业务流程模型的BPEL实现

由于BPEL语言的XML表示十分冗长以及没有形式化的分析技术,其抽象级别不适合用于业务流程分析和设计.而业务流程分析师和设计者更容易接受高级别的抽象模式,例如BPMN(Business Process Modeling Notation).很多建模工具支持BPMN,但是到目前为止没有系统可直接执行BPMN模型.因此,需...     

A Comprehensive and Automated Approach to Intelligent Business Processes Execution Analysis

Business process management tools have traditionally focused on supporting the modeling and automation of business processes, with the aim of enabling faster and more cost-effective process executions. As more and more processes become automated, customers become increasingly interested in managing process executions. Specifically, there is a desire for getting more visibility into process executions, to be able to quickly spot problems and areas for improvements. The idea is that, by being able to assess the process execution quality, it is possible to take actions to improve and optimize process execution, thereby leading to processes that have higher quality and lower costs. All this is possible today, but involves the execution of specialized data mining projects that typically last months, costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, and only provide a specialized, narrow solution whose applicability is often relatively short in time, due to the ever changing business and IT environments. Still, the need is such that companies undertake these efforts.To address these needs, this paper presents a set of concepts and architectures that lay the foundation for providing users with intelligent analysis and predictions about business process executions. For example, the tools are able to provide users with information about why the quality of a process execution is low, what will be the outcome of a certain process, or how many processes will be started next week. This information is crucial to gain visibility into the processes, understand or foresee problems and areas of optimization, and quickly identify solutions. Intelligent analysis and predictions are achieved by applying data mining techniques to process execution data. In contrast to traditional approaches, where lengthy projects, considerable efforts, and specialized skills in both business processes and data mining are needed to achieve these objectives, we aim at automating the entire data mining process lifecycle, so that intelligent functionality can be provided by the system while requiring little or no user input. The ambitious end goal of the work presented in this paper is that of laying the foundation for a framework and tool that is capable of providing analysts with key intelligence information about process execution, affecting crucial IT and business decisions, almost literally at the click of a button.     

Workflow Business Template for Application Processes in Administration Department

The reuse of business-process and information specifications can reduce the cost of business design by helping to alleviate bottlenecks in the development of workflow systems. Using a new concept we call workflow design pattern, we create a library of standard business-process and information specifications to be used as workflow business template. Business design and system design are done by customizing the standard specifications. New support tools are used to implement the design result. By using this proposed method, the cost of system development can be reduced.     

Business Processes Verification for e-Government Service Delivery

Domain experts knowledge represents a major source of information in the design and the development of user-centric and distributed service-based applications, such as those of e-government. Issues related both to the communication among domain and IT experts, and to the implementation of domain dependent requirements in service-based applications, have to be carefully considered to support both Public Administrations efficiency and citizen satisfaction. In this article, we provide as user-friendly approach toward business process assessment via formal verification. Starting from a semi-formal notation, well understood and largely used by domain experts, we provide a mapping to a formal specification in the form of a process algebra. This transformation makes possible formal and automatic verification of desired quality requirements. The approach has been already applied, with encouraging results, in the e-government domain to verify the quality of business processes related to the delivery of e-government digital services to citizens. Moreover, the approach is supported by a plug-in for the Eclipse platform permitting to have an integrated environment in which to design the process model and to assess its quality.     

协同业务过程建模与行为验证

对协同业务过程进行建模和行为验证是确保业务过程正确实施的关键。文中提出了一种协同业务过程的建模和行为验证方法。首先,该方法使用有限状态自动机建模每个参与组织的业务过程,并通过集中式消息缓冲区,将业务过程异步组合为协同业务过程;其次,提出了行为约束的声明式模板,用于定义协同业务过程中的行为约束关系,并通过映射规则,将行为约束关系转换为LTL(Linear Temporal Logic)公式;最后,提出了行为验证框架,借助进程分析工具PAT,实现了对协同业务过程行为的自动验证。通过对电力突发公共事件应急处置系统的建模与行为验证,阐述了所提方法的可行性和有效性。     

一种目标驱动的移动业务流程的分析方法

随着移动互联网的发展,如何改进现有的业务流程来更好地满足用户的需求成为企业普遍面临的问题。然而,对于企业中哪些业务需要移动化以及如何移动化,目前仍然缺乏相应的分析方法。针对该问题,提出一种基于目标的移动业务流程分析方法。该方法认为企业的各个业务流程都是为了满足一定的用户需求,因此提出建立企业业务流程模型与用户需求模型之间的对应关系,然后通过识别移动环境下用户需求的变化来改进企业的业务流程。以一个医院的业务流程为案例说明了所提方法的可行性。     

Measurement of Compliance Distance in Business Processes

Abstract

Ensuring that work practice is compliant to regulations and industrial standards is an increasingly important issue in business systems. Whereas as an understanding of control objectives that stem from various legislative, standard and contractual sources may be found at strategic or tactical levels, an assessment of their effective adoption in operational practices is extremely hard. In this paper, we propose a method for assessing the level of compliance in business work practice. The method builds upon business process management platforms, and provides the ability to objectively measure the compliance distance of existing processes within the organization. This in turn empowers process designers and business analysts to quantify the effort required to achieve a compliant process.     

时间Petri网在企业经营过程重组中的应用研究

本文给出了时间Petri网对企业经营过程中的生产流水线进行建模，并将之与工作流管理系统相结合以进行仿真分析的一种方案；结合实例说明方案的实施过程，其中关键在于约束条件的充定；通过消除“瓶颈”优化生产流水线，实现企业经营过程的有效重组。     

Web服务环境中的业务过程建模语言比较框架

基于Web服务的价值链集成越来越受到人们的重视,相应的业务过程建模语言成为研究的焦点,各具特色的业务过程建模语言不断出现,对语言的研究、分析和比较已经成为基于Web服务的信息系统集成研究和开发中的一个重要问题。该文在分析Web服务环境下系统集成的体系结构模型基础上,提出了一个Web服务环境下业务过程建模语言比较框架,作为验证,对常见的建模语言进行了比较分析和评述。     

Formalisms to Support the Definition of Processes

This paper emphasizes the importance of defining processes rigorously, completely, clearly, and in detail in order to support the complex projects that are essential to the modern world. The paper argues that such process definitions provide needed structure and context for the development of effective software systems. The centrality of process is argued by enumerating seven key ways in which processes and their definitions are expected to provide important benefits to society. The paper provides an example of a process formalism that makes good progress towards the difficult goal of being simultaneously rigorous, detailed, broad, and clear. Early experience suggests that these four key characteristics of this formalism do indeed seem to help it to support meeting the seven key benefits sought from process definitions. Additional research is suggested in order to gain more insights into needs in the area of process definition formalisms. This material is based upon the work supported by the US National Science Foundation under Award Nos. CCR-0427071, CCR-0204321 and CCR-0205575. The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the author and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of the National Science Foundation, or the U.S. Government.     

Unraveling Iterative Control Structures from Business Processes

Iterative control structures allow the repeated execution of tasks,activities or sub-processes according to the given conditions in a process model.Iterative control structures can significantly increase the risk of triggering temporal exceptions since activities within the scope of these control structures could be repeatedly executed until a predefined condition is met.In this paper,we propose two approaches to unravel iterative control structures from process models.The first approach unravels loops based on zero-one principle.The second approach unravels loops based on branching probabilities assigned at split gateways.The proposed methods can be used to unfold structured loops,nested loops and crossing loops.Since the unfolded model does not contain any iterative control structures,it can be used for further analysis by process designers during the modeling phase.The proposed methods are implemented based on workflow graphs,and therefore they are compatible with modeling languages such as Business Process Modelling Notation(BPMN).In the experiments,the execution behavior of unfolded process models is compared against the original models based on the concept of runs.Experimental results reveal that runs generated from the original models can be correctly executed in the unfolded BPMN models that do not contain any loops.     

一种跨边界业务过程集成平台

针对分布式异构环境下业务过程集成效率低、动态性差等问题,文章提出了一种跨边界业务过程集成模型,通过将跨边界业务过程集成模型构建为包含业务过程层、自治域内业务过程集成层以及跨边界业务过程集成层三个层次的层次模型,将每层问题简化,并通过层次间的紧密耦合解决复杂的实际问题。基于层次模型构建基于WebService的业务过程集成平台的体系结构,并利用业务过程动态协商技术,动态选择可提供个性化服务的服务提供者,按照合作双方协商结果进行实际业务过程集成,以提高跨边界业务过程集成的效率和动态适应能力。     

Linking Business Processes and Information Systems Provision in a Dynamic Environment

This paper discusses decision and communication processes which link strategic activity in a business with information systems development activity. We develop a model which illustrates these processes as observed in one company (AXA Sun Life, Bristol HQ), but we suggest there may be generalizable features. We use Role Activity Diagrams as our diagramming method.In most organizations it is impractical to achieve a fully articulated business model and IS architecture. Organizations do try to make development (or acquisition) of information systems which will serve business needs as orderly as they can, in circumstances which are inherently complex and unstable. We suggest that the degree of regularity which is achieved in IS development within the business context comes not so much from following one overarching plan, as from a continuous process of adjustment, in which local short-term plans are weighed against current understanding of the business's key interests. What is needed to aid this process is a general framework of communication and decision making within which plans can be reviewed and modified in the light of changing circumstances. This paper presents an attempt to reveal and represent such a framework.     

商业智能和业务流程管理的集成分析

本文分析了商业智能和业务流程管理进行集成的重要性和主要方式,阐明了利用商业智能来管理和优化业务流程可以帮助决策者在考虑企业的整体状况下更快、更科学地决策,避免孤立地管理流程;而决策者置身于流程之中并以一致的方式来处理事务又可以帮助商业智能的用户更加关注于应优先处理的事情。     

业务过程协同中数据恢复策略建模及分析

业务过程协同允许组织之间彼此进行通信,交互和协作以完成特定的业务目标。为了确保实施的正确性和一致性,需要对业务过程协同进行建模和分析,但现有的工作鲜有关注于从架构的视角和数据的层次来对其进行讨论。为此,首先提出了一种“代理端 盟主端”业务过程协同架构;其次,通过对该协同架构进行分析,提出了一种业务过程协同的数据恢复通用模型;最后,基于该通用模型,提出了数据恢复策略模型,以此为基础提出了五种数据恢复策略并采用随机Petri网对其进行建模与仿真。实验结果表明,采用最短队列随机恢复策略能够使得业务过程协同应用在协同中确保高的系统吞吐量、快的响应时间及低的拒绝率。     

Domain Modelling and the Co-Design of Business Rules in the Telecommunication Business Area

This paper discusses the development of an enterprise domain model in an environment where part of the domain knowledge is vague and not yet formalised in company-wide business rules. The domain model was developed for a young company starting in the telecommunications sector. The company relied on a number of stand-alone business support systems and sought for a manner to integrate them. There was opted for the development of an enterprise-wide domain model that had to serve as an integration layer to coordinate the stand-alone applications. A specific feature of the company was that it could build up its information infrastructure form scratch, so that many aspects of its business were still in the process of being defined. The paper will highlight parts of the Enterprise Model where there was a need for co-designing business rules together with the domain model. A result of this whole effort was that the company got more insight into important domain knowledge and developed a common understanding across functional areas of the way of doing business.     

Grid Service Orchestration Using the Business Process Execution Language (BPEL)

Modern scientific applications often need to be distributed across Grids. Increasingly applications rely on services, such as job submission, data transfer or data portal services. We refer to such services as Grid services. While the invocation of Grid services could be hard coded in theory, scientific users want to orchestrate service invocations more flexibly. In enterprise applications, the orchestration of web services is achieved using emerging orchestration standards, most notably the Business Process Execution Language (BPEL). We describe our experience in orchestrating scientific workflows using BPEL. We have gained this experience during an extensive case study that orchestrates Grid services for the automation of a polymorph prediction application. Using this example, we explain the extent with which the BPEL language supports the definition of scientific workflows. We then describe the reliability, performance and scalability that can be achieved by executing a complex scientific workflow with ActiveBPEL, an industrial strength but freely available BPEL engine. *The work has been funded by the UK EPSRC through grants GR/R97207/01 (e-Materials) and GR/S90843/01 (OMII Managed Programme).     

基于模型的业务流程建模平台研究与实现*

提出了基于BPMN规范的三维业务流程模型,并采用模型驱动的开发方法和基于Eclipse插件实现了原型系统OnceBPD;最后利用该系统展示了一个旅行登记流程模型的案例。     

Entity-Centric Operations Modeling for Business Process Management: A Multidisciplinary Review of the State-of-the-Art

The entity-based approach for operations modeling was published for the first time three decades ago. Specifically, the notion of entities as the main subjects of processes and entity life-cycle as a technique for dynamic modeling of operations were introduced independently by K. Robinson in 1979, C. Rosenquist in 1982 and M. Jackson in 1983. This modeling work emerged in clear contrast with static entity-relationship modeling found in the data-base tradition. These three pioneer contributions and other substantial research done at the realm of information engineering, structured systems analysis and social sciences in the 80''s and 90''s have established an important foundation for business operations modeling. On the other hand, Business Process Management (BPM) has continued to receive great attention from practitioners and scholars. Being one of the main hinges between theory and practice of business operations, BPM enjoys contributions from several domains of research such as economics, social sciences, engineering and computing. In spite of its steady growth, the industry side of BPM seems to have evolved somewhat unaware of related progress in the above sister disciplines. Specifically, recent claims on the need to integrate information and activities in process modeling and some rediscoveries of core ideas from entity-based dynamic modeling offer some examples of the disconnection. These and other findings suggest that the BPM field may not have yet fully benefited from the work done in the tradition of structured analysis, information engineering and process theory schools. Furthermore, the possibility of using entity life-cycle for modeling operations addressed by Case Management is an important byproduct. Entity-based life cycle offers a conceptual framework to integrate different types of enterprise operations whose modeling has not yet been reconciled in the BPM tradition. This paper presents an in-depth, multidisciplinary review of the state-of-the-art on entity life cycle modeling. The focus of this review is exclusively on modeling concepts and methodology while tools, programming models and other aspects of entity-life life cycle implementation will be addressed in companion papers. This review should also help pave more holistic approaches to business process modeling.     

基于语义的业务流程一致性评价

随着Internet技术的不断发展,电子商务中的B2B应用也逐渐成为企业之间进行业务活动的主要依托技术,企业定义了自己的业务流程,双方业务流程的一致性在业务伙伴间的协作中扮演着非常重要的角色。目前,已经有诸如BPEL4WS和ebXML这样的电子商务技术能够使得企业在业务流程级进行协作,但这些技术均是基于XML技术,所提供的功能主要是语法上的,很少涉及他们的业务流程的一致性评价。为此,扩展了ebXML框架以支持业务流程的一致性评价,设计了一个一致性评价代理来执行客户企业的需要,并搜寻ebXML注册中心的潜在伙伴的业务信息,基于良好定义的一致性标准测试他们与客户企业业务流程间的一致性,最后提交一个评价结果给客户企业。通过这样的过程,客户企业能够找到合适的业务伙伴。而且,采用了语义网的方法,使得评价的结果更加准确。