Process modeling

About: Process modeling is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 11639 publications have been published within this topic receiving 223996 citations. The topic is also known as: process simulation.

Configurable process models

Abstract: Business process models and workow systems aim at guaranteeing efficient and reliable executions of business processes. For this, they require detailed specifications of the individual steps that need to be taken during the process execution. As defining such process definitions from scratch requires good knowledge of both the domain of the process as well as the process modeling technique, process modeling is often cumbersome and prone to errors that inhibit sound process executions. For that reason, many providers of process modeling software as well as process consultants offer so-called reference process models or template repositories. These repositories provide established process specifications for both general as well as industry specific processes, from travel approvals to invoice verifications. Still, even for such common processes, execution variations exist among organizations. Hence, organizations have to adapt the templates manually to individual requirements. The process modeling skills required for these adaptations are equal to the skills required for modeling from scratch. This PhD thesis suggests reducing the need for manual process model adaptations by integrating variations among different process executions into a single process model | a configurable process model. In the configurable model, process configuration allows inhibiting executing any undesired tasks. In this way, a process model providing exactly the behavior desired by an organization can be derived without manual process modeling efforts. For defining configurable process models, the thesis first provides a formal specification of process model configuration by analyzing how behavior is added to process models and defining process configuration as the inverse. In this way, blocking and hiding of behavior, originally defined as concepts to discover inheritance relations among dynamic behavior, are identified as the two techniques to restrict behavior of configurable process models. The practical feasibility of the suggested approach is demonstrated through depicting how process configuration can be added to the process modeling languages of existing workow systems, namely SAP WebFlow, BPEL, and YAWL. An actual implementation is provided for YAWL. It even allows configuring the process model through natural language questions by mapping the various configuration options to pre-defined answers in a questionnaire. The framework has been tested in a case study where configurable process models were developed for registration processes executed in municipalities like the registration of a newborn child or a marriage. The developed models thus allow deriving a configured, individual process variant by simply answering a questionnaire on desired and undesired options of the process. The resulting model variant is directly executable in the YAWL system environment. The models and the overall approach have afterwards also been evaluated through interviews with various stakeholders in the process configuration lifecycle. Two main challenges arise for defining and using configurable process models: On the one hand, the creation of a process model integrating various process variants obviously requires far more work than building a process model covering only one of these variants. For that reason, the thesis suggests a set of process mining techniques, which can help in the construction of a configurable process model, e.g. by merging individual process models. On the other hand, process configuration allows restricting the process behavior depicted in the configurable process model further than desired, up to the point that the process is not executable anymore. This is addressed through discussing a range of constraints on the process model configuration that are able to guarantee sound processes.

The Things of the Internet of Things in BPMN

Abstract: The component “thing” of the Internet of Things does not yet exist in current business process modeling standards. The “thing” is the essential and central concept of the Internet of Things, and without its consideration we will not be able to model the business processes of the future, which will be able to measure or change states of objects in our real-world environment. The presented approach focuses on integrating the concept of the Internet of Things into the meta-model of the process modeling standard BPMN 2.0 as standard-conform as possible. By a terminological and conceptual delimitation, three components of the standard are examined and compared towards a possible expansion. By implementing the most appropriate solution, the new thing concept becomes usable for modelers, both as a graphical and machine-readable element.

Modeling the Requirements Engineering Process

Abstract: Information System Engineering has made the assumption that an Information System is supposed to capture some excerpt of the real world history and hence has concentrated on modeling. This has caused the introduction of a large variety of models and especially conceptual models by which an information system can be modelled in high level conceptual terms. By contrast, very little attention has been paid to the conceptual modeling process which has the purpose of investigating the requirements of the users community and abstracting from that the conceptual specification of the information system. This results in a low level of support provided to requirements engineers. However, the emphasis on system modeling is shifting to process modeling. The need for process modeling motivates the process stream of the NATURE Esprit project. The Requirements Engineering Process model developed within this project is the main topic of this paper. The particular RE process modeling approach chosen in NATURE emphasises the notion of decision within the context in which it is taken. The paper outlines the modeling approach. It details and exemplifies the main concepts proposed to model the RE process and their relationships. Finally, it sketches the advantages of the process model by introducing its different usages.

On the challenges of business modeling in large-scale reengineering projects

Abstract: Modeling existing and future business processes is crucial to the outcome of large-scale reengineering projects. The use of parameterized or standard components does not render business models redundant, but shifts the modeling focus even more from technical aspects to the real-world business processes. In current reengineering projects, however, there is often a lack of coordination of modeling activities and the consistency of conceptual models across project activities can be threatened. There are often several models of the same phenomenon that are used by different people, in different phases, or for different purposes. This paper discusses some of the challenges of business modeling and presents a three-tier model description that explains some of the model variants found in reengineering projects. The findings from a large-scale SAP project in Europe underline the importance of a balanced business model and show how individually tailored conceptual models may hamper the formation of a common understanding of the domain and badly affect the reengineering of the business processes.