Establishment of collaborative networks – a model-driven engineering approach based on thermodynamics

The setup of an efficient collaborative situation between organizations can be considered according to four main complementary dimensions: the context (geographical, social, economical environment), the partners (the actors, their capabilities, their resources and their relationships), the objectives (the collaborative goals of the network, the risks to be avoided, etc.) and finally the behaviour (the collaborative processes to be implemented by the partners to achieve the objectives considering the context). Some research works try to infer the behaviour based on the three other issues assumed to be known, by using different approaches such as model-driven engineering (MDE), optimization, heuristics, planning, etc. MDE helps studying the opportunity of inferring the objectives part from the context and partners dimensions in order to feed the behaviour issue. We use a non-equilibrium thermodynamics analogy where partners and context attributes and methods are mapped to thermodynamic state variables of an organisation seen as an open system in the frame of dissipative structure thermodynamics. We apply it specifically to enterprises and discuss briefly the analogy of behaviour as an irreversible trajectory aiming to maintain the enterprise activity aliv

An Event-Driven Platform for Agility Management of Crisis Response

International audienceThis article aims at presenting a whole approach of Information System Interoperability management in a crisis management cell: a Mediation Information System (MIS) may be used to help the crisis cell partners to design, run and manage the workflows of the response to a crisis situation. The architecture of the MIS meets the needs of low coupling between the partners' Information System components and the need of agility for such a platform. It is based on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Event-Driven Architecture (EDA) principles that are combined to the Complex Event Processing (CEP) principles. This should leads on the one hand to an easier orchestration, choreography and real-time monitoring of the workflows' activities, on the other hand to assume on-the-fly automated agility of the crisis response (considering agility as the ability of the processes to remain consistent with the response to the crisis)

Process Innovation through bio-inspired design

In process system engineering, we often adopt a constructivist approach to answer the question “How can we go from parts to a whole system?” To answer to this question we need to propose approach that, based on the knowledge of phenomena at small-scale, allows going up the different scales in order to design process but also to innovate thanks to the creation of new knowledge. In this paper, a bio inspired design approach is presented. It is based on two main principles which intervene repetitively to understand and analyze the passage between scales for living organisms: the juxtaposition of foundational blocks that assemble, and then differentiation. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate that these principles can find a more widespread use and in particular they can be integrated into a process system engineering constructivist approach for innovative design. After defining the fundamental building blocks to initiate the process of juxtaposition and integration, an example on distillation and reactive distillation is used to illustrate the method capabilities in process synthesis

Real-time data exploitation supported by model- and event-driven architecture to enhance situation awareness, application to crisis management

An effective crisis response requires up-to-date information. The crisis cell must reach for new, external, data sources. However, new data lead to new issues: their volume, veracity, variety or velocity cannot be managed by humans only, especially under high stress and time pressure. This paper proposes (i) a framework to enhance situation awareness while managing the 5Vs of Big Data, (ii) general principles to be followed and (iii) a new architecture implementing the proposed framework. The latter merges event-driven and model-driven architectures. It has been tested on a realistic flood scenario set up by official French services

A new emergency decision support system: the automatic interpretation and contextualisation of events to model a crisis situation in real-time

This paper studies, designs and implements a new type of emergency decision support system that aims to improve the decision-making of emergency managers in crisis situations by connecting them to new, multiple data sources. The system combines event-driven and model-driven architectures and is dedicated to crisis cells. After its implementation, the system is evaluated using a realistic crisis scenario, in terms of its user interfaces, its ability to interpret data in real time and its ability to manage the 4Vs of Big Data. The input events correspond to traffic measurements, water levels, water flows, water predictions and flow predictions made available by French official services. The main contributions of this study are: (i) the connection between a complex event processing engine and a graph database containing the model of the crisis situation and (ii) the continuous updating of a common operational picture for the benefit of emergency managers. This study could be used as a framework for future research works on decision support systems facing complex, evolving situations

An AI framework and a metamodel for collaborative situations: Application to crisis management contexts

Identifying, designing, deploying and maintaining accurate collaborative networks of organizations (e.g. responders in a crisis situation) are key activities in nowadays ecosystems. However, there is a lack regarding formal approaches dedicated to characterize collaborative networks of organizations. Formal descriptions of collaborative situations, that could be used, transformed, computed and exploited would be of great benefit for the quality of such collaborative networks. This article presents a model‐based AI framework for describing collaborative situations and the associated formal metamodel dedicated to be instantiated to characterize collaborative situations in a very wide range of application domains. This metamodel (describing collaborative situation between organizations) is structured according to four complementary dimensions: the context (social, physical and geographical environment), the partners (the involved organizations, their capabilities resources and relations), the objectives (the aims of the network, the goals to be the achieved and the risks to avoid, etc.) and the behaviour (the collaborative processes to be implemented by the partners to achieve the objectives in the considered context). Besides, this metamodel can be extended for some precise application domains. This article focuses on this mechanism in the specific context of crisis management

Ensuring the agility of collaborative workflows through an event driven approach

Les organisations participent à des collaborations pour faire face à un environnement en perpétuelle évolution (mondialisation, crise, etc.). Or, la nature instable de la collaboration et de son environnement peuvent compromettre la pertinence des processus définis pour atteindre les objectifs collectifs. Deux problématiques émergent alors de ce constat : comment détecter l'inadéquation des processus exécutés par rapport aux objectifs poursuivis à l'instant t ? Comment redéfinir la meilleure réponse possible à l'instant t, dans un laps de temps proche du temps réel (en fonction de la situation de collaboration, de l'avancée de l'exécution des processus, et l'état des acteurs et ressources). La problématique scientifique relève de l'apport d'agilité aux processus collaboratifs. Ces travaux de thèse ambitionnent de répondre à ces questions en proposant (i) une définition de l'agilité des processus collaboratifs, (ii) la mise en place d'une architecture orientée services dirigée par les événements (ED-SOA), afin de prendre en compte les événements émis par la collaboration et son environnement, (iii) un algorithme de mesure de distance entre le modèle de la situation collaborative telle qu'elle devrait être et le modèle de la situation telle qu'elle est réellement (détection), et enfin (iv) un algorithme de recommandation d'adaptation des processus collaboratifs. L'implémentation des mécanismes de l'agilité des processus collaboratifs a donné naissance à un prototype open-source. Les résultats de cette thèse s'inscrivent également au sein des projets ANR SocEDA et EUR FP7 PLAY qui proposent chacun une gestion des processus collaboratifs dans le contexte d'une plateforme dirigée par les événements.It is known that organizations have to take part into collaborations to face un unstable world. But, the unstable nature of the collaboration and of its environment can threaten the accuracy of the processes. We can extract two main issues from this context : (i) How to detect the instant where the collaborative processes does not match with the current crisis situation and what are the causes; (ii) How to redefine the best possible response (i.e. at a concrete level, the best processes and their orchestration and choreography) at time t, in real time, depending of the collaborative situation, the processes execution progress, the state of the resources and collaboration's partners. The scientific problem is focused on the agility of collaborative processes. This thesis aspires to solve these issues by proposing (i) a definition for collaborative processes agility, (ii) the definition and the realization of an Event-Driven Architecture layer among the SOA architecture of the information system of the collaboration, in order to take in account the events emitted by the collaboration and its field to update the collaborative situation models. Then (iii) an algorithm to measure the distances between the model of the crisis situation at is it supposed to be when the processes are executed, and the model of the crisis situation as it really is, and (iv) a tool for decision support and a redesign of the crisis response processes and choreography. These results are in line with the ANR SocEDA project and the EUR FP7 PLAY project which aim at providing agility to collaborative processes, in an event-driven context. The mechanisms to ensure collaborative processes agility are implemented as an open-source prototype

Prise en charge de l'agilité de workflows collaboratifs par une approche dirigée par les événements

It is known that organizations have to take part into collaborations to face un unstable world. But, the unstable nature of the collaboration and of its environment can threaten the accuracy of the processes. We can extract two main issues from this context : (i) How to detect the instant where the collaborative processes does not match with the current crisis situation and what are the causes; (ii) How to redefine the best possible response (i.e. at a concrete level, the best processes and their orchestration and choreography) at time t, in real time, depending of the collaborative situation, the processes execution progress, the state of the resources and collaboration's partners. The scientific problem is focused on the agility of collaborative processes. This thesis aspires to solve these issues by proposing (i) a definition for collaborative processes agility, (ii) the definition and the realization of an Event-Driven Architecture layer among the SOA architecture of the information system of the collaboration, in order to take in account the events emitted by the collaboration and its field to update the collaborative situation models. Then (iii) an algorithm to measure the distances between the model of the crisis situation at is it supposed to be when the processes are executed, and the model of the crisis situation as it really is, and (iv) a tool for decision support and a redesign of the crisis response processes and choreography. These results are in line with the ANR SocEDA project and the EUR FP7 PLAY project which aim at providing agility to collaborative processes, in an event-driven context. The mechanisms to ensure collaborative processes agility are implemented as an open-source prototype.Les organisations participent à des collaborations pour faire face à un environnement en perpétuelle évolution (mondialisation, crise, etc.). Or, la nature instable de la collaboration et de son environnement peuvent compromettre la pertinence des processus définis pour atteindre les objectifs collectifs. Deux problématiques émergent alors de ce constat : comment détecter l'inadéquation des processus exécutés par rapport aux objectifs poursuivis à l'instant t ? Comment redéfinir la meilleure réponse possible à l'instant t, dans un laps de temps proche du temps réel (en fonction de la situation de collaboration, de l'avancée de l'exécution des processus, et l'état des acteurs et ressources). La problématique scientifique relève de l'apport d'agilité aux processus collaboratifs. Ces travaux de thèse ambitionnent de répondre à ces questions en proposant (i) une définition de l'agilité des processus collaboratifs, (ii) la mise en place d'une architecture orientée services dirigée par les événements (ED-SOA), afin de prendre en compte les événements émis par la collaboration et son environnement, (iii) un algorithme de mesure de distance entre le modèle de la situation collaborative telle qu'elle devrait être et le modèle de la situation telle qu'elle est réellement (détection), et enfin (iv) un algorithme de recommandation d'adaptation des processus collaboratifs. L'implémentation des mécanismes de l'agilité des processus collaboratifs a donné naissance à un prototype open-source. Les résultats de cette thèse s'inscrivent également au sein des projets ANR SocEDA et EUR FP7 PLAY qui proposent chacun une gestion des processus collaboratifs dans le contexte d'une plateforme dirigée par les événements