Semantic Benchmarking of Process Models - An Ontology-Based Approach

This article suggests an approach which allows the costly analysis of processes (e.g., in serviceoriented architectures) for benchmarking to be partially automated, so that the performance indicators, as well as qualitative differences between processes become apparent. The approach is based on using appropriate ontologies, which make the process models both syntactically and semantically comparable. In this article, we present a conceptual model for this new approach to process benchmarking, a framework, as well as a software prototype for analyzing and comparing individual process models. We provide an overview of our multi-method evaluation methodology and delineate the technical, conceptual, and economic evaluation perspectives with their respective outcomes. This analysis allowed us to determine whether our approach is generally suitable for generating novel and useful information on different process models that describe the same problem domain

Corpus Statistics for Measuring Business Process Similarity

In a rapidly changing environment, organizations must adapt their business processes continuously. While numerous methods enable enterprises to conceptualize and analyze their organizational structure, the task of business process modeling remains complex and time-consuming. However, by reusing and adapting existing process models, enterprises can reduce the task’s complexity while improving the quality of results. To facilitate the identification of adaptable processes, several techniques of business process similarity (BPS) have been proposed in recent years. Although most approaches produce sound results in controlled evaluations, this paper argues that their applicability is limited when analyzing real-world processes, which do not fully comply with notational labeling specifications. Consequently, we aim to enhance existing BPS techniques by using corpus statistics to account for the explanatory power of words within labels of process models. Results from our evaluation suggest that corpus statistics can improve BPS computations and can positively influence the quality of practical implications

Ontological Foundations of Representational Information Systems

A research program around the idea that information systems represent real-world systems was started almost twenty years ago. The program started by Wand and Weber is still going strong with a significant amount of research inspired by them and is one of the few instances incremental foundational research in Information Systems. Much of this research is being undertaken in Australia, and its influence has spread far and wide. Wand and Weber have used ontology, a discipline with roots in two thousand years of philosophy, to drive empirical work into how well information systems represent reality. In this paper the inspiration and progress of the program of research followed over the past two decades is described. The research program has recently progressed from its roots examining information systems development to examine enterprise systems and other package solutions. Further, it is beginning now to more fully use the depth of ontological theory available. However, there are challenges in how Bunge’s ontology has been used and opportunities for using complementary ontologies and for different conceptualisations of information systems

Semantic Business Process Modeling

This book presents a process-oriented business modeling framework based on semantic technologies. The framework consists of modeling languages, methods, and tools that allow for semantic modeling of business motivation, business policies and rules, and business processes. Quality of the proposed modeling framework is evaluated based on the modeling content of SAP Solution Composer and several real-world business scenarios

Transformation From Business Process Models To Process Ontology: A Case Study

Business process modeling is utilized by organizations for defining and reengineering their business processes. On the other hand, ontologies are developed to strengthen shared understanding between people, organizations and software systems and ease reuse. From knowledge management point of view, both are efficient tools for creating knowledge. A tool supported transformation from process models to ontology could enhance the benefits gained from both and increase development efficiency and consistency. This study aims to demonstrate such an automated transformation on a real case. Within the study, a case study is performed to enable this transformation manually from business process models defined with eEPC language to a process ontology and an algorithm is designed and implemented for automated transformation

Investigating business process elements: a journey from the field of Business Process Management to ontological analysis, and back

Business process modelling languages (BPMLs) typically enable the representation of business processes via the creation of process models, which are constructed using the elements and graphical symbols of the BPML itself. Despite the wide literature on business process modelling languages, on the comparison between graphical components of different languages, on the development and enrichment of new and existing notations, and the numerous definitions of what a business process is, the BPM community still lacks a robust (ontological) characterisation of the elements involved in business process models and, even more importantly, of the very notion of business process. While some efforts have been done towards this direction, the majority of works in this area focuses on the analysis of the behavioural (control flow) aspects of process models only, thus neglecting other central modelling elements, such as those denoting process participants (e.g., data objects, actors), relationships among activities, goals, values, and so on. The overall purpose of this PhD thesis is to provide a systematic study of the elements that constitute a business process, based on ontological analysis, and to apply these results back to the Business Process Management field. The major contributions that were achieved in pursuing our overall purpose are: (i) a first comprehensive and systematic investigation of what constitutes a business process meta-model in literature, and a definition of what we call a literature-based business process meta-model starting from the different business process meta-models proposed in the literature; (ii) the ontological analysis of four business process elements (event, participant, relationship among activities, and goal), which were identified as missing or problematic in the literature and in the literature-based meta-model; (iii) the revision of the literature-based business process meta-model that incorporates the analysis of the four investigated business process elements - event, participant, relationship among activities and goal; and (iv) the definition and evaluation of a notation that enriches the relationships between activities by including the notions of occurrence dependences and rationales