Aligning System Architectures on Requirements of Mobile Business Processes

The support of mobile workers with mobile IT solutions can create tremendous improvements in mobile business processes of a company. The main characteristic of such a mobile system is the ability to connect via a (mobile) network to a central server, e.g. in order to access customer data. This paper presents a detailed description of the four main software architectures for mobile client/server-based systems and their main characteristics. Beyond, typical business requirements in mobile environments like the location of use, data topicality, interaction requirements, synchronisation mechanisms and many more are mapped onto each of these architectures. The presented results can be used for discussing concurrent business needs as well as for deriving a mobile system architecture based on these needs

A General Vehicle Routing Problem

In this paper, we study a rich vehicle routing problem incorporating various complexities found in real-life applications. The General Vehicle Routing Problem (GVRP) is a combined load acceptance and generalised vehicle routing problem. Among the real-life requirements are time window restrictions, a heterogeneous vehicle fleet with different travel times, travel costs and capacity, multi-dimensional capacity constraints, order/vehicle compatibility constraints, orders with multiple pickup, delivery and service locations, different start and end locations for vehicles, and route restrictions for vehicles. The GVRP is highly constrained and the search space is likely to contain many solutions such that it is impossible to go from one solution to another using a single neighbourhood structure. Therefore, we propose iterative improvement approaches based on the idea of changing the neighbourhood structure during the search

Analysing and Enhancing Business Processes and IT-Systems for Mobile Workforce Automation - A Framework Approach

Mobile B2E-applications (business-to-employee) can add significant value to a company’s business, when large workforce divisions are involved in the execution of certain business processes. From a technical point of view, the major issues are solved (e.g. solutions for connectivity, broadband mobile networks, synchronization mechanisms, secure protocols etc.). But from a business point of view there is a lack of methodology regarding the alignment of technical solutions to the business needs. As companies face a continuously faster change in business models, legal constraints and customer needs, highly flexible systems are needed to react to changing business processes. Furthemore, the introduction of new mobile systems is often a technologydriven process, pushing the alignment of software and systems to the highly specific, fast changing business needs into the background. This paper introduces a framework summarizing the findings from earlier research and case studies related to this topic. The framework consists of a general reference process for mobile work and of a model explaining influencing factors, optimization goals and their relationships for mobile processes. The framework can be applied for process modeling, simulation and optimization as well as for requirements analysis and return on investment calculations

Black- and White-Box Self-testing COTS Components

Development of a software system from existing components can surely have various benefits, but can also entail a series of problems. One type of problems is caused by a limited exchange of information between the developer and user of a component, i.e. the developer of a componentbased system. A limited exchange of information cannot only require the testing by the user but it can also complicate this tasks, since vital artifacts, source code in particular, might not be available. Self-testing components can be one response in such situation. This paper describes an enhancement of the Self-Testing COTS Components (STECC) Method so that an appropriately enabled component is not only capable of white-box testing its methods but also capable of black-box testing

Large Neighborhood Search for rich VRP with multiple pickup and delivery locations

In this paper we consider a rich vehicle routing problem where transportation requests are characterised by multiple pickup and delivery locations. The problem is a combined load acceptance and generalised vehicle routing problem incorporating a diversity of practical complexities. Among those are time window restrictions, a heterogeneous vehicle fleet with different travel times, travel costs and capacity, multi-dimensional capacity constraints, order/vehicle compatibility constraints, and different start and end locations for vehicles. We propose iterative improvement approaches based on Large Neighborhood Search and a relatedness measure for transportation requests with multiple pickup and delivery locations. Our algorithms are characterised by very fast response times and thus, can be used within dynamic routing systems where input data can change at any time

Specification Patterns for Time-Related Properties

We present a pattern system for property specification. It extends the existing patterns identified in [4] which allow to reason about occurrence and order of events, but not about time conditions. Introducing time-related patterns allows the specification of real-time requirements. The paper is limited to 3 pages. Therefore it contains only basic ideas. The details can be found in [9]

Process Patterns - a Means to Describe Processes in a Flexible Way

Process patterns allow the modular modelling and adaptable application of business processes. Present descriptions of process patterns show defects like non-uniform and unequivocal description forms and missing relationship definitions. These defects disadvantageously affect the effective usage of process patterns. In this work we introduce the language PROPEL (Process Pattern Description Language), which provides concepts for the semiformal description of process patterns and relationships between process patterns. With the help of PROPEL single process patterns can be modelled and, by definition of relationships, be composed to more complicated processes. With the representation of different views of a process pattern catalog the process patterns and their relationships can be shown clearly. An example illustrates how a process pattern catalog and the contained process patterns are modelled. It is shown that in applying PROPEL the complexity of a process model can be reduced and inconsistencies of processes be eliminated

Drivers’ working hours in vehicle routing and scheduling

Although of particular importance for many reallife applications, restrictions to drivers’ working hours have only received very little attention in the vehicle routing literature. Regulations regarding drivers’ working hours often have a big impact on total travel times, i.e. the time required for driving, breaks, and rest periods. In this paper we describe the regulations for drivers’ working hours in the European Union. We present the Vehicle Routing Problem with Drivers’ Working Hours (VRPDWH) which generalises the well-known Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows. We present a Large Neighbourhood Search algorithm and test cases for the VRPDWH and conclude this paper with computational experiments

Experiences with a dialog-driven process model for Web application development

We present a dialog-driven process model for the development of web-based applications that uses a graphical notation to model and iteratively refine the application’s dialog flow, and communicate with non-technical stakeholders in the development process. This way, the user interface can drive the design and implementation of the application logic and data model instead of being dictated by it. After an introduction of the underlying notation and dialog control framework, we present how these tools can support the phases of the development process and discuss experiences gained from the implementation of a web application that was built using this approach

Hybrid application support for mobile information systems

The wide-spread presence of wireless networks and the availability of mobile devices has enabled the development of mobile applications that take us a step closer to accomplishing Weiser’s vision of ubiquitous computing (Weiser, 1991). Unfortunately however, network connectivity is still not given anywhere and at any time. To increase the benefit of mobile applications, the next logical step is to provide support for an offline modethat allows to continuously work with an application, even when the device is not connected to a network. In this paper typical problems of replicating data are explained, possible solutions are discussed and two architectural patterns that could be used to implement hybrid support are illustrated