How do Machine Learning, Robotic Process Automation, and Blockchains Affect the Human Factor in Business Process Management?

This paper summarizes a panel discussion at the 15th International Conference on Business Process Management. The panel discussed to what extent the emergence of recent technologies including machine learning, robotic process automation, and blockchain will reduce the human factor in business process management. The panel discussion took place on 14 September, 2017, at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain. Jan Mendling served as a chair; Gero Decker, Richard Hull, Hajo Reijers, and Ingo Weber participated as panelists. The discussions emphasized the impact of emerging technologies at the task level and the coordination level. The major challenges that the panel identified relate to employment, technology acceptance, ethics, customer experience, job design, social integration, and regulation

Large Process Models: Business Process Management in the Age of Generative AI

The continued success of Large Language Models (LLMs) and other generative artificial intelligence approaches highlights the advantages that large information corpora can have over rigidly defined symbolic models, but also serves as a proof-point of the challenges that purely statistics-based approaches have in terms of safety and trustworthiness. As a framework for contextualizing the potential, as well as the limitations of LLMs and other foundation model-based technologies, we propose the concept of a Large Process Model (LPM) that combines the correlation power of LLMs with the analytical precision and reliability of knowledge-based systems and automated reasoning approaches. LPMs are envisioned to directly utilize the wealth of process management experience that experts have accumulated, as well as process performance data of organizations with diverse characteristics, e.g., regarding size, region, or industry. In this vision, the proposed LPM would allow organizations to receive context-specific (tailored) process and other business models, analytical deep-dives, and improvement recommendations. As such, they would allow to substantially decrease the time and effort required for business transformation, while also allowing for deeper, more impactful, and more actionable insights than previously possible. We argue that implementing an LPM is feasible, but also highlight limitations and research challenges that need to be solved to implement particular aspects of the LPM vision

Execution Semantics for Service Choreographies

A service choreography is a model of the interactions in which a set of services engage to achieve a goal, seen from the perspective of an ideal observer that records all messages exchanged between these services. Choreographies have been put forward as a starting point for building service-oriented systems since they provide a global picture of the system’s behavior. In previous work we presented a language for service choreography modeling targeting the early phases of the development lifecycle. This paper provides an execution semantics for this language in terms of a mapping to -calculus. This formal semantics provides a basis for analyzing choreographies. The paper reports on experiences using the semantics to detect unreachable interactions

Master Thesis Process Choreographies in Service-oriented Environments

Service choreographies have been put forward as new viewpoint in service-oriented design. They are especially relevant for business-to-business (B2B) integration and describe the interaction behavior of a set of collaborating services from a global perspective. These global interaction models are then used for generating interface processes for each service which in turn is the starting point for implementing new services or adapt existing ones. This thesis analyzes how well existing choreography languages are suited to cover all choreography design phases and presents a new choreography language, namely Let’s Dance, together with a top-down design method. Reasoning on choreographies is discussed as well as adapting BPMN as notation for choreography modeling. Furthermore, correlation and common patterns thereof are introduced as glue between conversations and process execution. Finally, a prototypical editor and analysis tool for Let’s Dance choreographies is presented

Dynamic Routing as paradigm for decentralized flexible process management

Since companies face continuously changing business processes, centralized process repositories and execution engines have been integrated into the heart of enterprise systems. These systems are then able to support repetitive processes. In order to extend the reach of process orientation into more collaborative settings, employees must be given the possibility to adapt and refine the processes to their individual needs. Personalized process templates are applied to tasks and running process instances are subject to massive changes by the participants. These flexible processes require for process management infrastructures of a more peer to peer style. We argue that the concept of Dynamic Routing is a valuable paradigm for supporting highly flexible processes. We identified three patterns for Dynamic Routing and sketch future enterprise system architectures implementing these. We present two case studies where dynamically routed interactions are at the center of attention.</p

M.: Formalizing Service Interactions

Abstract. Cross-organizational business processes are gaining increased attention these days, especially with the service oriented architecture (SOA) as a realization for business process management (BPM). In SOA, interaction agreements between business partners are defined as choreographies containing common interaction patterns. However, complex interactions are difficult to specify, basically because a formal, common standard supporting all interaction patterns is missing. This paper takes the next steps by investigating formal representations of service interaction patterns in π-calculus and Petri nets. Since dynamic routing based on mobility is a central aspect of choreographies we argue that π-calculus is better suited for formalizing service interactions than place/transition and colored Petri nets.

Extending BPMN for Modeling Complex

Abstract. Capturing the interaction behavior between two or more business parties has major importance in the context of business-tobusiness (B2B) process integration. The Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN), being the de-facto standard for modeling intra-organizational processes, also includes capabilities for describing cross-organizational collaboration. However, as this paper will show, BPMN fails to capture advanced choreography scenarios. Therefore, this paper proposes extensions to broaden the applicability of BPMN. The proposal is validated using the Service Interaction Patterns.

Local enforceability in interaction petri nets

Abstract. In scenarios where a set of independent business partners engage in complex conversations, global interaction models are a means to specify the allowed interaction behavior from a global perspective. In these models atomic interactions serve as basic building blocks and behavioral dependencies are defined between them. Global interaction models might not be locally enforceable, i.e. they specify constraints that cannot be enforced during execution without additional synchronization interactions. As this property has only been defined textually so far, this paper presents a formal definition. For doing so, this paper introduces interaction Petri nets, a Petri net extension for representing global interaction models. Algorithms for deriving the behavioral interface for each partner and for enforceability checking are provided.