Model-driven and ontology-based framework for semantic description and validation of business processes

In modern economic conditions, each company seeks to increase the level of competitiveness. In this regard, it is necessary to use modern management tools, including those based on information technology. For effective company management, it is necessary to timely examine its business processes. Effective management measures are selected depending on the completeness of the description and modeling of business processes. This article provides a description of business processes, describes the possible strategy and SWOT analysis on the example of car service activities. It is shown that to analyze the current activities of the company, they use the «goal tree», «problem tree», «strategy tree». The proposed company strategy is aimed at increasing the company's profits. SWOT analysis and analysis of the external environment of the company revealed the strengths and weaknesses to improve future activities. Based on a comprehensive analysis business process models in the «as is» and «to be» notations will be developed that will allow company management to assess the state of the companies business processes before and after their improvement. Such a research is aimed at choosing a strategy for improving or reengineering the company activities.

Business Process and Practice Alignment Meta-model

Business process descriptions are useful documents that are becoming increasingly important for identifying and documenting business processes. They are particularly beneficial during discovery when information about the process is gathered in interviews or by observation. Such business process descriptions are written as natural language text, which makes them intrinsically ambiguous. For this reason, it is the major challenge to formulate them in a precise and correct way right from the start. Therefore, this paper presents a service oriented architecture that analyzes a process description written in natural language to generate a sound process description. Being sound means that a description is structured, unambiguous, reveals possible quality and soundness problems related to BPMN 2.0, and contains clear identifiers for all known process elements in the original text. More specifically, we develop specific analysis and transformation techniques that are integrated by our proposed architecture. For validation purposes, we have implemented a prototype of this architecture. Our evaluation demonstrates that our techniques to generate sound process descriptions cover an average of 95% of the information extracted from its original process description while maintaining quality properties. Finally, our architecture can be enhanced with additional services that contribute to the creation and management of processes descriptions in organizations.

Project repositories are a central asset in software development, as they preserve the knowledge gathered in past development activities. Locating relevant information in a vast project repository is problematic, because it requires manually tagging projects with accurate metadata, an activity which is time consuming and prone to errors and omissions. Just like any other artifact or web service, business processes can be stored in repositories to be shared and used by third parties, e.g., as building blocks for constructing new business processes. The success of such a paradigm depends partly on the availability of effective search tools to locate business processes that are relevant to the user purposes. A handful of researchers have investigated the problem of business process discovery using as input syntactical and structural information that describes business processes. This work explores an additional source of information encoded in the form of annotations that semantically describe business processes. Business processes can be semantically described using the so called abstract business processes. These are designated by concepts from an ontology which additionally captures their relationships. This ontology can be built in an automatic fashion from a collection of (concrete) business processes, and this work illustrates how it can be refined by domain experts and used in the discovery of business processes, with the purpose of reuse and increase in design productivity.

This paper presents experiences in applying the goal decomposition and scenario analysis model in the context of Business Process Reengineering (BPR). The relationships of goals, scenarios, as well as the understanding and description of business processes are discussed. Different methods of goal refinement, and the application of scenarios to support this process of refining goals and roles are reviewed. A case study is presented which serves to exemplify and validate the process of using scenarios in refining business process descriptions. We tried deriving full scenarios for business processes, but obtaining them from the organization's prescriptive goals was difficult. Explanatory scenarios that justify descriptive goals are easier to obtain but are fragmentary. We conclude that both types of scenario and goal analysis are necessary for effective BPR. The need for technology support for this process is discussed and attention is given to future anticipated research in this area.

Business processes description is traditionally a complex task, requiring involvement of consulting institutions and special training of managers engaged in the description. Poorly formalized management processes are implemented as informal management practices, so their description requires from managers the competencies that exceed their standard skills.The article2 classifies the factors, which help to formalize management business-processes and form the requirements to managers’ competence. The research makes inferences that business processes have an urgent need for description; reveals the problems of business processes management; determines the requirements for managers’ competence; elaborates quantitative and qualitative parameters of managers’ participation in competitions. The study shows, that knowledge formalization is carried out with the direct implementation of the company’s policy that is aimed at establishing and developing personnel’s scientific communication, revealing its creativity. The description of business processes management helps to regulate the requirements to managers’ competence as the ability to knowledge formalization, as well as to form competencies of the development of business processes description as the method of informal knowledge formalizing; the expansion of functional roles managers employed in the description of business processes and identifying the prospects of knowledge formalization under present conditions.

The article systemises methodical instruments for evaluating efficiency of measures of digitalisation of business processes of enterprise. A schematic diagram of a general algorithm for evaluating the effectiveness of measures to digitalise the business process of enterprises has been developed. It is determined that assessing the degree of effectiveness of measures to digitalise the business processes of enterprise will also indirectly create conditions for identifying bottlenecks, based on which the management of enterprise will be able to make operational management decisions to optimise the business process through its digital development. It is substantiated that the assessment of business processes and their digitalisation should lie within the functional responsibilities of a certain entity; for this purpose, it is proposed to establish committees at the enterprise to assess the efficiency and digitalisation of business processes. In addition to formulating proposals for eliminating bottlenecks and directions and methods of digitising the company's business processes, the functional responsibilities of the Business Process Efficiency and Digitalisation Committee include the function of assessing the efficiency of an already digitised business process. For this purpose, the Committee develops analytical tools using established business process evaluation methods adapted to the evaluation of a digitised business process, which may include the PDCA cycle, internal audit of business processes, analysis of key performance indicators, functional and cost analysis, and analysis of stakeholder requirements. Each of the proposed instruments for evaluating the effectiveness of measures to digitalise the enterprise's business processes is adapted. It is summarized that when assessing the efficiency of business processes with a view to determining the need for their digital transformation or assessing the efficiency of a digitised business process, it is advisable for an enterprise to approach this issue in a comprehensive manner, namely, to develop clear policies and procedures by establishing and regulating the activities of the committee for assessing the efficiency of the enterprise's business processes by delegating to it a responsible person from each unit for managing business processes that create value or participate in this process.

Abstract. Methodologies for understanding business processes and their information systems (IS) are often criticized, either for being too imprecise and philosophical (a criticism often levied at softer methodologies) or too hierarchical and mechanistic (levied at harder methodologies). The process‐oriented holonic modelling methodology combines aspects of softer and harder approaches to aid modellers in designing business processes and associated IS. The methodology uses holistic thinking and a construct known as the holon to build process descriptions into a set of models known as a holarchy. This paper describes the methodology through an action research case study based in a large design and manufacturing organization. The scientific contribution is a methodology for analysing business processes in environments that are characterized by high complexity, low volume and high variety where there are minimal repeated learning opportunities, such as large IS development projects. The practical deliverables from the project gave IS and business process improvements for the case study company.

Business process descriptions are usually stored in internal enterprise repositories. In order to be able to reuse Business Processes (a.k.a. BPs), BP designers require some tools to help them to discover processes (or fragments of processes) in the repository based on these descriptions. In most cases discovery is a difficult task (the diversity of modeling languages, the process descriptions are very close to the IT level being far from the business level, there is a lack of automatic tools, etc.).

Business Process (BP) improvement and alike require accurate descriptions of the BPs. We suggest to describe BPs as use case specifications. A use case specification comprises a description of the context of the BP, the interactions between the agents involved in the BP, the interactions of these agents with an automated system supporting the BP and attached system internal requirements. Constructing such specifications remains a difficult task. Our proposal is to use textual scenarios as inputs, describing fragments of the BP, and to guide, using a set of rules, their incremental production and integration in a use case specification also presented in a textual form. The paper presents the structure of a use case, the linguistic approach adopted for textual scenarios analysis and the guided process for constructing use case specifications from scenarios along with the guidelines and support rules grounding the process. The process is illustrated with a real case study borrowed to an Electricity Company.

The 21st century has been called a new era full of information explosion. The comprehensive scientific and systematic processing, processing and production of large and complex electronic information system data and the flexible operation and application of computer have increasingly become a part and important research content of people's work activities. For the whole contemporary Chinese enterprise management, in addition to relying on the traditional and single analysis of enterprise material asset information and enterprise technical capital information for traditional management data analysis, people also began to become more and more clear, concentrated and in-depth to further realize that all kinds of enterprise information asset data have increasingly special significance and broad social importance in the practice of modern organization management decision-making analysis in our country. Therefore, this paper is based on C4 5 algorithms and quantitative analysis methods to study enterprise management services.

This paper presents a novel method of top-level EMC (EMC) design technology for large and complex electronic information systems, such as aircraft. A Numerical Airplane Model (NAM) with EMC effects and Performance Simulation Models (PSM) of electronic-equipments are made. In order to ensure the NAM and PSM correct, the following information should be concerned: the structure of airplane and equipments, the relative locations of equipments, the specification and operation-principles of the electronic-equipments, and the inputs and outputs of the electronic-equipments, etc. The electromagnetic interference matrix (EIM) are build by a novel method, called "field-circuit hybrid method - ECHM". The EIM is the function of bandwidth, sensitivity, polarization, signal characteristics, non-linear of front-and-end, receiver-antenna, radiation power, characteristics off-bandwidth, harmonious, intermodulation, transmitter antenna, location, and attenuation of cables, etc. Based on the ECHM and EIM and EMI/EMS performance, the safety and EMC performance of plane can be predicated. The top-level EMC specification can be set down. The top-level EMC specification can be disassembled to the sub-systems and equipments. The whole-plane EMC can be evaluated and controlled quantificationally. The methods presented in the paper have been applied to 3 kinds of planes. The validity of the above method has be proved.

Currently, for the effective development of the activities of any company, modern information technologies and information systems are used. In the conditions of digitalization of the economy, special attention is paid to business processes of interaction with customers of companies, the main requirement of which is the mobility of the proposed operations and services. The use of modern tools to improve business processes is designed to increase the efficiency of any company. Depending on the scope of the company, different tools are used. In this regard, it is advisable to describe and analyze the activities of the company, and then its business processes. The result a list of business processes requiring improvement will be.This paper discusses the features and methods of automating business processes using digital technologies, analyzes the activities of the company (using the example of a travel agency), describes its main business processes. The theoretical and methodological description of the features of automation of the company showed the possibility of using modern IT tools to increase the competitiveness of the company and the level of customer satisfaction. As a result of the research of the activities of the travel agency «1001 tour», an analysis of external and internal factors affecting the company. Description of business processes showed the need to improve interaction with customers through the introduction of mobile technology. The theoretical significance of the study is to describe the features of improving customer service. The practical significance of this work is due to the possibility of using the results as a basis for developing models of the main business processes in the notions «as is» and «to be», preparing a project for introducing innovations and conducting a preliminary assessment of its economic efficiency.

We investigate abstract common traits of longitudinal processes related to digital and green transformation of business processes, such as LCA analysis, CO2 footprint evaluation, and production cost analysis. The common abstraction allows to develop general tools and joint understanding of the three most relevant analytical processes significant to economic entities: production cost allows the undertaking to stay competitive, while conforming to forthcoming regulation involving either calculation of CO2 footprint (relevant to most value chains in European economy) or LCA analysis of products (relevant to major undertakings that are subject to sustainability reporting regulations). The result is an idea for a domain specific language that describes the concepts to calculate the stated process indicators and describe the data required in these calculations.

Issues of relevance and necessity of reengineering business processes of HoReCa enterprises are investigated. Significant advantages of business process reengineering are emphasized. After all, this method of redesigning activities is an effective means of significantly improving the activities of hospitality enterprises. The purpose of the work is to substantiate the content, stages and format of the organization of business process reengineering for HoReCa enterprises. The work substantiates the thesis that hospitality and catering services have always been characterized by high profitability. However, the global crisis has become a difficult test for the entire HoReCa industry. The emphasis of the work is on the fact that the reengineering of business processes is an effective measure to ensure the further effective development of HoReCa enterprises. Reengineering is the basis of a radical change in the development of enterprises, ensuring significant competitive advantages and achieving an improvement in the financial condition. The work presents the author's interpretation of the concept of «organizational support for the reengineering of business processes of a HoReCa enterprise» - this is a complex system of processes and procedures for carrying out reengineering in accordance with the set goal of radical transformations of the enterprise, which, based on the interaction of this enterprise with other business entities, as well as with the structures and divisions of the enterprise itself, contributes to the introduction of significant changes in the enterprise's management system. The article emphasizes that the reengineering of business processes is the embodiment of a complex program of transformations and fundamental restructuring of the functioning of enterprises. Its important components are: replacement of the existing management system with new effective concepts; development and implementation of improved business processes and their management methods; preliminary assessment of the acceptability of the riskiness of radical change projects. The authors emphasize that the reengineering of business processes of HoReCa enterprises is a rather complex transformation mechanism. But it is thanks to him that every enterprise in the field of hospitality is able to carry out qualitative improvement of its business processes. Keywords: HoReCa, hospitality industry, reengineering, business processes, organizational support, strategy, information technologies, organizational structure.