Structural Patterns for Soundness of Business Process Models

Business process modeling notations are used in requirements engineering to specify business processes that should be supported by the system under development. Comparisons of business process modeling notations with regard to their concepts do exist, but to our knowledge, little evaluation has taken place regarding their effectiveness and efficiency for typical requirements engineering tasks. Therefore, we set up experiments examining UML activity diagrams (ACTs) and event-driven process chains (EPCs) both from a requirements engineer's perspective with a focus on model creation and from a customer's or end user's perspective with a focus on model understandability. The experiments were conducted as a blocked subject-object study, where the participants had to solve several characteristic tasks. The results were then analyzed by means of statistical analysis methods. In the case of the requirements engineer, we were able to show that ACTs perform better than EPCs. In the case of the customer or end user, we cannot make a clear statement.

Business process models have increasingly gained importance within today’s rapidly changing whilst competitive business environments. Process modeling languages provide graphical means to depict, communicate and reflect real-world phenomena. With the advent of business process modeling a range of process modeling languages (such as BPMN, Event-driven Process Chains or S-BPM) as well as training programs for different process modeling languages have been developed. However, appropriate BPM education (cf. [14]) as well as the discussion “what and how to teach modeling” (cf. [8]) are still topics requiring further investigations and developments. In this contribution an e-learning approach towards the education of process modeling is presented based-on requirements derived from related work on educating modeling and e-learning. Furthermore, the developed learning approach will be illustrated within different usage scenarios.Keywordseducationself-directed learningprocess modeling

Business process analysts prefer to build business process models (BPM) using graphical languages like BPMN or UML Activity Diagrams. Several researchers have presented validation methologies for such BPMs. In order to use these verification techniques for BPMs written in graphical languages, the models must be translated into the input language of a model checker or simulation tool. By analyzing 285 BPMs (modelled as Event driven Process Chains (EPC)), we found that checking restrictions for ”good modeling style” before starting the translation process has three positive effects: It can make the translation algorithm much easier, can improve the quality of the BPM by substituting ”bad constructs” automatically and can help to identify erroneous models.

Researchers become increasingly interested in developing tools for evaluating the correctness of business process models. We present a methodology for content-based validation of changes to business processes, relying on an automatic extraction of business logic from real-life business process repositories. Each process step in a repository is automatically transformed to a descriptor - containing objects, actions, and related qualifiers. From the collection of descriptors we induce taxonomies of action sequence, object lifecycle, and object and action hierarchies that form the logical foundation of the presented validation process. The method utilizes these taxonomies to identify process deficiencies that may occur due to process model modification, and suggests alternatives in order to correct and validate the models.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to address a theoretical gap in the business process management (BPM) literature on factors that influence the acceptance and use of business process modelling (PM) in organisations. The paper seeks to contribute to theory building and practice in BPM through better understanding of important determinants of PM adoption and use.Design/methodology/approachA combination of literature review and 34 interviews in context was used to develop a PM acceptance model that was subsequently empirically tested using survey data from 74 companies.FindingsThe paper provides empirical insights about how business PM can be influenced by many factors in the organisational context. It suggests that PM is a complex activity mandated by management, but influenced by individual and socio‐political factors.Research limitations/implicationsThere is a need for future research to focus on the many opposing forces that influence business PM in organisations. Future studies should analyse influence from different stakeholder groups separately to reveal their relative influence on PM activity and its outcomes.Practical implicationsThe paper identifies important forces in the organisational context that managers should focus on in their efforts to successfully implement business PM in their organisations.Originality/valueThis paper uses a triangulation of sources of information to better understand the less‐studied process of PM adoption and use in an organisational context. It contributes to theory building within BPM and to more successful BPM in organisations.

Event-driven Process Chain (EPC) is a known business process modeling language which is primarily renowned for efficient modeling of business requirements. It is a semi-formal modeling language which is commonly verified though various formal mechanism for simple atomic events. However, the complexity of business requirements cannot be modeled through EPC atomic events alone especially in case of real time systems. Therefore, the complex events patterns like Event Time, Event location, Event Cardinality, Event Sequence, Event Exclusion, Event Trend and Data dependency are introduced in EPC from the novel area of complex event processing. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is no mechanism available in EPC to model and verify such complex events. Therefore, in this paper, we investigate the verification possibilities of both (atomic and complex) events in the context of Timed-Automata (TA) and Time Petri Nets (TPN). Particularly, we try to map the semantics of simple and complex events with the corresponding concepts of TA and TPN. It is analyzed that the simple EPC events can be formalized through TA and TPN but limited support is available for complex events. The restaurant process case study has been used for further investigation of complex events. It has been concluded that TA formalism is more suitable than TPN for the verification of complex events in EPC.

A significant challenge in business process automation involves bridging the gap between business process representations and Web service technologies that implement business activities. We are interested in business process representations such as Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) and Event-Driven Process Chains (EPCs). Web service technologies include protocols such as Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), architectures such as REpresentational State Transfer (RESTful), or semantic description languages and formalisms such as Web Ontology Language for Services (OWL-S) and Web Service Modeling Ontology (WSMO). This paper reviews previous work on the integration of business process representations and Web service technologies. It provides a perspective on the field by summarizing, organizing, and classifying the proposed approaches. Consequently, this study has identified opportunities for future research in the field, including the need for a generic transformation approach among arbitrary models, the need to represent mappings in a formalized way, and the necessity of a common execution framework.

Regulatory compliance of business operations and practices is increasingly becoming an area of great concern for management, costing tens of billions of dollars in compliance actions a year. This paper presents a method for validating business processes with respect to the business rules. In the proposed method, business processes are modeled with UML activity diagrams, whilst business rules are represented as OCL expressions attached to process activities and the business conceptual model. The model validation is based on the simulation of the execution of process instances based on specific scenarios. The simulation algorithm steps through the process model executing the actions associated to the activities with the help of the USE tool and checking for violations of the associated business rules. The proposed method allows the modeler to have an early feedback of possible defects that may exist in a business process model.

Business process modeling (BPM) is one of the key technologies to benefit enterprises with higher efficiencies and greater business values. However, BPM requires intensive business expertise and human resources. Thus, it is valuable and challenging to enable fast delivery of reusable business process designs, regarding the existence of various popular business processes modeling languages and fast changing markets. In this paper, we generate language-specific business process models and process interaction semantics from UML 2.0 process models. A WS-BPEL metadata model and a process interaction semantics metadata model is defined to annotate UML 2.0 business process model as stereotypes; with a set of transformation patterns, we can generate a WS-BPEL business process model and a process interaction semantics file from each annotated UML 2.0 process model. Our approach can also be similarly applied to other process modeling languages to highly reuse the business process model in UML 2.0.

Business Process Management (BPM) has gained remarkable importance in research and practice in the last years. Innovative information and communication technology (ICT) is a driver for the effectiveness and efficiency of enterprise collaboration and the management of inter-organizational business processes. In this context, cooperating enterprises need a shared understanding of their own processes, those of their partners as well as of emerging inter-organizational process structures. In order to create such a shared understanding, the concept of collaborative modeling can serve as a useful approach. This article introduces a concept for collaborative business process modeling and its implementation in the CoMoMod tool. The tool supports several aspects of collaborative process modeling, such as simultaneous work of spatially distributed modelers on one process model diagram. Furthermore the tool permits synchronously creating a collaborative model with different modeling languages by automatically mapping and converting the different model representations. The proof of concept utilizes Event-driven Process Chains (EPC) and Petri Nets. The usage of an integrated chat messaging service supports communication during the process of collaboratively modeling business process.

Diagnosing behavioral differences between business process models: An approach based on event structures

Contemporary tools for business process modeling use menu-based interfaces for visualizing process models and interacting with them. However, pure menu-based interactions have been optimized for applications running on desktop computers and are limited regarding their use on multi-touch devices. At the same time, the increasing distribution of mobile devices in business life as well as their multi-touch capabilities offer promising perspectives for intuitively defining and adapting business process models. Additionally, multi-touch tables could improve collaborative business process modeling based on natural gestures and interactions. In this paper we present the results of an experiment in which we investigate the way users model business processes with multi-touch devices. Furthermore, a core gesture set is suggested enabling the easy definition and adaption of business process models on these devices. Overall, gesture-based process modeling and multi-touch devices allow for new ways of (collaborative) business process modeling.

BackgroundBusiness process modelling is increasingly used not only by the companies’ management but also by scientists dealing with process models. Process modeling is seldom done without decision-making nodes, which is why operational research methods are increasingly included in the process analyses.ObjectiveThis systematic literature review aimed to provide a detailed and comprehensive description of the relevant aspects of used operational research techniques in Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) model.MethodsThe Web Of Science of Clarivate Analytics was searched for 128 studies of that used operation research techniques and business process model and notation, published in English between 1 January 2004 and 18 May 2020. The inclusion criteria were as follows: Use of Operational Research methods in conjunction with the BPMN, and is available in full-text format. Articles were not excluded based on methodological quality. The background information of the included studies, as well as specific information on the used approaches, were extracted.ResultsIn this research, thirty-six studies were included and considered. A total of 11 specific methods falling into the field of Operations Research have been identified, and their use in connection with the process model was described.ConclusionOperational research methods are a useful complement to BPMN process analysis. It serves not only to analyze the probability of the process, its economic and personnel demands but also for process reengineering.

Business process analysis and modeling is a crucial step in formulating information systems user requirements. The practice of information technology (IT) development does not indicate a lack of problems in spite of the growing number of modeling techniques. This article gives an action research account of formulating and applying a new business process modeling framework to manufacturing processes to guide software development. It is based on a combination of soft systems methodology (SSM) and the Unified Modeling Language (UML) business process modeling extensions suggested by Eriksson and Penker. SSM has been linked to information systems provision in the past. The examination of prior research shows that there is no underlying reasoning about the justification from a methodological point of view of the combination of SSM and UML. This article justifies the mixing of SSM and Eriksson and Penker’s UML extensions using the ideas of Mingers’ Multimethodology. The latter helps to overcome the ontological complexities of combining soft and hard techniques in a single intervention. The proposed framework was applied to modeling the production process in an aluminum rolling plant as a step in the development of a new information system for it. The reflections on the intervention give details on how actual learning and appreciation is facilitated using SSM, leading to better UML models in this complex problem.

Business process models (BPM) are widely used for specification of software systems, as the basis for model driven software development. Hence, it is crucial to ensure that these BPMs fulfill the requirements they have to comply with. These requirements may originate from various domains. Many may be considered non-functional requirements. They are affecting privacy, security, as well as compliance or economic aspects. In order to avoid error-prone manual checking, automated checking techniques should be applied wherever possible. This requires expressing requirements in a formal manner. The common textual representations for such formal requirements are not well accepted in the modeling domain, since they are settled on a lower level of abstraction, compared to BPMs. In this chapter, the authors present the Business Application Modeler (BAM), which integrates formal requirement specification and automated checking with process modeling. On the one hand BAM supports different notations for process modeling. On the other hand a graphical notation, called G-CTL, for the formal specification of requirements is provided. G-CTL is based on temporal logic, and statements are expressed on the level of abstraction of the graphical process models. Furthermore BAM provides the ability to define selective views on process models. This allows complex domain specific annotations of processes as well as the assignment of responsibilities regarding functional domains. Moreover, BAM integrates into common requirements engineering processes.