Analysis of process model reuse: Where are we now, where should we go from here?

Abstract

Business process model reuse means building up new business process models by assembling already designed ones. Significant effort has been made by researchers so far to promote reuse (e.g. via reference models or workflow patterns) and plenty of benefits are assumed (e.g., time and error reduction, quality improvement and productivity gain (Fellmann, 2014)). Contrary to this, the observation is that business process model reuse does not seem to be a common technique in order to design a business process model. To provide reasons for the lack of enthusiasm for business process model reuse, this paper presents the results of a profound analysis of business process model reuse from different perspectives: First, the state of research is unveiled in a comprehensive structured literature review of 143 papers. Second, the engagement of tool vendors to promote reuse is identified in an analysis of 32 Business Process Management systems (BPMS). Third, users' opinions concerning business process model reuse is assessed in two surveys. The integration of the results provides a holistic view on the current state of business process model reuse as well as on future research directions and implications for researchers, practitioners and tool vendors.