Generating Multi-objective Optimized Configurable Business Process Models

The manual specification of imperative business process (BP) models can be very complex and time-consuming, potentially leading to non-optimized models or even errors. To support process analysts in the definition of these models, a method for generating optimized configurable BP models from a constraint-based specification by considering multiple objectives is described. A constraint-based specification typically allows for several different ways of executing it leading to several enactment plans which can, however, vary greatly in respect to how well different performance objective functions can be achieved.We therefore automatically generate different plans and select the ones which fit best the objectives of the company. The generated plans are then merged into an optimized configurable BP model to support the model expert in choosing the most appropriate plan depending on the importance of each objective at configuration time.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TIN2009-1371

Beyond Control-Flow: Extending Business Process Configuration to Roles and Objects

A configurable process model is an integrated representation of multiple variants of a business process. It is designed to be individualized to meet a particular set of requirements. As such, configurable process models promote systematic reuse of proven or common practices. Existing notations for configurable process modeling focus on capturing tasks and control-flow dependencies, neglecting equally important aspects of business processes such as data flow, material flow and resource management. This paper fills this gap by proposing an integrated meta-model for configurable processes with advanced features for capturing resources involved in the performance of tasks (through task-role associations) as well as flow of data and physical artifacts (through task-object associations). Although embodied as an extension of a popular process modeling notation, namely EPC, the meta-model is defined in an abstract and formal manner to make it applicable to other notations

An extended configurable UML activity diagram and a transformation algorithm for business process reference modeling

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions provide generic off-the-shelf reference models usually known as best practices . The configuration !individualization of the reference model to meet specific requirements of business end users however, is a difficult task. The available modeling languages do not provide a complete configurable language that could be used to model configurable reference models. More specifically, there is no algorithm that monitors the transformation of configurable UML Activity Diagram (AD) models while preserving the syntactic correctness of the model. To fill these gaps we propose an extended UML AD modeling language which we named Configurable UML Activity Diagram (C-UML AD). The C-UML AD is used to represent a reference model while showing all the variation points and corresponding dependencies within the model. The C-UML AD covers the requirements and attributes of a configurable modeling language as prescribed by earlier researchers who developed Configurable EPC (C-EPC). We also propose a complete algorithm that transforms the C-UML AD business model to an individual consistent UML AD business model, where the end user\u27s configuration values are consistent with the constraints of the model. Meanwhile, the syntactic correctness of the transformed model is preserved. We validated the Transformation Algorithm by showing how all the transformation steps of the algorithm preserve the syntactic correctness of any given configurable business model, as prescribed by earlier researchers, and by running it on different sets of test scenarios to demonstrate its correctness. We developed a tool to apply the Transformation Algorithm and to demonstrate its validity on a set of test cases as well as a real case study that was used by earlier researchers who developed the C-EPC

Automatic Generation of Questionnaires for Managing Configurable BP Models

Managing large collections of business process (BP) models is increasingly being necessary for organizations. For this, configurable BP models can be used for managing these BPs while allowing analysts to understand what these BPs share and what their differences are. Before the execution of the configurable BP model, a BP model has to be selected from it. This selection is typically performed by an analyst who manually individualizes the model in order to address the business requirements. Unlike existing approaches, we propose a totally automated method to create a questionnaire-based application for guiding a business expert on individualizing a model

Looking for the Why in Event Logs for Robotic Process Automation

The concept of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has gained relevant attention in both industry and academia. RPA raises a way of automating mundane and repetitive human tasks requiring less intrusiveness with the IT infrastructure. Besides traditional user interviews and process document analysis, a common practice starts by observing the behavior of humans with the information systems while they perform the process to be automated. This sequence of human interactions with the user interface (i.e., mouse clicks and keystrokes) is stored in logs for later analysis. Analyzing these interactions brings significant benefits when conducting RPA projects. Nonetheless, some decision-based behaviors of humans require additional information to be explained. For example, a human may reject an invoice because some field is missing on a form. However, there is no interaction with that field since such information is not stored in the log. Therefore, this Ph.D. elaborates on a method to obtain additional information based on screenshots collected during the process execution. Some features are extracted from the screenshots to enrich the log, which is later used for classifying human decisions in a machine-and-human-readable form. The proposed method can be applied to generate advanced support in the RPA projects, e.g., producing an enhanced process analysis, supporting the robot development, or generating predictions and simulations. The approach has been validated using synthetic data where promising results were obtained.Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades PID2019-105455GB-C31Ministerio de Educación y Formación Profesional FPU20/0598

A DSDEVS-Based Model for Verifying Structural Constraints in Dynamic Business Processes

This paper presents a DSDEVS-based model “Dynamic Structure Discrete Event System specification” for modeling and simulating business processes with dynamic structure regarding to different contexts. Consequently, this model, formally, improves the reuse of configurable business processes. Thus, the proposed model allows the analysts to personalize their configurable business processes in a sound manner by verifying a set of structure properties, such as, the lack of synchronization and the deadlock by means of simulation. The implementation was done in DEVS-Suite simulator, which is based on DEVSJAVA models

Automatic Generation of Questionnaires for Supporting Users during the Execution of Declarative Business Process Models

When designing an imperative business process (BP) model, analysts have to face many design requirements (e.g., managing uncertainty, optimizing conflicting objective functions). To facilitate such design, declarative BP models are increasingly used. However, how to execute a given declarative model can be quite challenging since there are typically several variants related to such model, each one presenting different degree of goodness. To support users working on declarative models while a high flexibility is maintained, we propose removing the worst variants from the source declarative model at design time while keeping the best variants. This way, the variants which are kept are narrowed down incrementally during run-time. For managing these variants during run-time we suggest to build upon configurable BP models. To configure such models, we additionally propose to automatically generate questionnaires. The results over a real case study are promising

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

VIVACE: A Framework for the Systematic Evaluation of Variability Support in Process-Aware Information Systems

CONTEXT The increasing adoption of process-aware information systems (PAISs) such as workflow management systems, enterprise resource planning systems, or case management systems, together with the high variability in business processes (e.g., sales processes may vary depending on the respective products and countries), has resulted in large industrial process model repositories. To cope with this business process variability, the proper management of process variants along the entire process lifecycle becomes crucial. OBJECTIVE The goal of this paper is to develop a fundamental understanding of business process variability. In particular, the paper will provide a framework for assessing and comparing process variability approaches and the support they provide for the different phases of the business process lifecycle (i.e., process analysis and design, configuration, enactment, diagnosis, and evolution). METHOD We conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) in order to discover how process variability is supported by existing approaches. RESULTS The SLR resulted in 63 primary studies which were deeply analyzed. Based on this analysis, we derived the VIVACE framework. VIVACE allows assessing the expressiveness of a process modeling language regarding the explicit specification of process variability. Furthermore, the support provided by a process-aware information system to properly deal with process model variants can be assessed with VIVACE as well. CONCLUSIONS VIVACE provides an empirically-grounded framework for process engineers that enables them to evaluate existing process variability approaches as well as to select that variability approach meeting their requirements best. Finally, it helps process engineers in implementing PAISs supporting process variability along the entire process lifecycle