Managing Process Variants in the Process Life Cycle

When designing process-aware information systems, often variants of the same process have to be specified. Each variant then constitutes an adjustment of a particular process to specific requirements building the process context. Current Business Process Management (BPM) tools do not adequately support the management of process variants. Usually, the variants have to be kept in separate process models. This leads to huge modeling and maintenance efforts. In particular, more fundamental process changes (e.g., changes of legal regulations) often require the adjustment of all process variants derived from the same process; i.e., the variants have to be adapted separately to meet the new requirements. This redundancy in modeling and adapting process variants is both time consuming and error-prone. This paper presents the Provop approach, which provides a more flexible solution for managing process variants in the process life cycle. In particular, process variants can be configured out of a basic process following an operational approach; i.e., a specific variant is derived from the basic process by applying a set of well-defined change operations to it. Provop provides full process life cycle support and allows for flexible process configuration resulting in a maintainable collection of process variants

Ensuring Business Process Compliance Along the Process Life Cycle

Business processes are subject to semantic constraints that stem from regulations, laws and guidelines, and are also known as compliance rules. Hence, process-aware information systems have to ensure compliance with those rules in order to guarantee semantically correct and error-free executability as well as changeability of their business processes. This report discusses how compliance rules can be defined and how business process compliance can be ensured for the different phases of the process lifecycle

Game Development Software Engineering Process Life Cycle: A Systematic Review

Software game is a kind of application that is used not only for entertainment, but also for serious purposes that can be applicable to different domains such as education, business, and health care. Multidisciplinary nature of the game development processes that combine sound, art, control systems, artificial intelligence (AI), and human factors, makes the software game development practice different from traditional software development. However, the underline software engineering techniques help game development to achieve maintainability, flexibility, lower effort and cost, and better design. The purpose of this study is to assesses the state of the art research on the game development software engineering process and highlight areas that need further consideration by researchers. In the study, we used a systematic literature review methodology based on well-known digital libraries. The largest number of studies have been reported in the production phase of the game development software engineering process life cycle, followed by the pre-production phase. By contrast, the post-production phase has received much less research activity than the pre-production and production phases. The results of this study suggest that the game development software engineering process has many aspects that need further attention from researchers; that especially includes the post-production phase

Truncation Error Estimates in Process Life Cycle Assessment Using Input‐Output Analysis

Process life cycle assessment (PLCA) is widely used to quantify environmental flows associated with the manufacturing of products and other processes. As PLCA always depends on defining a system boundary, its application involves truncation errors. Different methods of estimating truncation errors are proposed in the literature; most of these are based on artificially constructed system complete counterfactuals. In this article, we review the literature on truncation errors and their estimates and systematically explore factors that influence truncation error estimates. We classify estimation approaches, together with underlying factors influencing estimation results according to where in the estimation procedure they occur. By contrasting different PLCA truncation/error modeling frameworks using the same underlying input‐output (I‐O) data set and varying cut‐off criteria, we show that modeling choices can significantly influence estimates for PLCA truncation errors. In addition, we find that differences in I‐O and process inventory databases, such as missing service sector activities, can significantly affect estimates of PLCA truncation errors. Our results expose the challenges related to explicit statements on the magnitude of PLCA truncation errors. They also indicate that increasing the strictness of cut‐off criteria in PLCA has only limited influence on the resulting truncation errors. We conclude that applying an additional I‐O life cycle assessment or a path exchange hybrid life cycle assessment to identify where significant contributions are located in upstream layers could significantly reduce PLCA truncation errors.EC/FP7/603864/EU/High-End cLimate Impacts and eXtremes/HELIXDFG, SFB 1026, Sustainable Manufacturing - Globale Wertschöpfung nachhaltig gestalte

Environmental Uncertainty And Product–Process Life Cycles: A Multi-Level Interpretation Of Change Over Time

Product-process life cycle models are often used to describe long-term change in organizations. Such models generally assume a deterministic trajectory of long-run industry evolution and production core transformation that lead to standardization over time. Typical interpretations of these models do not explain the short and intermediate term choices and competitive dynamics that lead to the longer-term changes, or explain viable ‘off- trajectory’ positions and post-stabilization complications that can arise. In this paper, we use multiple theory streams to augment discussions of product-process life cycle models in ways that allow interpretation of the role of uncertainty and management decision-making for the typical trajectory of standardization as well as off-trajectory and post-standardization phases

Comparing intensive, extensified and organic grassland farming in southern Germany by process life cycle assessment

To reduce the environmental burden of agriculture, suitable methods to comprehend and assess the impact on natural resources are needed. One of the methods considered is the life cycle assessment (LCA) method, which was used to assess the environmental impacts of 18 grassland farms in three different farming intensities - intensive, extensified, and organic - in the Allgäu region in southern Germany. Extensified and organic compared with intensive farms could reduce negative effects in the abiotic impact categories of energy use, global warming potential and ground water mainly by renouncing mineral nitrogen fertilizer. Energy consumption of intensive farms was 19.1 GJ/ha and 2.7 GJ/t milk, of extensified and organic farms 8.7 and 5.9 GJ/ha along with 1.3 and 1.2 GJ/t milk, respectively. Global warming potential was 9.4, 7.0 and 6.3 t CO2-equivalents/ha and 1.3, 1.0 and 1.3 t CO2-equivalents/t milk for the intensive, extensified and organic farms, respectively. Acidification calculated in SO2-equivalents was high, but the extensified (119 kg SO2/ha) and the organic farms (107 kg SO2/ha) emit a lower amount compared with the intensive farms (136 kg SO2/ha). Eutrophication potential computed in PO4-equivalents was higher for intensive (54.2 kg PO4/ha) compared with extensified (31.2 kg PO4/ha) and organic farms (13.5 kg PO4/ha). Farmgate balances for N (80.1, 31.4 and 31.1 kg/ha) and P (5.3, 4.5 and -2.3 kg/ha) for intensive, extensified and organic farms, respectively, indicate the different impacts on ground and surface water quality. Analysing the impact categories biodiversity, landscape image and animal husbandry, organic farms had clear advantages in the indicators number of grassland species, grazing cattle, layout of farmstead and herd management, but indices in these categories showed a wide range and are partly independent of the farming system. from: HAAS, G., F. WETTERICH, U. KÖPKE 2001: Comparing intensive, extensified and organic grassland farming in southern Germany by process life cycle assessment. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 83/1-2, 43-53

Integrating Case-Based Reasoning with Adaptive Process Management

The need for more flexiblity of process-aware information systems (PAIS) has been discussed for several years and different approaches for adaptive process management have emerged. Only few of them provide support for both changes of individual process instances and the propagation of process type changes to a collection of related process instances. The knowledge about changes has not yet been exploited by any of these systems. To overcome this practical limitation, PAIS must capture the whole process life cycle and all kinds of changes in an integrated way. They must allow users to deviate from the predefined process in exceptional situations, and assist them in retrieving and reusing knowledge about previously performed changes. In this report we present a proof-of concept implementation of a learning adaptive PAIS. The prototype combines the ADEPT2 framework for dynamic process changes with concepts and methods provided by case-based reasoning(CBR) technology

The Use of ITIL for Process Optimisation in the IT Service Centre of Harz University, exemplified in the Release Management Process

This paper details the use of the IT Infrastructure Library Framework (ITIL) for optimising process workflows in the IT Service Centre of Harz University in Wernigerode, Germany, exemplified by the Release Management Process. It is described, how, during the course of a special ITIL project, the As-Is-Status of the various original processes was documented as part of the process life cycle and then transformed in the To-Be-Status, according to the ITIL Best Practice Framework. It is also shown, how the ITIL framework fits into the four-layered-process model, that could be derived from interviews with the universities IT support staff, and how the various modified processes interconnect with each other to form a value chain. The paper highlights the final results of the project and gives an outlook on the future use of ITIL as a business modelling tool in the IT Service Centre of Harz University. It is currently being considered, whether the process model developed during the project could be used as a reference model for other university IT centres.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure

A method and tool for ‘cradle to grave’ embodied energy and carbon impacts of UK buildings in compliance with the new TC350 standards

As operational impacts from buildings are reduced, embodied impacts are increasing. However, the latter are seldom calculated in the UK; when they are, they tend to be calculated after the building has been constructed, or are underestimated by considering only the initial materials stage. In 2010, the UK Government recommended that a standard methodology for calculating embodied impacts of buildings be developed for early stage design decisions. This was followed in 2011–12 by the publication of the European TC350 standards defining the ‘cradle to grave’ impact of buildings and products through a process Life Cycle Analysis. This paper describes a new whole life embodied carbon and energy of buildings (ECEB) tool, designed as a usable empirical-based approach for early stage design decisions for UK buildings. The tool complies where possible with the TC350 standards. Initial results for a simple masonry construction dwelling are given in terms of the percentage contribution of each life cycle stage. The main difficulty in obtaining these results is found to be the lack of data, and the paper suggests that the construction and manufacturing industries now have a responsibility to develop new data in order to support this task