How Advanced Change Patterns Impact the Process of Process Modeling

Process model quality has been an area of considerable research efforts. In this context, correctness-by-construction as enabled by change patterns provides promising perspectives. While the process of process modeling (PPM) based on change primitives has been thoroughly investigated, only little is known about the PPM based on change patterns. In particular, it is unclear what set of change patterns should be provided and how the available change pattern set impacts the PPM. To obtain a better understanding of the latter as well as the (subjective) perceptions of process modelers, the arising challenges, and the pros and cons of different change pattern sets we conduct a controlled experiment. Our results indicate that process modelers face similar challenges irrespective of the used change pattern set (core pattern set versus extended pattern set, which adds two advanced change patterns to the core patterns set). An extended change pattern set, however, is perceived as more difficult to use, yielding a higher mental effort. Moreover, our results indicate that more advanced patterns were only used to a limited extent and frequently applied incorrectly, thus, lowering the potential benefits of an extended pattern set

Keeping the Cost of Process Change Low through Refactoring

With the increasing adoption of process-aware information systems (PAIS) large process model repositories have emerged. Over time respective models have to be re-aligned to the real world business processes through customization or adaptation. This bears the risk that model redundancies are introduced and complexity is increased. If no continuous investment is made in keeping models simple, changes are becoming increasingly costly and error-prone. Although refactoring techniques are widely used in software engineering to address related problems, this does not yet constitute state-of-the art in business process management. Consequently, process designers either have to refactor process models by hand or can not apply respective techniques at all. In this paper we propose a set of techniques for refactoring large process repositories, which are behaviour-preserving. The proposed refactorings enable process designers to effectively deal with model complexity by making process models easier to change, less error-prone and better understandable

Collaborative Process Modeling with Tablets and Touch Tables — A Controlled Experiment

Collaborative process modeling involves business analysts and subject matter experts in order to properly capture and document process knowledge. In this context, appropriate tool support is required to motivate these user groups to actively participate in collaborative process modeling. This paper presents a collaborative process modeling tool that enables the experts to create, visualize and evolve process models based on multi-touch devices (e.g., tablets and touch tables). In particular, users may edit process models on their tablets and share the created or changed process models with other team members on a common touch table. For this purpose, a sophisticated and intuitive interaction concept is provided. Furthermore, results of a controlled experiment, evaluating the influence the use of tablets has on collaborative process modeling based on touch tables, are presented. Altogether the experimental results emphasize the high potential of multi-touch tools for collaborative process modeling

The Structured Process Modeling Theory (SPMT): a cognitive view on why and how modelers benefit from structuring the process of process modeling

After observing various inexperienced modelers constructing a business process model based on the same textual case description, it was noted that great differences existed in the quality of the produced models. The impression arose that certain quality issues originated from cognitive failures during the modeling process. Therefore, we developed an explanatory theory that describes the cognitive mechanisms that affect effectiveness and efficiency of process model construction: the Structured Process Modeling Theory (SPMT). This theory states that modeling accuracy and speed are higher when the modeler adopts an (i) individually fitting (ii) structured (iii) serialized process modeling approach. The SPMT is evaluated against six theory quality criteria

The Structured Process Modeling Method (SPMM) : what is the best way for me to construct a process model?

More and more organizations turn to the construction of process models to support strategical and operational tasks. At the same time, reports indicate quality issues for a considerable part of these models, caused by modeling errors. Therefore, the research described in this paper investigates the development of a practical method to determine and train an optimal process modeling strategy that aims to decrease the number of cognitive errors made during modeling. Such cognitive errors originate in inadequate cognitive processing caused by the inherent complexity of constructing process models. The method helps modelers to derive their personal cognitive profile and the related optimal cognitive strategy that minimizes these cognitive failures. The contribution of the research consists of the conceptual method and an automated modeling strategy selection and training instrument. These two artefacts are positively evaluated by a laboratory experiment covering multiple modeling sessions and involving a total of 149 master students at Ghent University

RemoS - Referenzmodell für nicht-medizinische Supportleistungen in Spitälern : basierend auf LekaS

Die Einführung der Fallpauschale/SwissDRG bewirkt in den Schweizer Spitälern u.a. einen erhöhten Bedarf an Transparenz, auch im nicht-medizinischen Supportbereich (FM). Um diesem nachkommen zu können, braucht es systematische Möglichkeiten, wie Leistungen gemessen und verglichen werden können, um anschliessend allfällig nötige, spezifische Steuerungsmassnahmen vornehmen zu können. Um die Kennzahlen korrekt und vergleichbar erheben zu können, braucht es einerseits eine einheitliche Definition der dahinterliegenden Prozesse und andererseits eine Klärung, wo welche Kennzahlen-Parameter generiert/gespeichert werden. Um die Komplexität der Vielzahl von nicht-medizinischen Supportleistungen und -prozesse zu reduzieren und Zusammenhänge möglichst einfach sichtbar zu machen war das Ziel daher, ein geeignetes, adaptives Referenzmodell zu entwickeln. In Kooperation mit vier Spital- und drei Businesspartnern wurde im Konsortialforschungsansatz in zahlreichen Experten-Runden das vorliegende Referenzmodell für nicht-medizinische Supportleistungen in Spitälern (RemoS) auf Basis der Entity Relationship Methode entwickelt. Das Modell zeigt die Zusammenhänge zwischen den ergebnisorientierten Leistungen aus dem Leistungskatalog für nicht-medizinische Supportleistungen in Spitälern (LekaS), den dahinterliegenden Prozessen, den damit im Zusammenhang stehenden Kennzahlen(parametern) und den entsprechenden Softwareapplikationen. Dabei wird für alle Teilbereiche auf die entsprechenden Detaildokumentationen Kennzahlenkatalog KenkaS, Prozessmodell PromoS und Applikationenkatalog ApplikaS wie auch auf den Leitfaden zum Einsatz von SAP für das Facility Management im Gesundheitswesen LesapS und das Assessment-, Simulations- und Benchmarking-Tool für das Facility Management im Gesundheitswesen

AMNIS - DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN ADAPTIVE WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

The experiences of introduction and operation of ERP systems have revealed that update of these software due to the constantly changing business processes demand huge resources. That is why the demand was formulated for a method that enables introducing new features in software system without any modification in program code according to the evolution of the organization. The objective of Amnis development project is to create a system with this adaptation capability using the basic idea of workflows that create documents during evaluation. In this article design and programming challenges are shown that had to be met during the development of Amnis, focusing on topics of effective data storage and queries, workflow control structures and workflow evaluation techniques