A Case-Based Approach to Business Process Monitoring

International audienceThe agile workflow technology deals with flexible workflow adaptation and overriding, in case of foreseen as well as unforeseen changes and problems in the operating business environment. One key issue that an agile workflow system should address is Business Process (BP) monitoring. This consists in properly highlighting and organizing non-compliances and adaptations with respect to the default process schema. Such an activity can be the starting point for other very critical tasks, such as quality assessment and process reengineering. In this paper, we introduce an automated support to BP monitoring, which exploits the Case-based Reasoning (CBR) methodology. CBR is particularly well suited for managing exceptional situations, and has been proposed in the literature for process change reuse and workflow adaptation support. Our work extends these functionalities by retrieving traces of process execution similar to the current one, which can then be automatically clustered. Retrieval and clustering results can provide support both to end users, in the process instance execution phase, and to process engineers, in (formal) process quality evaluation and long term process schema redefinition. Our approach in practice is illustrated by means of a case study in the field of stroke management

FALLSTUDIE ZUM EINSATZ AGILER, PROZESSORIENTIERTER METHODEN IN DER CHIPINDUSTRIE

Der vorliegende Beitrag befasst sich mit einer Fallstudie zum Einsatz Agiler Workflow- Technologie in der Chipindustrie. Im Zentrum der Untersuchung stehen die eigens entwickelten agilen, prozessorientierten Methoden, die wichtiger Bestandteil dieser Technologie sind3. In der Fallstudie wurde eine prototypische Implementierung eines Agilen Workflow-Management-Systems verwendet. Dieser Pilot wurde in einem realen Chipentwicklungsprojekt in der Firma Silicon Image angewandt. Die Ergebnisse wurden von einem gemischten Team aus Chip-Experten und Workflow-Experten bewertet. Dabei wurden IT-technische, ökonomische und organisatorische Aspekte betrachtet. Die beiden Hauptziele der Studie waren, branchenspezifische Erkenntnisse über die Anwendbarkeit der Agilen Workflow-Technologie zu gewinnen und Hinweise zur Gestaltung von neuen Methoden und Tools für Agile Workflows zu bekommen. Die guten Resultate der Fallstudie lassen darauf hoffen, dass Agile Workflow-Technologie ein wichtiger Baustein für ein serviceorientiertes Geschäftsprozessmanagement werden könnte

The centrality of a digital strategy for societal and business innovations

Purpose – The purpose of the present paper is to show that a clearly delineated digital strategy and an agile mindset is key for the successful adoption of digital innovation in society and business. Design/methodology/approach – This is a case study and critical discussion. Findings – It was seen that both the business case (Netflix) and the societal case on the level of a country (El Salvador) lack a digital strategy, which initiated the innovation problems. However, Netflix proved to have an agile reactivity, which helped them to get back on track, which was not the case for El Salvador. Originality/value – This discussion is relevant because the domain of “society” and the domain of “business” are often discussed as separated worlds. However, this paper intends to show that there are some logical dynamics underlying digital transformation in the case of digital innovation that apply to both of these domains

Towards an agile methodology for industrial problem solving

In order to survive to the unstable and highly changing market-place, modern organisations need to adapt their business processes to be more agile. Such is, particularly, the case of problem solving processes. Problem solving is a key activity that companies perform on a daily basis to improve quality and to obtain sustainable and continuous improvement. Such processes are built following standard rigid frameworks as Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA), Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control (DMAIC), or 8 Disciplines (8D)/ 9 Steps (9S). In these methods, the generalization and reuse of knowledge is facilitated by standardization. However, it is sometimes difficult to react to unexpected events due to over-constrained standards. Then, a need arises to define a problem solving process sufficiently structured but not over constrained by standards, which can be reconfigured and adapted to unexpected situations, and that is based on experience feedback principles. This thesis work describes a proposition of an agile problem solving process driven by the reuse of experiences and knowledge. For this purpose, based on Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) principles, the complete lifecycle of an agile problem solving process is proposed. Following the five steps that compose the agile lifecycle, the agile process can be defined, executed and stored in a dedicated knowledge and experience base. An application of the model to a specific problem solving process of a surface treatment company is presented. The process is analysed, deploying the complete agile lifecycle. It is shown how the standard problem solving method used within the company could become more agile through the application of our method