Configurable Process Models as a Basis for Reference Modeling

Off-the-shelf packages such as SAP need to be configured to suit the requirements of an organization. Reference models support the configuration of these systems. Existing reference models use rather traditional languages. For example, the SAP reference model uses Eventdriven Process Chains (EPCs). Unfortunately, traditional languages like EPCs do not capture the configuration-aspects well. Consider for example the concept of "choice" in the control-flow perspective. Although any process modeling language, including EPCs, offers a choice construct (e.g., the XOR connector in EPCs), a single construct will not be able to capture the time dimension, scope, and impact of a decision. Some decisions are taken at run-time for a single case while other decisions are taken at build-time impacting a whole organization and all current and future cases. This position paper discusses the need for configurable process models as a basic building block for reference modeling. The focus is on the control-flow perspective. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006

Configurable Information System (CiS) Untuk Membantu UMKM Dalam Meningkatkan Fleksibilitas Sistem Penjualan dan Pembelian Dengan Tree-based Feature Model

Configurable Information System (CiS) atau yang sering disebut juga Sistem Informasi Terkonfigurasi adalah suatu sistem yang dapat diatur atau dikonfigurasi sesuai dengan kebutuhan. Dengan menerapkan sistem yang dapat dikonfigurasi maka perubahan kebutuhan organisasi akan dapat terakomodasi. Penelitian ini bertujuan menyediakan CiS yang memiliki fitur-fitur spesifik untuk penjualan pembelian dilengkapi dengan tree-based feature model untuk mengatur batasan sistem dengan tujuan menjaga integritas sistem, sehingga dapat dilakukan pengaturan terhadap fitur-fitur yang wajib ada (mandatory) dan fitur-fitur yang tidak wajib ada atau pilihan (optional), dengan demikian user dapat lebih leluasa mengatur fitur-fitur yang digunakan namun dengan batasan yang sesuai. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk membantu organisasi berskala mikro, kecil, dan menengah (UMKM) berupa toko retail dan grosir dengan menyediakan CiS dengan ruang lingkup penjualan dan pembelian barang. Dengan adanya CiS maka pihak UMKM akan dapat lebih fleksibel dan leluasa mengatur fitur-fitur sesuai kebutuhan organisasi, sehingga kebutuhan organisasi dapat terakomodasi. Selain itu, dengan tree-based feature model maka UMKM dapat lebih mudah memilih dan mengatur fitur yang disediakan. Konfigurasi fitur yang disediakan dalam CiS ini antara lain fitur order penjualan, order pembelian, fitur pembuatan faktur, fitur konversi barang, setting metode pencatatan persediaan, setting diskon, setting bonus, setting PPN, dan setting metode pencatatan HPP. Ujicoba sistem CiS dilakukan dengan tiga metode, yaitu unit testing, integration testing, dan simulasi konfigurasi terhadap empat UMKM yang bergerak di bidang penjualan dan pembelian. Simulasi dilakukan dengan menjalankan skenario proses bisnis terhadap pengelola empat UMKM yang memiliki proses bisnis berbeda. Hasil proses ujicoba menunjukkan bahwa tree-based feature model dalam CiS yang dibuat dapat mengakomodasi kebutuhan proses bisnis yang berbeda dari keempat UMKM dengan beberapa saran pengembangan, dengan tingkat ketepatan fitur antara fitur yang diusulkan dengan fitur riil yang dibutuhkan sebesar 93,33%, sehingga dapat ditarik kesimpulan bahwa CiS yang disediakan dapat mengakomodasi beragam kebutuhan proses bisnis dalam UMKM. Dengan adanya CiS maka sistem dapat lebih fleksibel, perubahan sistem juga dapat diatur secara mandiri oleh pengguna, dan juga dapat mengurangi tingkat ketergantungan pada pengembang perangkat lunak

CONFIGURABLE PROCESS MODELS: EXPERIENCES FROM A MEDICAL AND AN ADMINISTRATIVE CASE STUDY

Reference (process) models are conceptual models that illustrate generic solutions for a certain domain. However, the generic concept of the reference process models requires the adaption of these process models to the demands of the individual customers. The concept of configurable process models is a step forwards towards this adaptation. Configurable process models integrate different variants of a business process into a single model. The deviation of an individual process model from a reference model can be seen as a variant of that reference model. While a technique for such models was already suggested in previous research, this paper presents two case studies in which this technique was tested in real-world scenarios. We sourced our material from a project at a middlesized hospital introducing “clinical pathways”, and from our own university documenting the “student-life-cycle”. For each of these projects we identified the variants including all of the variation points. The variation points mark the differences between the variants. After modeling, each identified set of variants was integrated into a configurable process model and these models were configured accordingly. This paper reports on both the observation during the model creation and the subsequent configuration

Adapting Project Management Standards – Deriving Guidance from Reference Modelling

Project management standards provide an inventory of commonly accepted processes and tools which claim to be applicable in most cases. Project success largely depends on the suitability of the project management method and thus requires an adaptation of these standards for specific project types and contextual factors. This can be supported through the development of detailed, re-usable guidelines on how to “customize” standards. The goal of this paper is to analyse the potential offered by the field of reference modelling for this purpose. Here, design principles support the transfer and extension of knowledge from a reference model into an application model and can in principle all be transferred into project management. However, this paper shows that limitations occur due to the current design of project management standards. This topic is of utmost importance for IT projects, as they are differ from more conventional project types and thus call for larger alterations

Towards an Economic Justification of Service Oriented Architectures - Measuring the Financial Impact

Service oriented architectures (SOA) herald a new generation of application systems. Whereas current systems were to be chosen and operated as self-contained systems of individual vendors, service oriented architectures allow for integrating application functionality from different sources internal or external to a company according to individual needs within a specific context. Vendors of ERP systems are developing service oriented product variants and intermediaries for trading services over the internet have established already. Therefore, companies are increasingly confronted with the question, to what extend the adoption of SOA turns out to be a profitable venture. As out-payments can be well estimated, the question is: “What is the actual economic value to be gained by utilizing SOA-enabled systems and what monetary consequences are associated with a SOA adoption?” With this contribution we present an approach to measure the financial impact of SOA based on conceptual process models

Understandability Issues of Approaches Supporting Business Process Variability

The increasing adoption of Process-Aware Information Systems, together with the reuse of process knowledge, has led to the emergence of process model repositories with large process families, i.e., collections of related process model variants. For managing such related model collections two types of approaches exist. While behavioral approaches take supersets of variants and derive a process variant by hiding and blocking process elements, structural approaches take a base process model as input and derive a process variant by applying a set of change operations to it. However, at the current stage no framework for assessing these approaches exists and it is not yet clear which approach should be better used and under which circumstances. Therefore, to give first insights about this issue, this work compares both approaches in terms of understandability of the produced process model artifacts, which is fundamental for the management of process families and the reuse of their contained process fragments. In addition, the comparison can serve as theoretical basis for conducting experiments as well as for fostering the development of tools managing business process variability

Flexible Support of Healthcare Processes

Traditionally, healthcare information systems have focused on the support of predictable and repetitive clinical processes. Even though the latter can be often prespecified in formal process models, process flexibility in terms of dynamic adaptability is indispensable to cope with exceptions and unforeseen situations. Flexibility is further required to accommodate the need for evolving healthcare processes and to properly support healthcare process variability. In addition, process-aware information systems are increasingly used to support less structured healthcare processes (i.e., patient treatment processes), which can be characterized as knowledge-intensive. Healthcare processes of this category are neither fully predictable nor repetitive and, therefore, they cannot be fully prespecified at design time. The partial unpredictability of these processes, in turn, demands a certain amount of looseness. This chapter deals with the characteristic flexibility needs of both prespecified and loosely specified healthcare processes. In addition, it presents fundamental flexibility features required to address these flexibility needs as well as to accommodate them in healthcare practice

Using variability descriptors to describe customizable SaaS application templates

Customizable applications play an important role in software as a service (SaaS) scenarios. SaaS application providers want to exploit economies of scale by offering the same basic application to many customers. As customers have different requirements for the same type of application, SaaS vendors must offer so-called application templates that can be customized by their customers to be tailored exactly to their needs. Therefore variability points (i.e., points in an application template that can be customized) need to be made explicit and constraints for these variability points need to be specified. We introduce variability descriptors as a means to describe variability points for SaaS application templates independent of the artifacts (such as GUI components, workflows, configuration files, etc.) that make up the application