Criteria and Heuristics for Business Process Model Decomposition - Review and Comparative Evaluation

It is generally agreed that large process models should be decomposed into sub-processes in order to enhance understandability and maintainability. Accordingly, a number of process decomposition criteria and heuristics have been proposed in the literature. This paper presents a review of the field revealing distinct classes of criteria and heuristics. The study raises the question of how different decomposition heuristics affect process model understandability and maintainability. To address this question, an experiment is conducted where two different heuristics, one based on breakpoints and the other on data objects, were used to decompose a flat process model. The results of the experiment show that, although there are minor differences, the heuristics cause very similar results in regard to understandability and maintainability as measured by various process model metrics

Operational Research in Education

Operational Research (OR) techniques have been applied, from the early stages of the discipline, to a wide variety of issues in education. At the government level, these include questions of what resources should be allocated to education as a whole and how these should be divided amongst the individual sectors of education and the institutions within the sectors. Another pertinent issue concerns the efficient operation of institutions, how to measure it, and whether resource allocation can be used to incentivise efficiency savings. Local governments, as well as being concerned with issues of resource allocation, may also need to make decisions regarding, for example, the creation and location of new institutions or closure of existing ones, as well as the day-to-day logistics of getting pupils to schools. Issues of concern for managers within schools and colleges include allocating the budgets, scheduling lessons and the assignment of students to courses. This survey provides an overview of the diverse problems faced by government, managers and consumers of education, and the OR techniques which have typically been applied in an effort to improve operations and provide solutions

Structuring the decision process : an evaluation of methods in the structuring the decision process

This chapter examines the effectiveness of methods that are designed to provide structure and support to decision making. Those that are primarily aimed at individual decision makers are examined first and then attention is turned to groups. In each case weaknesses of unaided decision making are identified and how successful the application of formal methods is likely to be in mitigating these weaknesses is assessed

A heuristics approach for computing the largest eigenvalue of a pairwise comparison matrix

Pairwise comparison matrices (PCMs) are widely used to capture subjective human judgements, especially in the context of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Consistency of judgements is normally computed in AHP context in the form of consistency ratio (CR), which requires estimation of the largest eigenvalue (Lmax) of PCMs. Since many of these alternative methods do not require calculation of eigenvector, Lmax and hence the CR of a PCM cannot be easily estimated. We propose in this paper a simple heuristics for calculating Lmax without any need to use Eigenvector Method (EM). We illustrated the proposed procedure with larger size matrices. Simulation is used to compare the accuracy of the proposed heuristics procedure with actual Lmax for PCMs of various sizes. It has been found that the proposed heuristics is highly accurate, with errors less than 1%. The proposed procedure would avoid biases and help managers to make better decisions. The advantage of the proposed heuristics is that it can be easily calculated with simple calculations without any need for specialised mathematical procedures or software and is independent of the method used to derive priorities from PCMs

Collaborative design : managing task interdependencies and multiple perspectives

This paper focuses on two characteristics of collaborative design with respect to cooperative work: the importance of work interdependencies linked to the nature of design problems; and the fundamental function of design cooperative work arrangement which is the confrontation and combination of perspectives. These two intrinsic characteristics of the design work stress specific cooperative processes: coordination processes in order to manage task interdependencies, establishment of common ground and negotiation mechanisms in order to manage the integration of multiple perspectives in design

Modular product platform design

Modular product platforms, sets of common modules that are shared among a product family, can bring cost savings and enable introduction of multiple product variants quicker than without platforms. This thesis describes the current state of modular platform design and identifies gaps in the current state. The gaps were identified through application of three existing methods and by testing their usability and reliability on engineers and engineering students. Existing platform or modular design methods either are meant for (a) single products, (b) identify only module "cores" leaving the final module boundary definition to the designer, and (c) use only a limited set of evaluation criteria. I introduce a clustering algorithm for common module identification that takes into account possible degrees of commonality. This new algorithm can be applied both at physical and functional domains and at any, and even mixed, levels of hierarchy. Furthermore, the algorithm is not limited to a single measure for commonality analysis. To select the candidate modules for the algorithm, a key discriminator is how difficult the interfaces become. I developed an interface complexity metric based on minimizing redesign in case of a design change. The metric is based on multiple expert interviews during two case studies. The new approach was to look at the interface complexity as described by the material, energy, and information flows flowing through the interface. Finally, I introduce a multi criteria platform scorecard for improved evaluation of modular platforms. It helps a company focus on their strategy and benchmark one's own platform to the competitors'. These tools add to the modular platform development process by filling in the gaps identified. The tools are described in the context of the entire platform design process, and the validity of the methods and applicability to platform design is shown through industrial case studies and examples.reviewe

Alamprotsessidest, protsesside variatsioonidest ja nendevahelisest koosmõjust: Integreeritud “jaga ja valitse” meetod äriprotsesside ja nende variatsioonide modelleerimiseks

Igat organisatsiooni võib vaadelda kui süsteemi, mis rakendab äriprotsesse väärtuste loomiseks. Suurtes organisatsioonides on tavapärane esitada äriprotsesse kasutades protsessimudeleid, mida kasutatakse erinevatel eesmärkidel nagu näiteks sisekommunikatsiooniks, koolitusteks, protsesside parendamiseks ja infosüsteemide arendamiseks. Arvestades protsessimudelite multifunktsionaalset olemust tuleb protsessimudeleid koostada selliselt, et see võimaldab nendest arusaamist ning haldamist erinevate osapoolte poolt. Käesolev doktoritöö pakkudes välja integreeritud dekompositsioonist ajendatud meetodi äriprotsesside modelleerimiseks koos nende variatsioonidega. Meetodi kandvaks ideeks on järkjärguline äriprotsessi ja selle variatsioonide dekomponeerimine alamprotsessideks. Igal dekompositsiooni tasemel ning iga alamprotsessi jaoks määratletakse esmalt kas vastavat alamprotsessi tuleks modelleerida konsolideeritud moel (üks alamprotsessi mudel kõikide või osade variatsioonide jaoks) või fragmenteeritud moel (üks alamprotsess ühe variatsiooni jaoks). Sel moel kasutades ülalt-alla lähenemist viilutatakse ja tükeldatakse äriprotsess väiksemateks osadeks. Äriprotsess viilutatakse esmalt tema variatsioonideks ning seejärel tükeldatakse dekompositsioonideks kasutades kaht peamist parameetrit. Esimeseks on äri ajendid variatsioonide jaoks – igal äriprotsessi variatsioonil on oma juurpõhjus, mis pärineb ärist endast ja põhjustab protsesside käivitamisel erisusi. Need juurpõhjused jagatakse viide kategooriasse – ajendid kliendist, tootest, operatiivsetest põhjustest, turust ja ajast. Teine parameeter on erinevuste hulk viisides (tegevuste järjekord, tulemuste väärtused jms) kuidas variatsioonid oma väljundit toodavad. Käesolevas töös esitatud meetod on valideeritud kahes praktilises juhtumiuuringus. Kui esimeses juhtumiuuringus on põhirõhk olemasolevate protsessimudelite konsolideerimisel, siis teises protsessimudelite avastamisel. Sel moel rakendatakse meetodit kahes eri kontekstis kahele üksteisest eristatud juhtumile. Mõlemas juhtumiuuringus tootis meetod protsessimudelite hulgad, milles oli liiasust kuni 50% vähem võrreldes tavapäraste meetoditega jättes samas mudelite keerukuse nendega võrreldes enamvähem samale tasemele.Every organization can be conceived as a system where value is created by means of business processes. In large organizations, it is common for business processes to be represented by means of process models, which are used for a range of purposes such as internal communication, training, process improvement and information systems development. Given their multifunctional character, process models need to be captured in a way that facilitates understanding and maintenance by a variety of stakeholders. This thesis proposes an integrated decomposition-driven method for modeling business processes with variants. The core idea of the method is to incrementally construct a decomposition of a business process and its variants into subprocesses. At each level of the decomposition and for each subprocess, we determine if this subprocess should be modeled in a consolidated manner (one subprocess model for all variants or for multiple variants) or in a fragmented manner (one subprocess model per variant). In this manner, a top-down approach of slicing and dicing a business process is taken. The process model is sliced in accordance with its variants, and then diced (decomposed). This decision is taken based on two parameters. The first is the business drivers for the existence of the variants. All variants of a business process has a root cause i.e. a reason stemming from the business that causes the processes to have differences in how they are executed. The second parameter considered when deciding how to model the variants is the degree of difference in the way the variants produce their outcomes. As such, the modeling of business process variations is dependent on their degree of similarity in regards to how they produce value (such as values, execution order and so on). The method presented in this thesis is validated by two real-life case studies. The first case study concerns a case of consolidation existing process models. The other deals with green-field process discovery. As such, the method is applied in two different contexts (consolidation and discovery) on two different cases that differ from each other. In both cases, the method produced sets of process models that had reduced the duplicity rate by up to 50 % while keeping the degree of complexity of the models relatively stable

Automated Process Discovery: A Literature Review and a Comparative Evaluation with Domain Experts

Äriprotsesside kaeve meetodi võimaldavad analüütikul kasutada logisid saamaks teadmisi protsessi tegeliku toimise kohta. Neist meetodist üks enim uuritud on automaatne äriprotsesside avastamine. Sündmuste logi võetakse kui sisend automaatse äriprotsesside avastamise meetodi poolt ning väljundina toodetakse äriprotsessi mudel, mis kujutab logis talletatud sündmuste kontrollvoogu. Viimase kahe kümnendi jooksul on väljapakutud mitmeidki automaatseid äriprotsessi avastamise meetodeid balansseerides erinevalt toodetavate mudelite skaleeruvuse, täpsuse ning keerukuse vahel. Siiani on automaatsed äriprotsesside avastamise meetodid testitud ad-hoc kombel, kus erinevad autorid kasutavad erinevaid andmestike, seadistusi, hindamismeetrikuid ning alustõdesid, mis viib tihti võrdlematute tulemusteni ning mõnikord ka mittetaastoodetavate tulemusteni suletud andmestike kasutamise tõttu. Eelpool toodu mõistes sooritatakse antud magistritöö raames süstemaatiline kirjanduse ülevaade automaatsete äriprotsesside avastamise meetoditest ja ka süstemaatiline hindav võrdlus üle nelja kvaliteedimeetriku olemasolevate automaatsete äriprotsesside avastamise meetodite kohta koostöös domeeniekspertidega ning kasutades reaalset logi rahvusvahelisest tarkvara firmast. Kirjanduse ülevaate ning hindamise tulemused tõstavad esile puudujääke ning seni uurimata kompromisse mudelite loomiseks nelja kvaliteedimeetriku kontekstis. Antud magistritöö tulemused võimaldavad teaduritel parandada puudujäägid meetodites. Samuti vastatakse küsimusele automaatsete äriprotsesside avastamise meetodite kasutamise kohta väljaspool akadeemilist maailma.Process mining methods allow analysts to use logs of historical executions of business processes in order to gain knowledge about the actual performance of these processes.One of the most widely studied process mining operations is automated process discovery.An event log is taken as input by an automated process discovery method and produces a business process model as output that captures the control-flow relations between tasks that are described by the event log.Several automated process discovery methods have been proposed in the past two decades, striking different tradeoffs between scalability, accuracy and complexity of the resulting models.So far, automated process discovery methods have been evaluated in an ad hoc manner, with different authors employing different datasets, experimental setups, evaluation measures and baselines, often leading to incomparable conclusions and sometimes unreproducible results due to the use of non-publicly available datasets.In this setting, this thesis provides a systematic review of automated process discovery methods and a systematic comparative evaluation of existing implementations of these methods with domain experts by using a real-life event log extracted from a international software engineering company and four quality metrics.The review and evaluation results highlight gaps and unexplored tradeoffs in the field in the context of four business process model quality metrics.The results of this master thesis allows researchers to improve the lacks in the automated process discovery methods and also answers question about the usability of process discovery techniques in industry