137 research outputs found
The E-health Strategic Research Orientation at the Centre for Telematics and Information Technology
This report gives an overview of research themes, research groups and research partners of the E-Health Strategic Research Orientation (SRO) at the University of Twente
Keeping the Cost of Process Change Low through Refactoring
With the increasing adoption of process-aware information systems (PAIS) large process model repositories have emerged. Over time respective models have to be re-aligned to the real world business processes through customization or adaptation. This bears the risk that model redundancies are introduced and complexity is increased. If no continuous investment is made in keeping models simple, changes are becoming increasingly costly and error-prone. Although refactoring techniques are widely used in software engineering to address related problems, this does not yet constitute state-of-the art in business process management. Consequently, process designers either have to refactor process models by hand or can not apply respective techniques at all. In this paper we propose a set of techniques for refactoring large process repositories, which are behaviour-preserving. The proposed refactorings enable process designers to effectively deal with model complexity by making process models easier to change, less error-prone and better understandable
Exploring the Dynamic Costs of Process-aware Information Systems through Simulation
Introducing process-aware information systems (PAIS) in enterprises (e.g., workflow management systems, case handling systems) is associated with high costs. Though cost evaluation has received considerable attention in software engineering for many years, it is difficult to apply existing evaluation approaches to PAIS. This difficulty particularly stems from the inability of these techniques to deal with the complex interplay of the many technological, organizational and project-driven factors which emerge in the context of PAIS engineering projects. In response to this problem this paper proposes an approach which utilizes simulation models for investigating costs related to PAIS engineering projects. We motivate the need for simulation, discuss the design and execution of simulation models, and give an illustrating example
Mediation Patterns for Message Exchange Protocols
Systems interact with their environment (e.g., other systems) by ex-changing messages in a particular order. Interoperability problems arise when systems do not understand each other’s messages or follow incompatible message exchange protocols. In this paper we identify mismatches in message ex-change protocols (involving two systems) and we propose solution patterns to compensate these mismatches
Simulation Models for Analyzing the Dynamic Costs of Process-aware Information Systems
Introducing process-aware information systems (PAIS) in enterprises (e.g., workflow management systems, case handling systems) is associated with high costs. Though cost estimation has received considerable attention in software engineering for many years, it is difficult to apply existing approaches to PAIS. This difficulty particularly stems from the inability of existing estimation techniques to deal with the complex interplay of the many technological, organizational and project-driven factors which emerge in the context of PAIS. In response to this problem, this paper proposes an approach which utilizes simulation models for investigating the dynamic costs of PAIS engineering projects. We motivate the need for simulation, discuss the development and execution of simulation models, and give an illustrating example. The present work has been accomplished in the EcoPOST project, which deals with the development of a comprehensive evaluation framework for analyzing PAIS engineering projects from a value-based perspective
A Survey on Evaluation Factors for Business Process Management Technology
Estimating the value of business process management (BPM) technology is a difficult task to accomplish. Computerized business processes have a strong impact on an organization, and BPM projects have a long-term cost amortization.
To systematically analyze BPM technology from an economic-driven perspective, we are currently developing an evaluation framework in the EcoPOST project. In order to empirically validate the relevance of assumed evaluation factors (e.g., process knowledge, business process redesign, end user fears, and communication) we have conducted an online survey among 70 BPM experts from more than 50 industrial and academic organizations. This paper summarizes the results of this survey. Our results help both researchers and practitioners to better understand the evaluation factors that determine the value of BPM technology
An Approach for Supporting Ad-hoc Modifications in Distributed Workflow Management Systems
Supporting enterprise-wide or even cross-organizational business processes is a characteristic challenge for any workflow management system (WfMS). Scalability at the presence of high loads as well as the capability to dynamically modify running workflow (WF) instances (e.g., to cope with exceptional situations) are essential requirements in this context. Should the latter one, in particular, not be met, the WfMS will not have the necessary flexibility to cover the wide range of process-oriented applications deployed in many organizations. Scalability and flexibility have, for the most part, been treated separately in the relevant literature thus far. Even though they are basic needs for a WfMS, the requirements related with them are totally different. To achieve satisfactory scalability, on the one hand, the system needs to be designed such that a workflow instance can be controlled by several WF servers that are as independent from each other as possible. Yet dynamic WF modifications, on the other hand, necessitate a (logical) central control instance which knows the current and global state of a WF instance. For the first time, this paper presents methods which allow ad-hoc modifications (e.g., to insert, delete, or shift steps) to be performed in a distributed WfMS; i.e., in a WfMS with partitioned WF execution graphs and distributed WF control. It is especially noteworthy that the system succeeds in realizing the full functionality as given in the central case while, at the same time, achieving extremely favorable behavior with respect to communication costs
On Formal Consistency between Value and Coordination Models
In information systems (IS) engineering dierent techniques for modeling
inter-organizational collaborations are applied. In particular, value models
estimate the profitability for involved stakeholders, whereas coordination models
are used to agree upon the inter-organizational processes before implementing
them. During the execution of inter-organizational collaboration, in addition, event
logs are collected by the individual organizations representing another view of the
IS. The combination of the two models and the event log represent the IS and they
should therefore be consistent, i.e., not contradict each other. Since these models
are provided by dierent user groups during design time and the event log is
collected during run-time consistency is not straight forward. Inconsistency occurs
when models contain a conflicting description of the same information, i.e.,
there exists a conflicting overlap between the models. In this paper we introduce
an abstraction of value models, coordination models and event logs which allows
ensuring and maintaining alignment between models and event log. We demonstrate
its use by outlining a proof of an inconsistency resolution result based on
this abstraction. Thus, the introduction of abstractions allows to explore formal
inter-model relations based on consistency
Parameterizable Views for Process Visualization
In large organizations different users or user groups usually have distinguished perspectives over business processes and related data. Personalized views on the managed processes are therefore needed. Existing BPM tools, however, do not provide adequate mechanisms for building and visualizing such views. Very often processes are displayed to users in the same way as drawn by the process designer. To tackle this inflexibility this paper presents an advanced approach for creating personalized process views based on well-defined, parameterizable view operations. Respective operations can be flexibly composed in order to reduce or aggregate process information in the desired way. Depending on the chosen parameterization of the applied view operations, in addition, different "quality levels" with more or less relaxed properties can be obtained for the resulting process views (e.g., regarding the correctness of the created process view scheme). This allows us to consider the specific needs of the different applications utilizing process views (e.g., process monitoring tools or process editors). Altogether, the realized view concept contributes to better deal with complex, long-running business processes with hundreds up to thousands of activities
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