基于Artifact的流程设计平台

基于jBPM的业务流程是面向过程的,不方便业务人员对信息的提取、分析。所以,以数据为中心的流程管理技术就应运而生。Artifact是记录业务流程的数据实体,围绕Artifact的业务流程管理正在成为业务流程管理研究的一个热点。jBPM流程能够很好的描述业务流程,为其提供分析、实施的基础。把Artifact的业务流程管理技术和jBPM的业务流程管理技术结合在一起,可以为系统模型的设计和实现提供方便同时为代码自动生成提供参考基础,体现了敏捷开发的思想。     

Decision-enabled dynamic process management for networked enterprises

Enterprises in today’s networked economy face numerous information management challenges, both from a process management perspective as well as a decision support perspective. While there have been significant relevant advances in the areas of business process management as well as decision sciences, several open research issues exist. In this paper, we highlight the following key challenges. First, current process modeling and management techniques lack in providing a seamless integration of decision models and tools in existing business processes, which is critical to achieve organizational objectives. Second, given the dynamic nature of business processes in networked enterprises, process management approaches that enable organizations to react to business process changes in an agile manner are required. Third, current state-of-the-art decision model management techniques are not particularly amenable to distributed settings in networked enterprises, which limits the sharing and reuse of models in different contexts, including their utility within managing business processes. In this paper, we present a framework for decision-enabled dynamic process management that addresses these challenges. The framework builds on computational formalisms, including the structured modeling paradigm for representing decision models, and hierarchical task networks from the artificial intelligence (AI) planning area for process modeling. Within the framework, interleaved process planning (modeling), execution and monitoring for dynamic process management throughout the process lifecycle is proposed. A service-oriented architecture combined with advances from the semantic Web field for model management support within business processes is proposed.     

一种面向方面的软件体系结构

针对软件开发过程中软件代码杂混、分散,导致软件开发过程的可追踪性差、开发效率低、代码的重用性不好、代码质量不高、软件系统的演变进化困难等问题,采用面向方面的软件开发方法研究软件体系结构,结合业务流程管理系统,来介绍基于面向方面的软件体系结构在系统需求方面实现和编织方法的开发过程。通过提取业务流程、业务活动和参业者这三个关注点,对这些需求关注独立封装,并对它们的实现进行编织．解决相互之间的信息交换,降低了业务逻辑、业务数据和业务操作实体三者间的耦合,实现业务流程的柔性管理和不同业务功能的集成。     

ObjectFlow: Towards a process management infrastructure

As businesses feel competitive and economic pressures to automate and streamline their operations, they examine their day-to-day business processes and look to business process reengineering pratices to provide solutions. Improved networking capabilities and the widescale adoption of open systems architectures have allowed businesses to tie their information systems together and share data across departments. The challenge now involves coordinating and automating the flow of work between people and groups in an organization. This has prompted the emergence of a new kind of infrastructure, workflow enabler, which provides a model for business processes, and a foundation on which to build solutions supporting the execution and management of business processes. This article examines the technology trends, business benefits, and requirements which have lead to this development. It describes the logical structure and an operational model of an open workflow system, and positions ObjectFlow, a software product, within this framework to illustrate the concepts.     

A distributed architecture for policy-customisable multi-tenant processes-as-a-service

Service-based business processes are often developed and deployed by single organisations. In distributed, shared resource environments like the cloud on the other hand, consumers share resources owned by cloud providers. This requires multi-tenancy capability for service processes that provide customised behaviour on shared process implementations to meet the varying needs of different process consumers as tenants of the process resource. In this paper, we define a distributed multi-tenant architecture for Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) processes provided as a service. A single-version BPEL process is deployed by a provider and offered for all process consumers, combined with a customisation and management functionality to create a unique experience for different consumers (process tenants). We provide two core components: a policy model for consumers to express customisation/business requirements of service processes and a coordination framework for policy enforcement between consumers and providers to achieve on-the-fly customisation of service processes.     

Service-oriented technology and management: Perspectives on research and practice for the coming decade

Service-oriented technologies and management have gained attention in the past few years, promising a way to create the basis for agility so that companies can deliver new, more flexible business processes that harness the value of the services approach from a customer’s perspective. Service-oriented approaches are used for developing software applications and software-as-a-service that can be sourced as virtual hardware resources, including on-demand and utility computing. The driving forces come from the software engineering community and the e-business community. Service-oriented architecture promotes the loose coupling of software components so that interoperability across programming languages and platforms, and dynamic choreography of business processes can be achieved. Nevertheless, one of today’s most pervasive and perplexing challenges for senior managers deals with how and when to make a commitment to the new practices. The purpose of this article is to shed light on multiple issues associated with service-oriented technologies and management by examining several interrelated questions: why is it appropriate now to study the related business problems from the point of view of services research? What new conceptual frameworks and theoretical perspectives are appropriate for studying service-oriented technologies and management? What value will a service science and business process modeling offer to the firms that adopt them? And, how can these approaches be implemented so as to address the major challenges that organizations face with technology, information and strategy? We contribute new knowledge in this area by tying the economics and information technology strategy perspectives to the semantic and design science perspectives for a broader audience. Usually the more technical perspective is offered on a standalone basis, and confined to the systems space – even when the discussion is about business processes. This article also offers insights on these issues from the multiple perspectives of industry and academic thought leaders.     

A framework for virtual enterprise operation management

This paper presents researches on operation management for virtual enterprises (VEs). A virtual enterprise is a temporary alliance of member enterprises (MEs) formed to exploit fast-changing opportunities. During the operation of a virtual enterprise, its constituent member enterprises, which are geographically distributed and organizationally independent, collaborate with each other to execute the whole business process (BP) of the virtual enterprise. With the aim of addressing business integration for virtual enterprises, this paper develops a framework for virtual enterprise operation management. From the viewpoint of business processes, carried out is integral research on business process modeling, analyzing, and managing for virtual enterprises. Both the distributed business process model and the model of the virtual enterprise itself are established. The former provides the functional basis of the virtual enterprise operation, while the latter provides its structural basis. Further, the two models are integrated through the loading from the distributed business process model to the virtual enterprise model. Through such model separation and integration, business process management for virtual enterprises is enacted and business integration for virtual enterprises is achieved.     

The Metamorphoses of Workflow Projects in their Early Stages

Empirical studies on workflow usually focus on systems which have already been introduced and on the problems which occur with these systems if exceptional cases differ from the regular business processes. This study focuses on the problems that occur in the early stages of projects intended to introduce workflow systems but which do not inevitably succeed. In most cases the companies under investigation eventually introduced other types of software, or the business processes were merely analysed and improved but not automated during the project. We explain this phenomenon by referring to Orlikowski’s concept of metamorphoses which analysed organizational change under conditions of groupware usage. A number of empirical details in our study of seven companies during a 4-year period can be related to this concept as well as to literature on workflow. In our ex-post study of the workflow projects we concluded that paradoxically starting with a workflow project might be an appropriate way of introducing improvement in cooperation and coordination without using workflow management technology and that concepts for flexible workflow technology are of minor relevance for this improvement.     

Information management in process-based organizations: a case study at Xerox Ltd

Abstract. The process-oriented holistic enterprise is a new organizational form in which the business process may be perceived as the basic organizational construct. Process management on an enterprise-wide scale implies a complex integration of business processes. The increased organizational complexity places heavy demands on a firm's information management capability, and this needs to be managed in a way that best supports the process model. This research has found that in the case of Xerox Ltd, a company that has adopted a holistic approach to process management, the information management process is key to supporting this method of organizing. The main finding is that, in order to support process management, a particular type of information management is required. This includes a need for enterprise-wide information systems and the centralization of systems development and maintenance. However, the process management is made possible by this type of information management. This may be referred to as the duality concept of information and process management. The research presents findings from an in-depth participant observation study conducted at the Xerox Ltd headquarters in the UK, and also includes data collected from Xerox France and Xerox UK.     

基于规则引擎的一种智能工作流系统研究

工作流系统作为一种重要的过程管理技术,在企业过程重组,协同软件等研究领域取得了很大的成功,然而,传统的工作流系统在复杂多变的企业业务环境中存在诸多不足,据此提出了一种基于规则引擎的智能工作流系统模型,通过规则引擎的应用,很好地提高了系统的自适应能力和通用性。最后,阐述了规则引擎的实现机制,并给出了具体应用。     

基于EPMM的软件过程模型规范化研究

为了开发高质量的软件过程模型,有必要对软件过程模型的规范化进行研究。本文基于EPMM对过程的形式化定义,考虑到传统软件过程和软件演化过程的特点,给出过程第一范式(1PNF)、过程第二范式(2PNF)、过程第三范式(3PNF)和过程第四范式(4PNF)的定义,并给出它们的判定算法。本文建议:对于传统的软件过程模型,应设计到满足2PNF;而对于软件演化过程模型,应设计到满足3PNF。本文为建模高质量的软件过程模型提供了指南。     

An overview of workflow management: From process modeling to workflow automation infrastructure

Today's business enterprises must deal with global competition, reduce the cost of doing business, and rapidly develop new services and products. To address these requirements enterprises must constantly reconsider and optimize the way they do business and change their information systems and applications to support evolving business processes. Workflow technology facilitates these by providing methodologies and software to support (i) business process modeling to capture business processes as workflow specifications, (ii) business process reengineering to optimize specified processes, and (iii) workflow automation to generate workflow implementations from workflow specifications. This paper provides a high-level overview of the current workflow management methodologies and software products. In addition, we discuss the infrastructure technologies that can address the limitations of current commercial workflow technology and extend the scope and mission of workflow management systems to support increased workflow automation in complex real-world environments involving heterogeneous, autonomous, and distributed information systems. In particular, we discuss how distributed object management and customized transaction management can support further advances in the commercial state of the art in this area. Recomended by: Omran Bukhres and e. Kühn     

面向领域建模的信息系统构件识别方法研究

近年来企业的业务操作和流程日趋复杂化,信息系统（IS）却无法快速适应外部业务流程发生的巨大变化,提高软件复用效率是解决该难题的关键。作为软件复用的关键技术,构件识别一直是基于构件的信息系统开发方法（CBSD）的研究热点与难点。结合实际情况及相关理论与技术基础提出了完整的面向领域建模的信息系统构件识别方法,该方法具体包括基于模糊形式概念分析（FFCA）的信息系统构件识别模型以及基于图熵的业务构件识别有效性检验过程。通过该构件识别方法,识别出行业通用的符合高内聚、低耦合以及粒度适宜特征的业务构件,可以迅速应对外部需求变化引起的软件内部业务逻辑发生的改变。以A公司物资管理流程为例,验证了所提出的信息系统构建识别方法。     

Understanding the characteristics of quality for software engineering processes: A Grounded Theory investigation

ContextSoftware engineering organizations routinely define and implement processes to support, guide and control project execution. An assumption underlying this process-centric approach to business improvement is that the quality of the process will influence the quality, cost and time-to-release of the software produced. A critical question thus arises of what constitutes quality for software engineering processes.ObjectiveTo identify criteria used by experienced practitioners to judge the quality of software engineering processes and to understand how knowledge of these criteria and their relationships may be useful for those undertaking software process improvement activities.MethodInterviews were conducted with 17 experienced software engineering practitioners from a range of geographies, roles and industry sectors. Published reports from 30 software process improvement case-studies were selected from multiple peer-reviewed software journals. A qualitative Grounded Theory-based methodology was employed to systematically analyze the collected data to synthesize a model of quality for software engineering processes.ResultsThe synthesized model suggests that practitioners perceive the overall quality of a software engineering process based on four quality attributes: suitability, usability, manageability and evolvability. Furthermore, these judgments are influenced by key properties related to the semantic content, structure, representation and enactment of that process. The model indicates that these attributes correspond to particular organizational perspectives and that these differing views may explain role-based conflicts in the judgement of process quality.ConclusionConsensus exists amongst practitioners about which characteristics of software engineering process quality most influence project outcomes. The model presented provides a terminological framework that can facilitate precise discussion of software engineering process issues and a set of criteria that can support activities for software process definition, evaluation and improvement. The potential exists for further development of this model to facilitate optimization of process properties to match organizational needs.     

基于RUP的软件过程及应用

RationalUnifiedProcess(RUP)将项目管理、商业建模、分析与设计等统一起来,贯穿整个开发过程。讨论了基于RUP的软件过程,并把该过程应用于水电厂综合管理信息系统的开发。与传统的软件过程相比较,基于RUP的软件过程可以降低产品风险,规范管理和开发流程,有效地控制资源,提高开发效率。     

An automated approach for merging business process fragments

In the field of business process management, adopting efficient building strategies can improve the quality of companies’ business processes. The reuse of existing business processes or even fragments of them is a practical approach to build complete business processes or coarser-grained process fragments. In the present paper, we deal with the merge of a set of business process fragments for the construction of new complete processes. Our merge mechanism relies on a particular path matrix, that we call gateway path matrix. We use gateway path matrices to represent business process fragments to systematically compose shared components with individual ones. Moreover, our approach ensures that the resulting business process fragments subsume the behavior of initial ones and allows for adding new execution scenarios while controlling undesirable ones. In fact, we detect newly generated behaviors, and alert process designers of undesirable ones through behavioral constraints. We provide extensive experimental results derived from an implementation of our approach applied on a well-known industrial library of business process fragments.     

事务流程图法在CMM过程改进上的应用方法探讨

CMM为软件企业的过程改进提供了一种框架，但更需要提供可操作的、直观的描述方式。在CMM模型基础上，提出了一种可视化的事务流程的定义和描述方法，它结合过程管理与软件工程中使用的图符，使管理者更方便地进行过程化管理。结合实例，进一步说明了此方法在过程管理中的应用。     

一个基于管理信息单元的描述

先进的管理理念诸如全面质量管理、业务流程再造或是六西格马管理在企业应用过程中获得了巨大的成功。从中我们发现,这些管理创新都以业务流程改进为出发点。因此,对业务流程进行管理显得至关重要。本文描述了一个业务流程管理系统的管理信息单元组织模型和流程模型,以及系统功能模块及其实现工具,为企业进行业务流程管理提供了一定的参考。     

Object-oriented design processes of electronic commerce in a multi-agent environment

Corporations are moving from traditional management into a world of agile and electronic business. Such businesses have continually sought to develop information technology (IT) systems, in order to assist in the decision-making of the business process. Due to rapid changes in the business environment this process is subject to ongoing examination. To ensure the agility of electronic commerce, business design process problems must be addressed by a team of specialists or intelligent agents, and be based on object-oriented design, characterized by computability, reusability, and exchangeability. This paper proposes a multi-agent system encompassing an object-oriented approach, to design processes for electronic commerce. This approach entails solutions to design processes, for decision-makers who are geographically separated and operate on differing computer platforms. By combining various objects, different types of design processes can be solved with the same agent-based framework, making this approach very responsive. The proposed methodology is applied to a real-world construct that involves combining objects to complete an electronic commerce model: in particular the logistics objective.     

基于 P-F方法的软件过程建模的复用性

P-F方法可以直观而精确地提供软件过程的复用机制.软件过程的复用问题如同软件本身的复用性,具有同样重要的意义.为了抽象过程复用机制,P-F方法使用3层复用结构:过程模板、模式和元模式.过程模板代表由P-F方法描述的部分过程的可复用类.模式是模板的拓扑结构.最底层是元模式,代表最基本的模式,也是建成良结构过程/模板/模式的基本材料.利用元模式来构造软件过程可以避免病态的软件过程,并可以改进软件过程管理.形式化地定义了可复用结构部件间的操作.这些操作帮助实现软件过程的定义、复用或集成.软件过程的可复用特性在许