Collaborative Business Processes Research Articles

Evaluating the appropriateness of the BPMN 2.0 standard for modeling service choreographies: using an extended quality framework

The concept of choreography has emerged over the past years as a foundational concept for capturing and managing collaborative business processes. The latest version of the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN 2.0) adopts choreography as a first-class citizen. However, it remains an open question whether BPMN 2.0 is actually appropriate for capturing this concept. In this paper, we extend an existing language evaluation framework in order to evaluate the support for choreographies in BPMN 2.0. The framework provides a means of identifying the strengths and weaknesses of BPMN 2.0 for choreographies. We also give potential solutions that may be taken into account in future extensions or improvements to BPMN 2.0.

Software Agents for Management Dynamic Inter-Organizational Collaborations

The globalization, modern markets, as well as new organizational management philosophies and advances in Information and Communications Technologies, encourage organizations to establish collaboration networks or inter-organizational collaborations. In this paper we propose a technology solution based on software agents which allows supporting the management of collaborative business processes in environments dynamic inter-organizational collaborations. First, we propose a software agent platform that integrates in agent specification's the notions of Belief-Desire-Intention agent architecture with functionalities of process-aware information systems. The platform enables organizations to negotiate collaborations agreements in electronic format to establish dynamic inter-organizational collaborations and define the collaborative processes to be executed. Second, we propose a methodology that includes methods based on Model-Driven Development, which enable the generation of executable process models and the code of process-oriented agents, derived from conceptual models of collaborative processes. This methodology and methods are implemented and automated by software agents that enable the generations of these implementation artifacts, at run-time of the platform. Therefore, the platform enables the automatic generation of the technology solution that requires each organization to execute the agreed collaborative processes, where the generated artifacts are built and initialized in the platform, allowing the implementation and execution of these processes. In this way, the proposed agent-based platform allows to establish collaboration among heterogeneous and autonomous organizations focusing in the process-oriented integration.

Cloud Manufacturing Service Paradigm for Group Manufacturing Companies

The continuous refinement of specialization requires that the group manufacturing company must be constantly focused on how to concentrate its core resources in special sphere to form its core competitive advantage. However, the resources in enterprise group are usually distributed in different subsidiary companies, which means they cannot be fully used, constraining the competition and development of the enterprise. Conducted as a response to a need for cloud manufacturing studies, systematic and detailed studies on cloud manufacturing schema for group companies are carried out in this paper. A new hybrid private clouds paradigm is proposed to meet the requirements of aggregation and centralized use of heterogeneous resources and business units distributed in different subsidiary companies. After the introduction of the cloud manufacturing paradigm for enterprise group and its architecture, this paper presents a derivation from the abstraction of paradigm and framework to the application of a practical evaluative working mechanism. In short, the paradigm establishes an effective working mechanism to translate collaborative business process composed by the activities into cloud manufacturing process composed by services so as to create a foundation resulting in mature traditional project monitoring and scheduling technologies being able to be used in cloud manufacturing project management.

Research on Collaborative Mechanism in Large and Complex Business Process Modeling

Large-scale and complicated business process modeling is not supported by traditional single-designer business process modeling tools. This paper investigates a collaborative business process modeling method based on top-down pattern, where the conflict issue in collaboration is explicitly accounted for. An access control mechanism is proposed and four rules of locking up are defined to restrict designers access to models. Then the locks impact on efficiency of collaborative modeling is deeply studied. At last an integrated multi-designer modeling system IPro is developed based on the above collaborative mechanism and applied to several business process modeling projects in aviation industry to validate the mechanism.

Interoperative end-user process modelling for process collaborative manufacturing

As business environments change rapidly, the ability to quickly set up a collaborative automated business processes is desirable. Collaborative business processes are increasingly driven by business agility, adaptability and flexibility, particularly in a modern manufacturing enterprise environment. Traditionally, collaborative business processes are used among big organisations. Many of collaborative business process systems are designed for a long-term use with central control. It is a great challenge for enterprises to adapt processes to the today's business pace. Today's enterprise users demand many situational collaborative business process applications which handle business needs within a short period and which normally do not need to support too many users. The traditional centrally controlled systems are not designed for such situational applications. In this paper, we explore how business process mashups can be used for manufacturing enterprise collaboration. We highlight the modelling of end-users process collaboration from both a control flow and a data flow perspective. Based on our analyses, an end-user process modelling approach is proposed for process enterprise mashup applications. Our approach, illustrated by reference to an example pharmaceutical collaborative manufacturing case, will support collaboration among users with different levels of modelling skills and expertise in a pharmaceutical manufacturing enterprise environment.

What Is Next for Intelligent Energy?

Guest editorial In recent years, many companies in the oil and gas industry have been making steady progress employing digital oilfield (DOF) solutions to improve operations through better data capture, visualization, analysis, and automation. As more implementations provide value to particular fields or assets, a question remains of how they can be leveraged as a whole to provide aggregate value at the business portfolio or corporate strategy levels. The large volume and detail of information that DOFs generate, not only in terms of data, but also decision outcomes, interpretations, and knowledge, both tacit and implicit, contribute significantly to a company’s intellectual capital. Looking at the business case, asset-level business drivers are normally defined by considering short-term benefits in light of immediate challenges. Because of the varied production environments and diverse approaches associated with DOF implementations, determining return on investment and value for an organization’s overall production business is difficult at best; it is analogous to an “apples vs. oranges” comparison of assets. For companies actively pursuing multiple DOF programs, managing commercial uncertainties is, therefore, a key challenge for allocating resources, defining a coherent vision, and ultimately determining the appropriate level of commitment, financial or otherwise. Applying this perspective, there is a clear opportunity, and corresponding challenge, to scale the DOF value proposition by smoothly integrating independent digital assets into a cohesive system by delivering a smarter, more comprehensive view of a company’s business portfolio. Toward this end, several key concepts and issues should be considered carefully in order to understand the implications of each implementation as the first step toward corporate value realization. Strategic Business Intelligence DOF solutions leverage real-time asset awareness, in combination with intelligent analytical tools and collaborative business processes, to continuously optimize production. Data is gathered and manipulated to create information, which in turn develops into knowledge for decision support. Knowledge is the critical piece and having the ability to exploit it to the benefit of the organization should be fundamental. This is the essence of business intelligence and is at the core of the DOF value proposition.

Gesture-Based Process Modeling Using Multi-Touch Devices

Contemporary business process modeling tools provide menu-based user interfaces for defining and visualizing process models. Such menu-based interactions have been optimized for applications running on desktop computers, but are limited regarding their use on multi-touch devices. At the same time, the widespread use of mobile devices in daily business life as well as their multi-touch capabilities offer promising perspectives for intuitively defining and changing business process models. Additionally, multi-touch tables will foster collaborative business process modeling based on natural as well as intuitive gestures and interactions. This paper presents the results of an experiment that investigated the way users define and change business process models using multi-touch devices. Based on experiment results, a core gesture set is designed enabling the easy definition and change of business process models with multi-touch devices. Finally, a proof-of-concept implementation of this core gesture set is presented. Overall, gesture-based process modeling and multi-touch devices will foster new ways of (collaborative) business process modeling.

Information Security System of the New Energy Automobile Production Line Based on RFID

The application of RFID technology in the new energy automobile manufacturing, can achieve that the visualization, on time and collaborative business processes of energy vehicles discrete manufacturing production process, to establish a advanced "just-in-time" production model, provide real-time and accurate information for production plans and management decisions, which will help to improve the quality of enterprise production management decision-making and the overall optimization of production operations management functions. On the basis of proposed mainly from management systems and supporting techniques to solve the security issues of the RFID system, give the basic framework of build the RFID system safety management system. The security of the RFID system is technically divided into two security domains, focusing on security issues by the reader to the application system. The intrusion detection technology is introduced in RFID system, and research on the improved of intrusion detection from two aspects: First, the use of clustering algorithm for data preprocessing to reduce the computational complexity, improve the detection efficiency; second, use immune particle swarm evolutionary algorithm directly improved feature selection to improve detection accuracy.

The Preliminary Discussion about Key Problems of Cross-Organizational Business Process Collaboration

With the rapid development of E-commerce on a global scale and the cooperation between enterprises has become increasingly frequent, it has a great impact on the overall efficiency and flexibility between the organizations that strengthen combined depth and solution the problem of the mutual connection between cross-organizational business processes. This article firstly expounds the formation and its important role of cross-organizational business process, and then proposed the model for cross-organizational business process collaboration. The model proposed is modeled from two aspects, namely, management model and business model. In the end, four key problems of cross-organizational business process collaboration are further discussed.

Research on Semantic SOA Framework Construction Oriented with Aviation Manufacturing

With the background of the Aviation repair service industry, based on the analysis of the disadvantages of the past information technology solutions used in aviation repair management system, combined with the product lifecycle management concept, an aviation repair system structure based on the semantic service oriented architecture was built, which includes resource layer, basic structure layer, implementation layer and application layer. Finally, we discussed business process collaboration between enterprises.

Collaborative Planning in Multi-tier Supply Chains Supported by a Negotiation-Based Mechanism and Multi-agent System

Effective business process collaboration between companies operating in a supply chain can bring about important benefits, but several barriers need to be overcome. One important obstacle evidenced by professionals is related to the information and communication technologies used to support such collaboration. Although a supplier and a manufacturer may be willing to establish a closer relationship, a lack of easy-to-operate enterprise applications can thwart their collaborative ambitions. Specific technologies are required for each type of collaborative business process as generic applications do not lend themselves to addressing complex situations. Complexity lies in the need to consider common standards for information and decision exchanges, and for designing and implementing the right information and decision flow among supply chain members to support collaborative processes. This paper focuses on collaboration of demand, production and replenishment planning along a supply chain, and proposes a multi-tier, negotiation-based mechanism supported by a multi-agent system. The research hypothesis is that improvements in the service and profit level of supply chain members, and in the entire supply chain, can be achieved by implementing this form of collaboration. The proposed collaborative planning model was used to address a real automotive supply chain configuration for the purpose of testing its appropriateness and validating its performance.

A methodology proposal for collaborative business process elaboration using a model-driven approach

Business process management (BPM) principles are commonly used to improve processes within an organisation. But they can equally be applied to supporting the design of an Information System (IS). In a collaborative situation involving several partners, this type of BPM approach may be useful to support the design of a Mediation Information System (MIS), which would ensure interoperability between the partners’ ISs (which are assumed to be service oriented). To achieve this objective, the first main task is to build a collaborative business process cartography. The aim of this article is to present a method for bringing together collaborative information and elaborating collaborative business processes from the information gathered (by using a collaborative situation framework, an organisational model, an informational model, a functional model and a metamodel and by using model transformation rules).

Construction collaborative networks: the case study of a building information modelling-based office building project

This paper proposes a model that captures the factors for the deployment of building information modelling (BIM) that are responsible for business interoperability in the context of collaborative business processes' construction networks. To validate the theoretical model, a case study is presented regarding a construction collaborative network, where a BIM-based office building project will be developed. The Business Interoperability Quotient Measurement Model (BIQMM) uses an interdisciplinary approach to capture the key elements responsible for collaboration performance and BIM platform configuration. Through the quantification of the relevance of each element to the particular collaboration scenario, and with the combination of the BIQMM with a multi-criteria decision-making tool, the analytical network process (ANP) approach, this model enables a quantitative analysis of business interoperability for BIM-based projects, so that an overall interoperability score can be calculated for enhanced performance measurements. The case study presents the application of the BIQMM and ANP and provides a comprehensive framework for interoperability measurement in BIM solution selection. This paper concludes by recognising that relationships between business interoperability and true architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) performance improvements and subsequent economic benefits derived from BIM-based approaches need to be further developed.

A distributed repository for managing business process models in cross-organizational collaborations

Cross-organizational collaborations require the management of models for: collaborative business processes (CBPs), which define the collaboration's behavior; and integration business processes (IBPs), which define the behavior that supports the role an organization performs in a CBP. Managing these business process models becomes a complex task when organizations integrate collaborative networks and set up several cross-organizational collaborations. This paper presents a distributed repository that provides the functionalities required to manage conceptual business process models involved in cross-organizational collaborations. A service-oriented architecture is proposed for the distributed repository. This architecture enables organizations to access a global repository for managing collaborative networks, cross-organizational collaborations, and their CBP models. Organizations can also maintain local repositories of IBP models, which are synchronized and consistent with CBP models, while preserving their private aspects. By using verification methods and a model-driven architecture method, the distributed repository provides services that support the synchronization, consistency and interoperability requirements for CBP and IBP models. A case study is presented along with an implementation of the distributed repository.

An MDA‐based framework for collaborative business process modelling

PurposeThis paper aims to present a new approach for developing a framework based on a model driven architecture (MDA) for the modelling of technology‐independent collaborative processes.Design/methodology/approachThe paper suggests a new collaborative process modelling approach based on an MDA and a metamodelling technique. The research method, based on the design science approach, was started by identifying the characteristics of the collaborative processes, which distinguish them from the classical intraorganizational ones. Then, the generic collaborative business process (CBP) modelling framework is developed based on MDA approach and definition of a set of transformation rules through three layers: business, process, and technical. After that, the core component of the framework was the proposition of a generic CBP metamodel at PIM/MDA level. The specific collaboration participant's business processes (expressed as BPMN model) are generated from the generic CBP model represented as an UML2 Profile activity diagram, which is compliant to CBP metamodel. Finally, as proof‐of‐concept, the architecture of an Eclipse‐based open development platform is developed implementing an e‐Procurement collaborative process.FindingsThe proposed framework for CBP modelling and the generic CBP metamodel contribute towards a more efficient methodology and have consequences for BPM‐related collaboration, facilitating the B2B processes modelling and implementation. In order to demonstrate and evaluate the practical applicability of the framework, the architecture of an Eclipse‐based open development platform is developed implementing a collaborative business application on the basis of an e‐Procurement use case.Research limitations/implicationsThere is a need to focus future research efforts on the improvement of the semi‐automatic transformation phase from public to private processes which needs human intervention by adding a suitable interfaces at both sides of the B2B interaction. In addition, the problem of semantic heterogeneities regarding the partner's business process elements (business documents, activity/task names) should be tackled by developing an approach that uses ontology.Practical implicationsBusiness processes developers find a B2B technology‐independent solution for implementing and using interorganizational information systems.Originality/valueThe paper provides a framework that enables the CBP modelling and integrates a generic CBP metamodel. Currently, to the best of the authors' knowledge, such a generic metamodel and his instantiation have not so far been developed.

Bringing knowledge into recommender systems

Recommender systems are largely used nowadays to support collaborative tasks. However, it is important to consider each user's knowledge of the system for the recommended subject. In this paper we describe the use of user knowledge to improve the recommender system of the Business Process Cooperative Editor (BPCE), a collaborative business process modeling tool. We use the concept of the Knowledge Vector, developed in a previous work on collaborative navigation, to factor user knowledge into recommendations.We present Knowledge Vectors and how they are applied to the editor. A simulation to evaluate the effectiveness of the editor's new recommender system is presented.

AN OVERVIEW OF WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT SYSTEM STRUCTURE IN THE SUPPLY CHAIN

Supply chain is an inter-enterprise process that connects upstream and downstream companies closely. In order to accelerate the information flow in supply chain, therefore, we need an inter-enterprise and integrated information sharing method. The information sharing among enterprises can be transparency. Upstream and downstream companies access virtual data warehouse. That makes enterprise can achieve customer quick response by supply chain management. This study mainly proposed a reference model to adopt fast information flow mechanism and transfer information from customer demand to the manufacturing facilities. Besides, this study reviewed some key points for supporting business process collaborations when organizations implemented the work flow management system. Finally, we proposed our major findings and future directions

Business-OWL (BOWL)—A Hierarchical Task Network Ontology for Dynamic Business Process Decomposition and Formulation

Collaborative Business Processes (cBPs) form the backbone of enterprise integration. With the growing reliance on the web as a medium of business collaboration, there is an increasing need to quickly and dynamically form cBPs. However, current Business-to-Business (B2B) information systems are still static in nature, and are unable to dynamically form cBPs based on high-level Business Goals (BGs)and their underlying criteria (e.g., item cost, product name, order quantity, etc). This paper introduces the Business-OWL (BOWL), an ontology rooted in the Web Ontology Language (OWL), and modeled as a Hierarchical Task Network (HTN) for the dynamic formation of business processes. An ontologized extension and augmentation of traditional HTN, BOWL describes business processes as a hierarchical ontology of decomposable business tasks encompassing all possible decomposition permutations. Through BOWL, high-level business goals (e.g., "Buy”) can be easily decomposed right down to the lowest level tasks (e.g., "Send Purchase Order”), effectively bridging the gap between high-level business goals with operational level tasks and complementing currently static business process modeling languages. The design of BOWL and a case study demonstrating its implementation are also discussed.

TiCoBTx-Net: A Model to Manage Temporal Consistency of Service-Oriented Business Collaboration

Business collaboration is about coordinating the flow of information among organizations and linking their business processes into a cohesive whole. Collaborative business processes are time critical within and across organizations and can become unreliable due to temporal inconsistency where processes cannot execute according to the agreed temporal policies. It is necessary to have a mechanism to manage temporal consistency in service-oriented business collaboration. In this paper, we propose a model named Timed Choreographical Business Transaction Net (TiCoBTx-Net) based on Hierarchical Colored Petri Net for individual business participants to specify and manage the temporal consistency in business collaboration. A series of temporal polices are formalized and checked in TiCoBTx-Net to enforce the temporal consistency at design time and runtime. A verification mechanism is also developed to clarify the status of temporal inconsistencies. Finally, the implementation details of the proposed mechanism is provided.

The Business Interoperability Quotient Measurement Model

Over the last decade, the context of interoperability has been changing rapidly. It has been expanding from the largely technically focused area of Information Systems toward Business Processes and Business Semantics. However, there exists a need for established methods to define Business Interoperability and provide for measuring its performance as a first step toward improving interoperability conditions between collaborating entities. This paper proposes a model that captures the factors that are responsible for Business Interoperability in the context of collaborative business processes. The Business Interoperability Quotient Measurement Model (BIQMM) uses an interdisciplinary approach to embrace the key elements responsible for collaboration performance. Through the quantification of the importance of each element to the particular collaboration scenario, and by combining the BIQMM with the Analytical Network Process (ANP) approach, this model enables a quantitative analysis of Business Interoperability, so that an overall interoperability score can be calculated for enhanced performance measurements. Two application scenarios are presented, validating the proposed model.