Genesis Dynamic Collaborative Business Process Formulation Based on Business Goals and Criteria

Abstract

This technical paper discusses the architectural design and implementation details of Genesis - a novel Web application which formulates business process definitions dynamically, given a user business goal and underlying business criteria (e.g. total order cost, type of sourcing methods, etc.). Guided by an algorithm that references a hierarchical ontology file containing business process task decomposition, Genesis traverses through the ontology and dynamically produces two types of output: (1) a graphical breakdown of task sequences and decompositions required to fulfill the user's business goals, and (2) an abstract BPEL file containing the control flow structures, and Web service invocation points needed to execute the collaborative business processes in a service-oriented environment. The outputs demonstrate the potential of Genesis as a standalone module which can provide dynamic capabilities, thereby complementing current service-oriented architecture (SOA) business-to-business (B2B) information systems which require hard-coded, inflexible business process definitions. An online demonstration of Genesis is available at http://imss.simtech.a-star.edu.sg/Genesis/.