2 research outputs found
A Constraint-Based Approach for Managing Declarative Temporal Business Process Models
There is an increasing interest in aligning information systems in a process-oriented way. As an alternative of the traditional imperative models which tend to be too rigid, processes may be specified in a declarative (e.g., constraint-based) way. Nonetheless, in general, offering operational support (e.g., generating possible execution traces) to declarative business process models entails more complexity when compared to imperative modeling alternatives. Such support becomes even more complex in many real scenarios where the management of complex temporal relations between the process activities is crucial (i.e., the temporal perspective should be managed). Despite the needs for enabling process flexibility and dealing with temporal constraints, most existing tools are unable to manage both. In a previous work, we then proposed TConDec-R, which is a constraint-based process modeling language which allows for the specification of temporal constraints. However, TConDec-R revealed a number of limitations that are overcome with the present work. More specifically, this paper significantly extends and improves our previous work by (1) defining TConDec-R process models based on high-level elements from the constraint programming paradigm, (2) introducing a constraint-based tool with a client/server architecture for providing operational support to TConDec-R process models, and (3) performing an empirical evaluation of the approach
Flexible runtime support of business processes under rolling planning horizons
This work has been motivated by the needs we discovered when analyzing real-world processes from the
healthcare domain that have revealed high flexibility demands and complex temporal constraints. When trying
to model these processes with existing languages, we learned that none of the latter was able to fully address
these needs. This motivated us to design TConDec-R, a declarative process modeling language enabling the
specification of complex temporal constraints. Enacting business processes based on declarative process models,
however, introduces a high complexity due to the required optimization of objective functions, the handling of
various temporal constraints, the concurrent execution of multiple process instances, the management of crossinstance
constraints, and complex resource allocations. Consequently, advanced user support through optimized
schedules is required when executing the instances of such models. In previous work, we suggested a method for
generating an optimized enactment plan for a given set of process instances created from a TConDec-R model.
However, this approach was not applicable to scenarios with uncertain demands in which the enactment of
newly created process instances starts continuously over time, as in the considered healthcare scenarios. Here,
the process instances to be planned within a specific timeframe cannot be considered in isolation from the ones
planned for future timeframes. To be able to support such scenarios, this article significantly extends our previous
work by generating optimized enactment plans under a rolling planning horizon. We evaluate the approach
by applying it to a particularly challenging healthcare process scenario, i.e., the diagnostic procedures required
for treating patients with ovarian carcinoma in a Woman Hospital. The application of the approach to this sophisticated
scenario allows avoiding constraint violations and effectively managing shared resources, which
contributes to reduce the length of patient stays in the hospital.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2016-76956-C3-2-RMinisterio de Ciencia e Innovación PID2019-105455 GB-C3