Abstract
BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation) is currently the preferred standard for the representation and analysis of business processes. The elaboration of these BPMN diagrams is usually carried out in an entirely manual manner. As a result of this human-driven process, it is not uncommon to find diagrams that are not in their most simplified version possible (regarding the number of elements). This work presents a fully automatic method to simplify a BPMN process model document. A two-phase iterative algorithm to achieve this simplification is described in detail. This algorithm follows a heuristic approach that makes intensive use of a Pattern Repository. This software element is concerned with the description of feasible reductions and its enactment. The critical concept lies in the discovery of small reducible patterns in the whole model and their substitution with optimised versions. This approach has been verified through a double validation testing in total 8102 cases taken from real world BPMN process models. Details for its implementation and usage by practitioners are provided in this paper along with a comparison with other existing techniques concerned with similar goals.
Highlights
Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is an Object Management Group (OMG) standard for specifying business processes
This paper describes an approach for the simplification of a BPMN process model aimed to optimise the number of elements included in the workflow
From a high level of abstraction, and contrary to other approaches already mentioned in the literature review, the main objective in the current work is to achieve a simpler and more efficient model to use in combination with additional analysis and process mining techniques to improve the understanding of the model by a human user
Summary
Featured Application: To work with a simplified version of a BPMN model that condenses the information of interest can be very interesting from a human point of view (the understanding of the model is facilitated). An optimised version of a BPMN model can yield in more efficient results for mining process software and data analytic techniques
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