A rule-based approach to model and verify flexible business processes

Efficient organisations need to ensure that their business processes are flexible so that these processes can easily accommodate changes in regulations and policies. Appropriate techniques to model and verify these processes are required. In this paper, we present a rule-based approach, which is built upon the event-condition-action model (ECA) and supported by a rule-based business process definition language (RbBPDL). In this approach, rules, which specify business processes, are represented using the event-condition-action-post- condition-event (ECAPE) model. This allows translating a process into a graph of rules that is used to check how flexible a business process is, and estimating this process\u27s cost of changes. This cost is based on a rule change cost model (R2CM) that will be presented in this paper. In addition, the ECAPE model allows the translation of a process into a coloured Petri net, called ECAPE net, in order to verify process functioning prior to any deployment. Copyright © 2011 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

A rule-based approach to model and verify flexible business processes

Efficient organisations need to ensure that their business processes are flexible so that these processes can easily accommodate changes in regulations and policies. Appropriate techniques to model and verify these processes are required. In this paper, we present a rule-based approach, which is built upon the event-condition-action model (ECA) and supported by a rule-based business process definition language (RbBPDL). In this approach, rules, which specify business processes, are represented using the event-condition-action-post- condition-event (ECAPE) model. This allows translating a process into a graph of rules that is used to check how flexible a business process is, and estimating this process\u27s cost of changes. This cost is based on a rule change cost model (R2CM) that will be presented in this paper. In addition, the ECAPE model allows the translation of a process into a coloured Petri net, called ECAPE net, in order to verify process functioning prior to any deployment. Copyright © 2011 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

A Rule-based Approach to Model and Verify Flexible Business Processes

International audienceCe papier présente un modèle basé sur des règles actives pour améliorer la gestion des processusmétiers ou processus d’affaire sur le plan de la flexibilité et de la vérification. Dans ce modèle,les règles ECA décrivent les règles métiers d’une organisation et sont étendues de sorte à prendreen compte les conditions de terminaison de l’exécution d’une activité à travers notamment despost-conditions et des post-évènements). Cela conduit au formalisme ECAPE qui a l’avantage depermettre de construire : le modèle de processus métier, un réseau de Petri pour vérifier le bonfonctionnement du modèle et un graphe permettant le calcul du coût des changements suite à unemodification d’une règle de gestion

A configuration-based domain-specific rule generation framework for process model customization

In today’s changing world, there is an ever-increasing demand and need for software reuse in applications, where the process model needs to be reused in different applications in a domain-specific environment. The process model is required to adapt and implement changes promptly at run-time, in response of the end-user configuration requirements. Furthermore, reusability is emerging strongly as a necessary underlying capability, particularly for customization of business in a dynamic environment where end-users can select their requirements to achieve a specific goal. Such adaptations are in general, performed by non-technical end-users which can lead to losing a significant number of person-days and which can also open up possibilities to introduce errors into the system. These scenarios call for - indeed cry out for - a system with a configurable and customizable business process, operable by users with limited technical expertise. Research aims to provide a framework for generating the rule language and configuring domain constraints. This framework builds upon the core idea of Software Product Lines Engineering (SPLE) and Model-Driven Architecture (MDA). The SPLE provides a platform that includes the variability model. Variability models offer features where end-users can select features and customize possible changes in the domain template, which is the container for domain and process models. The user selects their requirements as a feature from feature models and generates rules from domain models using MDA. Then, the generated rules are translated from a high-level domain model, based on the requirements of the end-user. On the other hand, the weaving model is responsible for reflecting activation and de-activation of features of variabilities in the domain template. The usability of the proposed framework is evaluated with a user study in the area of Digital Content Technology. The results demonstrate that usability improvements can be achieved by using the proposed techniques. The framework can be used to support semi-automatic configuration that is efficient, effective and satisfactory