一种规则驱动的网络服务组装机制

提出了一种规则驱动的服务组装方法,实现了一个基于软件Agent的框架,在运行时刻监控和管理组装流程的执行．该方法给出一个算法将流程规约转化为等价的规则集合以用于指导Agent的行为,并允许用户通过定义一组可插拔(pluggable)的自适应策略,方便地扩展流程对变化的适应能力．框架实现基于反射式中间件平台PKUAS,该平台为网络服务和软件Agent提供运行支持,并基于其反射机制为Agent提供运行时刻的环境信息．     

BPMNt: A BPMN extension for specifying software process tailoring

ContextAlthough SPEM 2.0 has great potential for software process modeling, it does not provide concepts or formalisms for precise modeling of process behavior. Indeed, SPEM fails to address process simulation, execution, monitoring and analysis, which are important activities in process management. On the other hand, BPMN 2.0 is a widely used notation to model business processes that has associated tools and techniques to facilitate the aforementioned process management activities. Using BPMN to model software development processes can leverage BPMN’s infrastructure to improve the quality of these processes. However, BPMN lacks an important feature to model software processes: a mechanism to represent process tailoring.ObjectiveThis paper proposes BPMNt, a conservative extension to BPMN that aims at creating a tailoring representation mechanism similar to the one found in SPEM 2.0.MethodWe have used the BPMN 2.0 extensibility mechanism to include the representation of specific tailoring relationships namely suppression, local contribution, and local replacement, which establish links between process elements (such as in the case of SPEM). Moreover, this paper also presents some rules to ensure the consistency of BPMN models when using tailoring relationships.ResultsIn order to evaluate our proposal we have implemented a tool to support the BPMNt approach and have applied it for representing real process adaptations in the context of an academic management system development project. Results of this study showed that the approach and its support tool can successfully be used to adapt BPMN-based software processes in real scenarios.ConclusionWe have proposed an approach to enable reuse and adaptation of BPMN-based software process models as well as derivation traceability between models through tailoring relationships. We believe that bringing such capabilities into BPMN will open new perspectives to software process management.     

Process Management in Practice Applying the FUNSOFT Net Approach to Large-Scale Processes

Management of business and software processes are areas of increasing interest, which evolved nearly independently from each other. In this article we present an approach to process management that has been applied to business and software processes and which, thereby, enabled cross-fertilization between both areas. The goal of this article is to report lessons learned in industrial as well as academic business and software process management projects.     

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.     

A fact-oriented ontological approach to human process modeling for knowledge-intensive business services

Modern business environment emphasizes the role of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS). As well as the enterprises in any other kinds of industries, business process management (BPM) can be a source of core competency for the enterprises in KIBS industry. However, most of the business processes in KIBS are human processes which are collaborative, innovative, and dynamic, which cannot be supported well by current BPM technologies. Human interaction management (HIM) has emerged as an alternative theory to deal with human processes in KIBS. But, the current ways of process modeling and management in HIM have a problem of complexity, especially in terms of realizing its principle of ‘supportive activity management’. This research adopts fact-oriented ontological approach to address this problem. Based on fact-oriented approach, human-friendly condition modeling and state management during supportive activity management can be achieved.     

Workflow simulation for operational decision support using event graph through process mining

It is increasingly common to see computer-based simulation being used as a vehicle to model and analyze business processes in relation to process management and improvement. While there are a number of business process management (BPM) and business process simulation (BPS) methodologies, approaches and tools available, it is more desirable to have a systemic BPS approach for operational decision support, from constructing process models based on historical data to simulating processes for typical and common problems. In this paper, we have proposed a generic approach of BPS for operational decision support which includes business processes modeling and workflow simulation with the models generated. Processes are modeled with event graphs through process mining from workflow logs that have integrated comprehensive information about the control-flow, data and resource aspects of a business process. A case study of a credit card application is presented to illustrate the steps involved in constructing an event graph. The evaluation detail is also given in terms of precision, generalization and robustness. Based on the event graph model constructed, we simulate the process under different scenarios and analyze the simulation logs for three generic problems in the case study: 1) suitable resource allocation plan for different case arrival rates; 2) teamwork performance under different case arrival rates; and 3) evaluation and prediction for personal performances. Our experimental results show that the proposed approach is able to model business processes using event graphs and simulate the processes for common operational decision support which collectively play an important role in process management and improvement.     

Automatic control of workflow processes using ECA rules

Changes in recent business environments have created the necessity for a more efficient and effective business process management. The workflow management system is software that assists in defining business processes as well as automatically controlling the execution of the processes. We propose a new approach to the automatic execution of business processes using event-condition-action (ECA) rules that can be automatically triggered by an active database. First of all, we propose the concept of blocks that can classify process flows into several patterns. A block is a minimal unit that can specify the behaviors represented in a process model. An algorithm is developed to detect blocks from a process definition network and transform it into a hierarchical tree model. The behaviors in each block type are modeled using ACTA formalism. This provides a theoretical basis from which ECA rules are identified. The proposed ECA rule-based approach shows that it is possible to execute the workflow using the active capability of database without users' intervention. The operation of the proposed methods is illustrated through an example process.     

Simulation based process design: Modeling and applications

Business process management has been a hot topic for both management and enterprise modeling communities. Conventional training based approaches expect managers capable of apply their knowledge and experience when they make decisions in designing their business processes. The technology advancement in the past decades has made it possible to provide technological decision-support for both executives and in the trench managers. How one can create technologies that are both generally applicable to a wide range of domains and still powerful enough to provide specific solutions for specific problems has been a challenge for the research community. In our research, we take a simulation based approach to business design and management. In this paper, an enterprise simulation model, called PMT (Process Management Tool), is introduced and a case study of design and management of automotive engineering design processes using PMT was presented. The PMT based case study demonstrated the effectiveness of our simulation based approach and the PMT model by clearly identifying the fragility of product based design processes and the tolerance of function based design processes to overload situations.     

Supporting aspect orientation in business process management

Coping with complexity is an important issue in both research and industry. One strategy to deal with complexity is separation of concerns, which can be addressed using aspect-oriented paradigm. Despite being well researched in programming, this paradigm is still in a preliminary stage in the area of business process management (BPM). While some efforts have been made to introduce aspect orientation in business process modelling, there is no holistic approach with a formal underlying foundation to support aspect-oriented business process design and enactment, and this gap restricts aspect-oriented paradigm from being practically deployed in the area of BPM. Therefore, this paper proposes a sound systematic approach which builds on a formal syntax for modelling aspect-oriented business processes and a Petri Net-based operational semantics for enacting these processes. The approach enables the implementation of software system artefacts as a proof of concept to support design and enactment of aspect-oriented business processes in practice. The approach is demonstrated using a banking case study, where processes are modelled using a concrete notation that conforms to the proposed formal syntax and then executed in a state-of-the-art BPM system where the implemented artefacts are deployed.     

基于SOA的IT服务管理应用的集成

像其他组织一样,IT服务提供者通过服务管理应用软件对内部业务过程提供支持。随着时间的推移,业务过程会发生改变,而管理应用软件必须能够灵活地适应这种变化。文章描述了一种方法,这种方法使用面向服务的架构将管理应用软件集成起来,阐述了如何根据业务过程松散地集成管理应用软件。     

基于Petri网行为紧密度的业务流程配置优化分析

业务流程优化分析是业务流程管理的重要内容之一,存在配置信息的优化分析显得尤为重要。已有研究主要集中于业务流程优化分析,但对于存在配置信息的业务流程优化则存在不足。对业务流程配置优化分析进行了研究,提出了日志与业务流程Petri网模型的紧密度计算方法 以及基于行为紧密度的业务流程配置优化分析方法。首先根据给定事件日志的执行序列及实例数建立初始模型,计算初始模型与剩余日志的紧密度,利用紧密度大的日志优化初始模型;然后引进配置变迁对初步优化后的模型进行进一步优化;最后通过一个简单的实例说明了该方法的可行性。     

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.     

Incorporating technology in service-oriented i* business models: a case study

In recent years, considerable attention has been paid to enterprise information systems. This interest is motivated by the need for achieving better integration of new technologies (hardware and software) with the business processes of an organization. Business processes have become more and more dependent on technologies because technology has a direct impact on business processes, changing the way they are performed and thus also affecting the way analysts design the software system. However, at the present time, there are still some gaps between the definition of business processes and the technologies used in the organization. In practice, organizations have carried out their business processes using different technologies; however, it is sometimes not possible to determine how technologies are useful in achieving current business goals. This is because business models do not explicitly consider the technologies in the organizational requirements. The goal of this paper is to present a systematic process for integrating business processes and technologies at the conceptual level. To validate our approach, we present a case study that describes the processes of the inventory management department of a public research center.     

Pattern-driven green adaptation of process-based applications and their runtime infrastructure

Business processes are a key aspect of modern organization. In recent years, business process management and optimization has been applied to different cross-cutting concerns such as security, compliance, or Green IT, for example. Based on the ecological characteristics of a business process, proper environmentally sustainable adaptation strategies can be chosen to improve the total environmental impact of the business process. We use ecological sustainable adaptation strategies that are described as green business process patterns. The application of such a green business process pattern, however, affects the business process layer, the application component and the infrastructure layer. This implies that changes in the application infrastructure also need to be considered. Hence, we use best practices of cloud application architectures which are described as Cloud patterns. To guide developers through the adaptation process we propose a pattern-based approach in this work. We correlate Cloud patterns relevant for sustainable business processes to green business process patterns and organize them within a classification. To provide concrete implementation support we further annotate these Cloud patterns to application component models that are described with the topology and orchestration specification for cloud applications (TOSCA). Using these annotations, we describe a method that provides the means to optimize business processes based on green business process patterns through adapting the implementation of application components with concrete TOSCA implementation models.     

Business process choreography for B2B collaboration

We describe a proposed methodology for business process choreography. We focus on two types of business processes (contract and executable) and provide an interface protocol to represent interoperability patterns between them. The approach is designed to let existing processes, usually managed by an enterprise's own internal workflow management system, collaborate.     

Incorporating structural improvement into resource allocation for business process execution planning

Resource management has been recognised as an important topic for business process execution for a long time. Most existing works on resource allocation for business processes simply assume that the structure of a business process is always fixed, and therefore do not discuss the possibility of optimising resource allocation by adapting process structures to actual resource situations. To fill this gap, we propose a resource optimisation approach of improving process structures according to resource situations and thereby pursuing the best resource utilisation efficiency. This approach comprises a role‐based business process model for resource allocation and the strategies for optimising resource allocation in conjunction with a business process improvement. A set of heuristic rules are established to guide the resource allocation for the purposes of preventing resource conflicts, shortening the total execution time, minimising the total cost, etc. Particular algorithms are also developed to implement the resource allocation according to these rules. In addition, an experimental study is conducted to discuss the incorporation of business process improvement into resource allocation for optimal process execution. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Increasing the efficiency of business processes using a theory of constraints

In this study, a Theory of Constraints (TOC)-based method was developed to enhance the efficiency of business processes. Whereas the TOC has been employed in manufacturing processes, the present paper shows that it can be effective also for Business Process Management (BPM). In order to apply the TOC to business processes, a Drum-Buffer-Rope (DBR) scheduling method for a Business Process Management System (BPMS) was developed. A procedure by which business process efficiency can be improved using these concepts is presented. To validate our approach, a series of simulations of a real banking process was conducted, on the basis of which the applicability of the proposed method was analyzed. Based on the analysis results, we show that the TOC-based method can improve business process efficiency, particularly under heavy workloads with limited resources. And we suggest, accordingly, several guidelines that can be followed for the efficient management of business processes.     

How public conversation management integrated with local business process management

In order for enterprises to collaborate at the business-process level, they must deal with two kinds of processes: the public conversation processes specifying inter-enterprise document flows, and the private business processes specifying local workflows of document manipulation and other related tasks. The provisioning, interaction and integration of conversation management and business process management, have become the common interest of the e-business industry. In this paper we discuss the relationship and interaction between conversation management and business process management; point out the difference between public conversation processes (e.g. BPSS processes) and peer-conversation processes (e.g. BPEL4WS processes). We then illustrate our collaborative process management system that has functionally separated conversation manager and business process manager. The conversation manager is based on the ebXML BPSS standard; it is used for validating document exchange at run-time and for activating corresponding process tasks. We have also proposed the conversation model driven asynchronous task activation mechanism for interaction between a conversation process and the coupled business process dynamically. With this mechanism, generic APIs between the conversation manager and the business process manager can be easily defined and used by multiple plugged-in conversation managers.