Showing papers on "Business process modeling published in 2020"

Quantifying the Cost of Distrust: Comparing Blockchain and Cloud Services for Business Process Execution

Abstract: Blockchain is of rising importance as a technology for engineering applications in cross-organizational settings, avoiding reliance on central trusted third-parties. The use of blockchain, instead of traditional databases or services, is an architectural choice in the development of a software system. Architecture impacts the non-functional qualities of systems, creating design trade-offs between these qualities. The costs of execution and storage are important non-functional qualities, but as yet little is known about them for blockchain-based systems. How expensive is it to use blockchains compared to conventional execution and storage infrastructure? We investigate this question using business process execution as a lens. Specifically, we compare the cost for computation and storage of business process execution on blockchain vs. a popular cloud service. Besides monetary cost, blockchains like Ethereum limit the complexity of new blocks by capping costs through network-defined limits. For applications using such blockchains, the limit per block, thus, translates into an upper bound on throughput scalability. First, we implement and measure the cost of business process execution on blockchain and cloud services for a business process model from a large-scale industrial dataset and an example from literature. We observe two orders of magnitude difference in this cost. Second, we illustrate how cost models can be used to project the impact of different workload assumptions. Finally, we discuss throughput scalability limits as well as trade-offs between cost and other non-functional qualities in the design of blockchain-based systems.

Modeling of IoT devices in Business Processes: A Systematic Mapping Study

Abstract: The Internet of Things (IoT) enables to connect the physical world to digital business processes (BP). By using the IoT, a BP can, e.g.: 1) take into account real-world data to take more informed business decisions, and 2) automate and/or improve BP tasks. To achieve these benefits, the integration of IoT and BPs needs to be successful. The first step to this end is to support the modeling of IoT-enhanced BPs. Although numerous researchers have studied this subject, it is unclear what is the current state of the art in terms of current modeling solutions and gaps. In this work, we carry out a Systematic Mapping Study (SMS) to find out how current solutions are modelling IoT into business processes. After studying 600 papers, we identified and analyzed in depth a total of 36 different solutions. In addition, we report on some important issues that should be addressed in the near future, such as, for instance the lack of standardization.

The Influence of Using Collapsed Sub-processes and Groups on the Understandability of Business Process Models

Abstract: Many factors influence the creation of business process models which are understandable for a target audience Understandability of process models becomes more critical when size and complexity of the models increase Using vertical modularization to decompose such models hierarchically into modules is considered to improve their understandability To investigate this assumption, two experiments were conducted The experiments involved 2 large-scale real-life business process models that were modeled using BPMN v20 (Business Process Model and Notation) in the form of collaboration diagrams Each process was modeled in 3 modularity forms: fully-flattened, flattened where activities are clustered using BPMN groups, and modularized using separately viewed BPMN sub-processes The objective was to investigate if and how different forms of modularity representation (used for vertical modularization) in BPMN collaboration diagrams influence the understandability of process models In addition to the forms of modularity representation, the presentation medium (paper vs computer) and model reader’s level of business process modeling competency were investigated as factors that potentially influence model comprehension 60 business practitioners from a large organization and 140 graduate students participated in our experiments The results indicate that, when these three modularity representations are considered, it is best to present the model in a ‘flattened’ form (with or without the use of groups) and in the ‘paper’ format in order to optimally understand a BPMN model The results also show that the model reader’s business process modeling competency is an important factor of process model comprehension

Verifying the manipulation of data objects according to business process and data models

Abstract: Business processes read and write data objects, usually stored in databases. Although data models and activity-oriented business process models originate from different paradigms, they need to work together properly. The data object states are transformed during each process instance by the activities of the process model. It is therefore necessary to verify whether the states of the data objects are correct according to the process model, and to discover the states of the stored data objects. This implies determining the relation between the data objects stored in the database, the data objects involved in the process, and the activities that within the business process that create the data objects and modify their states. In order to verify the business process annotated with data states and to reduce the existing gap between data model and business process model, we propose a methodology that includes enlarging the capability to describe data states in business processes; verifying the completeness and consistency of the data states described in accordance with their relation to the business process model; and discovering the states of the data objects stored in the database according to the business process model where they are managed. The methodology is supported by a framework that enables a natural-like language to be employed to describe the states, to apply the necessary algorithms to verify the consistency and completeness of the model, and to determine the states of the stored data objects according to the model described. To validate our proposal, an extension of Activiti$$^{TM}$$ has been implemented and applied to a real example as an illustration of its applicability.

Innovating business processes in public administrations: towards a systemic approach

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to study the credit collection process in public administrations in order to develop a conceptual model which goes beyond the traditional logic of linearity, adopting system thinking approaches.,This study analyses the case of an Italian local government-owned enterprise. Data collection through semi-structured interviews and document analysis has enabled the development of propositions, the identification of systemic variables, and the development of an explanatory modeling process based on the system dynamics approach.,This paper shows that public administrations can effectively involve external actors, especially citizens, as knowledge and public value co-creators only when considering systemic, unintended, and delayed implications of decision-making activities related to the provision of sensitive public services such as credit collection.,Business process modelling should address some key fragilities of traditional modeling processes, especially in the public sector. This paper develops a novel systemic conceptual model which lays the groundwork for empirically testing business process innovation in public administrations.

Business process monitoring on blockchains: Potentials and challenges

Abstract: The ability to enable a tamper-proof distribution of immutable data has boosted the studies around the adoption of blockchains also in Business Process Management. In this direction, current research work primarily focuses on blockchain-based business process design, or on execution engines able to enact processes through smart contracts. Although very relevant, less studies have been devoted so far on how the adoption of blockchains can be beneficial to business process monitoring. This work goes into this direction by providing an insightful analysis to understand the benefits as well as the hurdles of blockchain-enabled business process monitoring. In particular, this work considers the adoption of programmable blockchain platforms to manage the generation, distribution, and analysis of business process monitoring data.

Business processes and information systems in the Ghana cocoa supply chain: A survey study

Abstract: The Ghana cocoa industry contributes substantially to the total world cocoa production and provides livelihoods to more than a quarter of the population. Although cocoa holds a leading position in the Ghanaian economy, no explicit effort has been made in modelling and documenting the business processes of the cocoa supply chain and the role that IT plays in supporting those processes. Hence, it is difficult to identify the current obstacles in adopting IT in the Ghana cocoa sector, and likewise, enhance the alignment of the business processes along the supply chain and the underlying IT systems. To address this issue, this article presents the results of a survey study to the current business processes of the cocoa supply chain and the underlying IT systems in Ghana. The survey study has been conducted with 56 individuals from the three key sets of actors from the sector, which are cocoa farmers, cocoa traders and the Ghana cocoa board. Based on the results of the survey study, we provide formal business process models of these actors and describe the role IT currently plays in supporting the business processes. We report on the lessons learned together with the obstacles and thus aim to pave the way for further development and enhancement of the business processes as well as the adopted IT.

An Application of a Multi-Criteria Approach for the Development of a Process Reference Model for Supply Chain Operations

Abstract: Nowadays, there are a plethora of business process modeling tools for use by researchers and practitioners. This paper presents the implementation of a methodological approach for the selection of such a tool in order to construct a process reference model. This reference model will support the development of a distribution system in the context of the supply chain in the phase of the system’s requirements definition, as well as in the final implementation of the system in real-life supply chain operations. The reference model is crucial for the easy and effective adoption of the system into companies’ processes. Therefore, the choice of the modeling tool can strongly support the design, development and implementation of the system. In this context, the application of a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) was carried out in order to select the appropriate tool, utilizing a combination of the Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment Evaluations (PROMETHEE) I method for the decision-making with the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method for the calculation of the weights of the evaluation criteria. The MCDA’s results showed that the Architecture of Integrated Information Systems (ARIS) Architect & Designer Tool was the one that better met the evaluation criteria. The sensitivity analysis that followed the MCDA reaffirmed its results by revealing that this tool had the highest consistency, despite the changes in the scenarios.

Automated Business Process Modelling for Analyzing Sustainable System Requirements Engineering

Abstract: This paper presents the new automatic modelling methodology to derive the system requirements from the business goal model. This methodology involves two main levels: (1) level 1 presents the business requirements for the business environment to describe the business strategy and infrastructure specifications; and (2), level 2 presents the IT requirements and how its automatically being model and analyze from Business Processes (BPs). Level 1 includes three main elements: business goals, business rules and BP. Level 2 includes four main stages: (1) translating the business goals into UML sequence diagrams in order to explore the detailed information about the BP; (2) illustrating the UML sequences diagrams data into the loosely coupled format named Extensible Mark-up Language (XML) Metadata interchange (XMI) in order to examine and map the information; (3) generating the XMI format of the UML state chart diagram by analyzing the business goals in order to clarify and resolve conflicts between goals; and (4) converting the UML state chart diagram from the XMI format in order to clarify of the system requirements for system developers. The proposed methodology can help the system developers to understand the Business Process (BP) goals and implement the system according to the organizational requirements. It can positively influence the alignment between business and IT.

Capturing Tacit Knowledge in Security Operation Centers

Abstract: The use of tacit knowledge has previously been shown to help expedite problem-solving procedures in the setting of medical emergency responses, as individuals can use past experiences in present and future challenges. However, there is a lack of understanding in its application in IT and socio-technical management. This paper examines the thought processes observed in Security Operational Centre (SOC) analysts facing threat events to lay the groundwork for tacit knowledge management in SOCs. Based on Sternberg's fieldwork in tacit knowledge, we conducted semi-structured interviews with ten analysts to explore the key artefacts and individual traits that aid their approach to communication, and to examine the thought processes under hypothetical incident handling scenarios. The results highlight a unanimous pursuit of Root Cause Analysis (RCA) upon the outbreak of an incident and stages of decision-making when escalating to third party support providers. Using Business Process Modelling and Notation (BPMN), we show the procedural elements of tacit knowledge from several scenarios. The results also suggest that simulation environments and physical proximity with analysts and vendors can facilitate the transfer of tacit knowledge more effectively in SOCs.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Governance Processes: A Case Study

Abstract: Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Governance is increasingly necessary and present in organizations aiming to improve the maturity of their ICT processes. This paper presents an analysis of the ICT Governance processes of a Brazilian Federal Public Administration agency. To assess the maturity of the ICT Governance processes, we surveyed and diagnosed the processes performed by the agency and organized a series of meetings/discussions to assist in the improvement and modeling of the processes related to the ICT Contract Planning process. As a result, we proposed improvements and identified the maturity level of the existing ICT processes, also assessing the awareness of employees of the General Coordination of Information Technology regarding these processes. Our findings reveal that the agency still needs to implement the following processes: (1) ICT People Management; (2) Business Process Modeling (Automated/to Automate); (3) Change Management; (4) Execution Monitoring of the ICT Projects and Services Portfolio; and (5) ICT Service Continuity Management. We also identified several artifacts that need to be implemented by the agency in different processes and collected survey participants’ suggestions about new processes to improve the maturity in ICT Governance.

Data Impact Analysis in Business Processes

Abstract: Business processes and their outcomes rely on data whose values are changed during process execution. When unexpected changes occur, e.g., due to last minute changes of circumstances, human errors, or corrections of detected errors in data values, this may have consequences for various parts of the process. This challenges the process participants to understand the full impact of the changes and decide on responses or corrective actions. To tackle this challenge, the paper suggests a semi-automated approach for data impact analysis. The approach entails a trans-formation of business process models to a relational database representation, to which querying is applied, in order to retrieve process elements that are related to a given data change. Specifically, the proposed method receives a data item (an attribute or an object) and information about the current state of process execution (in the form of a trace upon which an unexpected change has occurred). It analyzes the impact of the change in terms of activities, other data items, and gateways that are affected. When evaluating the usefulness of the approach through a case study, it was found that it has the potential to assist experienced process participants, especially when the consequences of the change are extensive, and its locus is in the middle of the process. The approach contributes both to practice with tool-supported guidance on how to handle unexpected data changes, and to research with a set of impact analysis primitives and queries.

Sagitec Software Studio (S3) - A Low Code Application Development Platform

Abstract: Building an application using full-stack development model was the strategy of the past. A low code platform allows organization to build enterprise level software with minimal coding (mainly drag and drop) and focusing more on business functionality. Sagitec’s low code platform is a domain neutral entity which provides a rich graphical interface with various building blocks like form design, data integration, business rule creator, Business Process Modelling (BPM), File Processing, Report, Correspondence generator and analytics. One can build very large enterprise level application using this platform, all these capabilities are attached to core as an engine. Similarly, Big Data features can also be added as another engine.Platform allows even citizen developer to build application in rapid speed which in turns reduce the cost of building application and improves Return on Investment (ROI). In addition, Sagitec also provides low code platform for comprehensive quality assurance activity, requirement tracking, analytics for fraud detection and many more.

Complexity Clustering of BPMN Models: Initial Experiments with the K-means Algorithm

Abstract: This paper introduces a method to assess the complexity of process models by utilizing a cluster analysis technique. The presented method aims to facilitate multi-criteria decision making and process objective management, through the combination of specific quality indicators. This is achieved by leveraging established complexity metrics from literature, and combining three complementary ones (i.e. NOAJS, CFC and CNC) to a single weighted measure, offering an integrated scheme for evaluating complexity. K-means clustering algorithm is implemented on 87 eligible models, out of a repository of 1000 models, and classifies them to corollary clusters that correspond to complexity levels. By assigning weighted impact on specific complexity metrics -an action that leads to the production of threshold values- cluster centroids can fluctuate, thus produce customized model categorizations. The paper demonstrates the application of the proposed method on existing business process models from relevant literature. The assessment of their complexity is performed by comparing the weighted sum of each model to the defined thresholds and proves to be a straightforward and efficient procedure.

Events Put into Context (EPiC)

Abstract: Business process models can be (re)constructed using event data recorded during the process’ execution. Similarly, event data can be used to verify conformance to prescribed behavior and to analyze and improve the underlying processes. However, not all events that are related to a process necessarily relate to its control-flow. Some events occur in the context of the process. In this work, we introduce the concept of context events to deal with these types of events. We show how distinguishing between contextual and control-flow events aids process discovery to obtain less complex process models. We demonstrate how visualizing context events on top of process models helps identify points in the process where context events occur often, aiding understanding. We analyze these benefits using two case studies involving real-life processes and event data.

Digging into Business Process Meta-models: A First Ontological Analysis

Abstract: While modern definitions of business processes exist and are shared in the Business Process Management community, a commonly agreed meta-model is still missing. Nonetheless, several different business process meta-models have been recently proposed and discussed in the literature, which look at business process models from different perspectives, focusing on different aspects and often using different labels for denoting the same element or element relation.

On Knowledge Transfer from Cost-Based Optimization of Data-Centric Workflows to Business Process Redesign

Abstract: This work deals with redesigning business process models, e.g., in BPMN, based on cost-based optimization techniques that were initially proposed for data analytics workflows. More specifically, it discusses execution cost and cycle time improvements through treating business processes in the same way as data-centric workflows. The presented solutions are cost-based, i.e., they employ quantitative metadata and cost models. The advantage of this approach is that business processes can benefit from recent advances in data-intensive workflow optimization similarly to the manner they nowadays benefit from additional data analytics areas, e.g., in the area of process mining. Concrete use cases are presented that are capable of demonstrating that even in small, more conservative cases, the benefits are significant. The contribution of this work is to show how to automatically optimize the model structure of a given process in terms of the ordering of tasks and how to perform resource allocation under contradicting objectives. Finally, the work identifies open issues in developing end-to-end business process redesign solutions with regards to the case studies considered.

A New DEMO Modelling Tool that Facilitates Model Transformations

Abstract: The age of digitization requires rapid design and re-design of enterprises. Rapid changes can be realized using conceptual modelling. The design and engineering methodology for organizations (DEMO) is an established modelling method for representing the organization domain of an enterprise. However, heterogeneity in enterprise design stakeholders generally demand for transformations between conceptual modelling languages. Specifically, in the case of DEMO, a transformation into business process modelling and notation (BPMN) models is desirable to account to both, the semantic sound foundation of the DEMO models, and the wide adoption of the de-facto industry standard BPMN. Model transformation can only be efficiently applied if tool support is available. Our research starts with a state-of-the-art analysis, comparing existing DEMO modelling tools. Using a design science research approach, our main contribution is the development of a DEMO modelling tool on the ADOxx platform. One of the main features of our tool is that it addresses stakeholder heterogeneity by enabling transformation of a DEMO organization construction diagram (OCD) into a BPMN collaboration diagram. A demonstration case shows the feasibility of our newly developed tool.

An approach to merge collaborating processes of an inter-organizational business process for artifact lifecycle synthesis

Abstract: Artifact-centric approach to business process modeling has received considerable attention for elevating data logic to the same level as the process flow logic. With the emergence of this modeling paradigm, several recent works have focused on synthesizing the indispensable lifecycles of key business entities called artifacts from the standalone activity-centric processes. However, synthesizing artifact lifecycles from the inter-organizational business processes (IOBP) is challenging, as the artifacts and states are shared among two or more collaborating processes. Thus, unlike a standalone process, the synthesis of artifact lifecycles from an IOBP require the process interactions to be captured by preserving the dependencies between the involved artifacts and states in the resulting lifecycles. Therefore, in this paper, we propose an automated approach that aims at merging the collaborating processes of an IOBP in order to support the synthesis of artifact lifecycles from an IOBP. The proposed approach is comprised of algorithms that combine the nodes of collaborating processes to generate an integrated process that can be used to synthesize the artifact lifecycles pertinent to an IOBP. We demonstrate the proposed approach using an e-business process scenario and the validity is proved using theorems and a prototype implementation.

Application of System-Dynamic Modeling to Improve Distribution Logistics Processes in the Supply Chain:

Abstract: This article presents an approach of improve logistics processes with the system dynamics modeling of two different processes scenarios. System dynamics is used, not only as a causal loop diagram, but calculated measures of end-user satisfaction indicators were provided by experts, as well. Literature review of fundamental definitions and recent ideas in subject of supply chain management (SCM), system dynamics (SD), business processes model and notation (BPMN) and distribution logistics for dozens of major sources, has been made. In the work, methods of expert interviews, content analysis of recent publications, system-dynamic modeling and business process modeling, were used. Developed BPMN-models of distribution logistics business processes are given in Appendices #1 and #2.

Hierarchical Business Process Discovery: Identifying Sub-processes Using Lifecycle Information

Abstract: This paper aims to introduce a novel approach to discover hierarchical business process models from event logs with lifecycle information. To handle noise and infrequent behavior, we introduce the notion of nesting ratio to quantify the probability of nesting. All proposed approaches have been implemented in the open-source process mining toolkit ProM. The proposed approach is compared to existing process discovery techniques using both synthetic and real-life lifecycle event logs, and finally we show that our approach outperforms exiting approaches to discover hierarchical processes.

Design and implementation of ETL processes using BPMN and relational algebra

Abstract: Extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL) processes are used to extract data from internal and external sources of an organization, transform these data, and load them into a data warehouse. The Business Process Modeling and Notation (BPMN) has been proposed for expressing ETL processes at a conceptual level. A different approach is studied in this paper, where relational algebra (RA), extended with update operations, is used for specifying ETL processes. In this approach, data tasks in an ETL workflow can be automatically translated into SQL queries to be executed over a DBMS. To illustrate this study, the paper addresses the problem of updating Slowly Changing Dimensions (SCDs) with dependencies, that is, the case when updating a SCD table impacts on associated SCD tables. Tackling this problem requires extending the classic RA with update operations. The paper also shows the implementation of a portion of the TPC-DI benchmark that results from both approaches. Thus, the paper presents three implementations: (a) An SQL implementation based on the extended RA-based specification of an ETL process expressed in BPMN4ETL; and (b) Two implementations of workflows that follow from BPMN4ETL, one that uses the Pentaho DI tool, and another one that uses Talend Open Studio for DI. Experiments over these implementations of the TPC-DI benchmark for different scale factors were carried out, and are described and discussed in the paper, showing that the extended RA approach results in more efficient processes than the ones produced by implementing the BPMN4ETL specification over the mentioned ETL tools. The reasons for this result are also discussed.

BPMN pra GERAL, business process models in a citizen language

Abstract: Brazilian laws, such as the Law on Access to Information, mandate the transparency of public procedural information, in a clear, simple and understandable manner. However, the existent process-oriented citizen language and a BPMN translation method that would enable these requirements are still informal and unstructured. These problems have limited their use, culminating in a dependency on experts. This paper presents a framework with four components (notation, semantics, computer tool, and method) to merge, structure and complement the citizen process language, GERAL, and respective translation, in a guide dedicated to lay users in technical process modeling, called BPMN pra GERAL. The Design Science Research method conducted the formative research, around the engineering of an artifact with epistemological rigor and scientific assessment methods with both a qualitative and quantitative approach, involving four participants in a library at a public university. The results are positive, participants showed interest, perception and intention to use the guide in real cases; increased their awareness of the need for process transparency; and all participants used the solution effectively. This research contributes to transparency, information accessibility, business process modeling and understandability.