argued that a business could be defined by its network and how it organized its business together with network partners, and Johnson

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper proposes the notion of business process families by building upon the well-known software engineering discipline-software product line engineering, and proposes a correct validation algorithm ensuring that each member of a business process family adheres to the core intended behavior that is specified in the process model template.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A service workflow-oriented framework for the process simulation of service businesses using multi-agent cooperation to address the above issues is proposed and social rationality of agent is introduced into the proposed framework.
Abstract: Process dynamic modelling for service business is the key technique for Service-Oriented information systems and service business management, and the workflow model of business processes is the core part of service systems. Service business workflow simulation is the prevalent approach to be used for analysis of service business process dynamically. Generic method for service business workflow simulation is based on the discrete event queuing theory, which is lack of flexibility and scalability. In this paper, we propose a service workflow-oriented framework for the process simulation of service businesses using multi-agent cooperation to address the above issues. Social rationality of agent is introduced into the proposed framework. Adopting rationality as one social factor for decision-making strategies, a flexible scheduling for activity instances has been implemented. A system prototype has been developed to validate the proposed simulation framework through a business case study.

Patent
08 Nov 2013
TL;DR: In this paper, a computer-implemented method for processing information related to an extract-transform-load (ETL) data migration, including aggregating operational metadata and determining: a plurality of metrics, organized by business object, corresponding to the migration; a number of business object instances not successfully loaded; a first end-to-end execution time for at least one business object; relevant input metadata; load readiness status per business object.
Abstract: A computer-implemented method for processing information related to an extract-transform-load (ETL) data migration, including aggregating operational metadata and determining: a plurality of metrics, organized by business object, corresponding to the migration; a number of business object instances not successfully loaded; a first end-to-end execution time for at least one business object; relevant input metadata; load readiness status per business object; impact of a business object that is not load ready by analyzing business process hierarchies; business object load readiness by reference to incomplete development status or data defects; scope per test cycle based, at least in part, upon business object load readiness; and high-priority defects of business objects that stop testing based, at least in part, upon analysis of business process hierarchies.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a two-tier business model for entrepreneurs, consisting of a conceptual model and a financial model, is proposed, where the conceptual model describes the idea of a new business and the financial model provides the numbers of the new business which makes the business model accountable and measurable.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Girotra and Netessine as discussed by the authors proposed a conceptual framework to identify new business models that encourage sustainable use of products and services, or facilitate wider adoption of new environmentally friendly technologies.
Abstract: A systematic approach to innovating business models can help identify new business models that encourage sustainable use of products and services, or facilitate wider adoption of new environmentally friendly technologies. This article provides a brief summary of a conceptual framework (fully described in Girotra and Netessine 2014) that we have developed to systematize the study and identification of new business models. Our approach advocates that the key to identifying new business models is understanding the context of decision making in existing models and the associated inefficiencies. We propose a three step approach: First, existing business models must be audited for identifying information and incentive misalignment inefficiencies that destroy value. Next, new business models can be identified by changing the context of the decision associated with the most consequential of these inefficiencies. We conjecture that four elements of the decision context are most significant: What decisions are made, When they are made, Who makes them, and Why they are made. We provide a set of idea triggers to stimulate brainstorming of new business models by changing one of these four Ws. Finally, we advise that generated business models should be analyzed and experimented with to identify the most promising ones. We close the article by describing the design of a pedagogical program based on this framework.

Proceedings ArticleDOI
15 Jul 2013
TL;DR: The properties of WSNs are explored and a set of BPMN extensions that fulfill these requirements are proposed and demonstrate that they are better suited for modeling WSN processes than standard BPMn.
Abstract: Wireless sensor/actuator networks (WSNs) are hard to program, in particular so for business domain experts that have a good understanding of how WSNs can best be used to improve business operations. This contributes to hampering WSN adoption by enterprises. As business process modeling languages such as the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) are well accessible to domain experts, they can be used as a tool to facilitate WSN programming. In this paper, we explore the properties of WSNs that set them apart from traditional IT systems and use these properties to derive requirements for BPMN extensions that are tailored to the specifics of WSNs. We furthermore propose a set of BPMN extensions that fulfill these requirements and demonstrate that they are better suited for modeling WSN processes than standard BPMN.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The paper opens the possibility for business and security model interoperability and the model transformation between several modelling approaches if these both are aligned to the ISSRM domain model.
Abstract: Business process modelling is one of the major aspects in the modern information system development. Recently business process model and notation BPMN has become a standard technique to support this activity. Typically the BPMN notations are used to understand enterprise's business processes. However, limited work exists regarding how security concerns are addressed during the management of the business processes. This is a problem, since both business processes and security should be understood in parallel to support a development of the secure information systems. In the previous work we have analysed BPMN with respect to the domain model of the IS security risk management ISSRM and showed how the language constructs could be aligned to the concepts of the ISSRM domain model. In this paper the authors propose the BPMN extensions for security risk management based on the BPMN alignment to the ISSRM concepts. We illustrate how the extended BPMN could express assets, risks and risk treatment on few running examples related to the Internet store regarding the asset confidentiality, integrity and availability. Our proposal would allow system analysts to understand how to develop security requirements to secure important assets defined through business processes. The paper opens the possibility for business and security model interoperability and the model transformation between several modelling approaches if these both are aligned to the ISSRM domain model.

Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 2013
TL;DR: This study aims at delivering an IPS2-specific business model ontology, and a case study of a solution provider is conducted.
Abstract: Delivering Industrial Product Service Systems (IPS2) is a strategic priority for many companies, since IPS2 represent an opportunity to differentiate from competitors and to build long-term customer relationships. However, these relationships have to be characterized, e.g. in terms of delivering value, generating revenues, and sharing risks, which can be done through a business model. Nevertheless, the existing research on business models lacks structure especially with regard to IPS2. To provide a first step into closing this research gap, this study aims at delivering an IPS2-specific business model ontology. Based on this, a case study of a solution provider is conducted.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The main contributions from this research include the knowledge representation structure and a collaborative tool supporting visual composition of business process models.

01 Jan 2013
TL;DR: In this paper, an aligned meta-model is presented for MASs and the operational benefits of MASs are illustrated with examples from business process applications, and the authors provide an alignment of the model and its operational benefits with real-world examples.
Abstract: This paper addresses a gap in handling multi-agent business processes that has prevented their larger-scale adoption in practice: the lack of a conceptual modeling approach that is easily understandable by business domain experts and sufficiently formal for direct transformation into executable systems. The emerging paradigm of subject-oriented business process management (S-BPM), which has been evaluated through academic research and is increasingly deployed in commercial applications, has the potential to augment multi-agent system (MAS) models with a process-centric layer that preserves autonomy and concurrent interaction of agents as essential system characteristics. In this paper we provide an aligned meta-model and illustrate its operational benefits with examples from business process applications.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A model-driven framework that provides automatic code generation capability and ameliorate maintenance support of the authors' ETL language is proposed and a set of model-to-text transformations able to produce code for different ETL commercial tools as well as model- to-model transformations that automatically update the ETL models with the aim of supporting the maintenance of the generated code according to data source evolution are presented.
Abstract: Business Intelligence BI applications require the design, implementation, and maintenance of processes that extract, transform, and load suitable data for analysis. The development of these processes known as ETL is an inherently complex problem that is typically costly and time consuming. In a previous work, the authors have proposed a vendor-independent language for reducing the design complexity due to disparate ETL languages tailored to specific design tools with steep learning curves. Nevertheless, the designer still faces two major issues during the development of ETL processes: i how to implement the designed processes in an executable language, and ii how to maintain the implementation when the organization data infrastructure evolves. In this paper, the authors propose a model-driven framework that provides automatic code generation capability and ameliorate maintenance support of our ETL language. They present a set of model-to-text transformations able to produce code for different ETL commercial tools as well as model-to-model transformations that automatically update the ETL models with the aim of supporting the maintenance of the generated code according to data source evolution. A demonstration using an example is conducted as an initial validation to show that the framework covering modeling, code generation and maintenance could be used in practice.

Proceedings ArticleDOI
17 Nov 2013
TL;DR: This paper provides an aligned meta-model and illustrates its operational benefits with examples from business process applications and addresses a gap in handling multi-agent business processes.
Abstract: This paper addresses a gap in handling multi-agent business processes that has prevented their larger-scale adoption in practice: the lack of a conceptual modeling approach that is easily understandable by business domain experts and sufficiently formal for direct transformation into executable systems. The emerging paradigm of subject-oriented business process management (S-BPM), which has been evaluated through academic research and is increasingly deployed in commercial applications, has the potential to augment multi-agent system (MAS) models with a process-centric layer that preserves autonomy and concurrent interaction of agents as essential system characteristics. In this paper we provide an aligned meta-model and illustrate its operational benefits with examples from business process applications.

Proceedings Article
07 Nov 2013
TL;DR: A very general divide-and-conquer approach that decomposes the event log based on a partitioning of activities is proposed that reveals the core requirements for decomposing process discovery and conformance checking problems.
Abstract: Operational processes leave trails in the information systems supporting them. Such event data are the starting point for process mining - an emerging scientific discipline relating modeled and observed behavior. The relevance of process mining is increasing as more and more event data become available. The increasing volume of such data (“Big Data”) provides both opportunities and challenges for process mining. In this paper we focus on two particular types of process mining: process discovery (learning a process model from example behavior recorded in an event log) and conformance checking (diagnosing and quantifying discrepancies between observed behavior and modeled behavior). These tasks become challenging when there are hundreds or even thousands of different activities and millions of cases. Typically, process mining algorithms are linear in the number of cases and exponential in the number of different activities. This paper proposes a very general divide-and-conquer approach that decomposes the event log based on a partitioning of activities. Unlike existing approaches, this paper does not assume a particular process representation (e.g., Petri nets or BPMN) and allows for various decomposition strategies (e.g., SESE- or passage-based decomposition). Moreover, the generic divide-and-conquer approach reveals the core requirements for decomposing process discovery and conformance checking problems.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A BPMN 2.0 semantics formalization that is more complete and intuitive than existing formalizations and can be used by tool vendors for verifying conformance to the standard.
Abstract: Context: The Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) standard informally defines a precise execution semantics. It defines how process instances should be updated in a model during execution. Existing formalizations of the standard are incomplete and rely on mappings to other languages. Objective: This paper provides a BPMN 2.0 semantics formalization that is more complete and intuitive than existing formalizations. Method: The formalization consists of in-place graph transformation rules that are documented visually using BPMN syntax. In-place transformations update models directly and do not require mappings to other languages. We have used a mature tool and test-suite to develop a reference implementation of all rules. Results: Our formalization is a promising complement to the standard, in particular because all rules have been extensively verified and because conceptual validation is facilitated (the informal semantics also describes in-place updates). Conclusion: Since our formalization has already revealed problems with the standard and since the BPMN is still evolving, the maintainers of the standard can benefit from our results. Moreover, tool vendors can use our formalization and reference implementation for verifying conformance to the standard.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The xPPM method is proposed to provide a tight connection between PMs, ERs, FPs, and MVDs and to improve the reusability of predefined ERs and FPs.