A Task Operation Model for Resource Allocation Optimization in Business Process Management

Abstract

Resource allocation, as an integral part of business process management (BPM), is more widely acknowledged by its importance for process-aware information systems. Despite the industrial need for efficient and effective resource allocation in BPM, few scientifically-grounded approaches exist to support these initiatives. In this paper, a new approach of resource allocation optimization is proposed, built on the concepts that is part of an operation-oriented view on process optimization. Essentially, the proposed approach automatically generates a specific task operation model (TOM) for a particular business process. In addition, in order to support end users in making sensible resource allocations, an ant colony optimization-based algorithm is presented, which makes it possible to search an optimal task operation path on the generated TOM. This allows one to suggest how a business user should efficiently allocate resources to perform the tasks of a particular process case. The feasibility of the presented approach is demonstrated by a simulation experiment. The experimental results show that the proposed approach outperforms reasonable heuristic approaches to satisfy process performance goals, and it is possible to improve the current state of BPM.