Business Process Management Systems Research Articles

О завершаемости транзакций над семантическими документными моделями

We consider the framework of Document Modeling, which lays the formal basis for representing the document lifecycle in Business Process Management systems. We formulate document models in the scope of the logic-based Semantic Modeling language and study the question whether transactions given by a document model terminate on any input. We show that in general this problem is undecidable and formulate sufficient conditions, which guarantee decidability and polynomial boundedness of effects of transactions.

Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things to Improve Governance, Financial Management and Control of Crisis: Case Study COVID-19

Today, the coronavirus infection COVID-2019 deals a devastating blow to the economies of most countries due to disruption of production chains, the bankruptcy of small and medium-sized businesses, increasing the number of unemployed, and more. Under these conditions, the coverage of digitalization of all sectors of the economy and basic spheres of life of citizens becomes especially important. The article is devoted to the analysis of the possibilities of the latest blockchain technologies, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things in view of their impact on the transformation of the business process management system. The study used methods of bibliographic analysis of scientific publications and analytical reports of international organizations related to the concept of “Industry 4.0” and diseases of coronavirus infection, analyzing from the audit point of view, how to reinforce the principles of transparency, responsibility, and participation. It has been proven that blockchain technology is able to service online payments without intermediaries, receipt, and transfer of digital assets, as well as political elections and voting. Artificial intelligence models can help map, manage, predict, and model complex processes, reducing uncertainty, and supporting professionals in decision-making. The Internet of Things allows you to transfer information, improve control and automation, and provide opportunities to optimize the company’s operating costs. The result of the study can be practically valuable for many stakeholders: auditors – conducting audits by artificial intelligence; public administration – developing measures to address the economic, social and political crisis triggered by the pandemic, by building trust between government and citizens through communication, and by ensuring transparency and accountability. Keywords: blockchain, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, COVID-19, health care crisis, economic crisis, political crisis, control, public administration, financial management.

Petri Net Based Data-Flow Error Detection and Correction Strategy for Business Processes

Conceptual modeling, which includes both control-flow and data-flow modeling, has posed great challenges for conventional business process management systems. To support systematic data-flow modeling and analysis, in this paper, we propose a novel and effective Petri net-based approach. We first introduce a new type of Petri net, called WFIO-net, the firing rule of which is formally defined by extending classical Petri net with read and write semantics, to model both the control-flow and data-flow information. Then, we discuss about three possible data-flow errors over a WFIO-net, i.e., the missing, redundant and conflicting data errors. To detect such data-flow errors, we develop a polynomial complexity algorithm based on the so-called Activity Data Incidence Matrix (ADIM) of a WFIO-net. Following by that, we propose three effective correction strategies to resolve the detected data-flow anomalies. Finally, we present a property loan approval business process case study for our approach, and the study results demonstrate that the proposed detection and correction approaches are indeed very effective and can be applied to real-life settings.

BPM motivations framework for digital challenges: lessons learned from customer use cases

Abstract In this paper we develop a BPM motivations framework for the era of digital transformation. An investigation of the motivations that trigger and guide Business Process Management (BPM) initiatives enabled us to examine whether these initiatives take advantage of the traditional understanding of BPM or of the emerging new perception of BPM in the time of digital transformation. This research is based on an analysis of 290 customer use cases published on-line by BPM systems vendors. We used the empirical/conceptual approach to framework development, basing the empirical analysis on a qualitative data-coding canon and conclusions from the literature regarding the role of BPM in the digital world. As a result of our research, we constructed a classification framework for BPM motivations that consists of four categories: operational and managerial motivations, IT-enabled motivations, customer centric motivations and motivations focused on digital transformation. In addition, we present the results of quantitative summaries for the distinguished categories and how they are embedded in the evolution of BPM. Our main contribution is the proposal of a framework of BPM motivations for the new challenges confronting BPM in the time of digital transformation, with highlights of the new role of BPM in this context. This framework serves as a guide for further research on BPM motivation patterns, particularly in the context of digital transformations.

Mechanism of an improvement of business processes management system for food production: case of meat products enterprise

On the basis of the conducted researches it is revealed that introduction of process approach at the studied enterprise is caused by a number of features without which creation of the process focused control system is impossible. From the most significant features are distinguished such, as a set of technological, production, operating and providing processes; high complexity of processes; production continuity; huge number of standard and technical documentation; duration of processes in time; specificity of the capital equipment. The analysis of the quality management system at the Becker & K LLP enterprise is carried out; QMS business processes on IDEF0 methodology are developed. On the example of business process To realize product release actions for improvement of the mechanism of the business processes management system at the Becker & K LLP are developed. Process of production and storage of products is considered and on its example the technique of assessment of the process approach effectiveness for the enterprise is offered. The process model of management, and also action for improvement of activity of the enterprise is developed.

Blockchain and Internet of Things for Modern Business Process in Digital Economy—the State of the Art

In addition to functionalities, business process management (BPM) involves several key indicators such as openness, security, flexibility, and scalability. Optimizing system performance is becoming a great challenge for an ever-increasing large-scale distributed application system in the digital economy on the Internet of Things (IoT) era. In a centralized BPM, many indicators, such as security and openness, or cost and flexibility, are conflicting with each other. For example, inviting new partners across enterprises, domains, and regions to form a service workflow exposes new risks and needs additional security mechanisms for scrutiny; enhancing the flexibility of business workflow compositions increases the cost of security assurance. Blockchain technology (BCT) has thrown the light on the development of vital solutions to various BPM problems. BCT has to be integrated with other BPM system components that often involve IoT devices to implement specified functionalities related to the application. Currently, the potentials of using BCT have been explored although still at an early stage. In this paper, the states of the art are presented to identify emerging research topics, challenges, and promising applications in integrating BCT into the development of BPM.

Real-time Prediction and Synchronization of Business Process Instances using Data and Control Perspective

Nowadays, in a competitive and dynamic environment of businesses, organizations need to moni-tor, analyze and improve business processes with the use of Business Process Management Systems(BPMSs). Management, prediction and time control of events in BPMS is one of the major chal-lenges of this area of research that has attracted lots of researchers. In this paper, we present a4-phase pipeline approach to the problem of synchronizing each pair of dependent process instancesto arrive at the corresponding pair of tasks simultaneous or near-simultaneous. In the rst phase,the process model is mined from the event log and enriched by the probabilistic distributions oftime information. In the second phase, the hidden processing dependency between the each pair ofdependent process instances is formally de ned and is mined from the event log. In the third phase,a process state prediction algorithm is presented to predict the future route of process instance andthen predict the remaining time of the process instance to a given point in a predicted route of thebusiness process. In the fourth phase, an iterative synchronization algorithm is presented based onthe presented process state prediction algorithm to make each pair of dependent process instancesarrive at the corresponding pair of tasks simultaneous or near-simultaneous. Experimental resultson a real-life event log of BPI challenge 2012 show that the proposed method leads to 39% reductionin cycle time for dependent process instances.

About necessity to regulate and automate processes in the quality management systems of the mechanical engineering branch

The article analyzes the effectiveness of the quality management systems that operate at a number of enterprises. The main problem in most cases is determined as weak usage of the process approach in business-process management. To eliminate this problem, the authors offere to apply a process approach in the quality management systems of engineering enterprises for the purpose of receiving actual processes. Based on these processes and modern software tools, regulatory documentation is generated with the subsequent transition to the implementation of executable processes or BPM-systems (Business Process Management System). The regulation of business processes provides employees with regulatory documentation, and application of executable processes eliminates the “human” factor in process management. In addition, it is possible to monitor performance indicators and use the Deming cycle to continuously improve product quality. The practical realization of the project has been done in the framework of the Russian business-modeling software “Business Studio” and “Elma”.

How Robot/human Orchestration Can Help in an HR Department: A Case Study From a Pilot Implementation

Abstract Background and Purpose: Motivation of this research is to explore the current trend in automating the business processes through software robots (Robotic Process Automation – RPA) and its managing within enterprise environment where most of the processes are executed by human workforce. As the RPA technology expands the demand for its coordinating grows as well. The possible solution to this challenge is shown in case study research in form of implementing orchestration platform to a concrete business process of onboarding in HR department of a multinational company. The aim of this paper is to explore the phases and activities of the pilot project implementation of Robotic Service Orchestration (RSO) in combination with RPA technology and to assess the potential benefits. Design/Methodology/Approach: Case study research approach was selected to explore the research phenomena, which is the implementation of RSO platform in combination with RPA technology and assessing incoming benefits. The case is formed with 2 companies – (1) multinational company with ongoing effort of automating onboarding process, (2) technology and consulting company delivering the automation solution. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with respondents from two involved companies and by analysing internal documents. Results: The analysis of case provided in this paper revealed some key insights: (1) strategical position of RSO and tactical position of RPA towards the existing legacy systems, (2) need for increased focus on initial process modelling phase, (3) Application Programming Interface (API) integration is more viable solution for RPA, (4) the biggest benefit of RPA - its agility, (5) future potential of the RSO replacing the BPMS. Conclusions: First of all, there is a need of higher number of software robots adopted in a company before orchestration could pay off. On the other side, current Business Process Management Systems (BPMS) solutions don’t offer functionalities for managing human and software robots workforce altogether. RPA is expected to expand and without proper orchestration the effectivity will not grow constantly.

BAMN: a modeling method for business activity monitoring systems

ABSTRACTBusiness Activity Monitoring (BAM) is a real-time process analytics concept, which provides low-latency insights into process performance. The development of BAM systems requires the specification of aggregated process metrics, instance measures to monitor process instances, and links to data producers as well as data consumers so that the origin of metrics can be traced as can its impact and potential reactions. Common process modeling methods, such as BPMN, do not cover monitoring aspects. This paper proposes a modeling method to specify BAM systems, the Business Activity Monitoring Notation (BAMN), as a vehicle for users to create shared representations of BAM requirements, BAM specifications, and BAM systems. The method covers insight-to-action feedback loops, which can enable BPM systems to react automatically on BAM observations or inferences rather than displaying information only. BAMN includes BPM-related constructs, a notation as well as a procedure model and guidance on serializing models into code.

Optimal autonomous architecture for uncertain processes management

An uncertain Business Process Management System (BPMS) capability is Business Processes (BPs) management in the presence of uncertain factors. This ability should be defined by different uncertain computer-based components inside the classic BPMSs operations. This study proposed autonomous and combinatorial optimal process management architecture to increase the ability, flexibility, and accuracy of uncertain processes management. The autonomous architecture based on the bi-level optimization approach has been constructed inward a meta-model of multi-agent system technology, optimal Neural Network and Cellular Learning Automata in different agents. A case study of an uncertain business process evolving the closed loop supply chain was studied. The results of the simulated case and the statistical evaluation of it, have been demonstrated the robustness and accuracy of this new proposed architecture.

Caterpillar: A business process execution engine on the Ethereum blockchain

SummaryBlockchain platforms, such as Ethereum, allow a set of actors to maintain a ledger of transactions without relying on a central authority and to deploy programs, called smart contracts, that are executed whenever certain transactions occur. These features can be used as basic building blocks for executing collaborative business processes between mutually untrusting parties. However, implementing business processes using the low‐level primitives provided by blockchain platforms is cumbersome and error‐prone. In contrast, established business process management systems (BPMSs), such as those based on the standard Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN), provide convenient abstractions for rapid development of process‐oriented applications. This article demonstrates how to combine the advantages of a BPMS with those of a blockchain platform. The article introduces a blockchain‐based BPMN execution engine, named Caterpillar. Like any BPMN execution engine, Caterpillar supports the creation of instances of a process model and allows users to monitor the state of process instances and to execute tasks thereof. The specificity of Caterpillar is that the state of each process instance is maintained on the (Ethereum) blockchain and the workflow routing is performed by smart contracts generated by a BPMN‐to‐Solidity compiler. The Caterpillar compiler supports a large array of BPMN constructs, including subprocesses, multiple‐instance activities, and event handlers. The paper describes the architecture of Caterpillar and the interfaces it provides to support the monitoring of process instances, the allocation and execution of work items, and the execution of service tasks.

Optimization of a service it company’s business processes functional structure

The paper proposes an approach to optimizing the functional structure of the business processes of a service IT company based on the business process management system as an active self-organized, viable system that takes into account the peculiarities of the information technology industry development. This allows to optimize the structure of business processes through adequate positioning and formal description of the whole set of complex hierarchical interconnections with the aim of transition from hierarchical to functional structure of enterprise’s business processes taking into consideration the relationships between elements. The designed business process management system is considered as a set of strategic, tactical and operational business processes that are interrelated within a single strategic goal. The graph of the functional tasks of the investigated service IT company is formed, which reflects the incidence and closeness of the links between business processes. The model of optimization of the functional structure of business processes is proposed based on the algorithm, which involves minimizing the total connections of the subsets of the vertices of the functional graph, with the help of which the optimal restructured system of business processes was constructed, which increases the efficiency of management of the investigated service IT company. The advantages and disadvantages of the restructured functional structure of the service IT company’s business processes were analyzed. It is determined that the restructuring of the business process system will be effective only with changes in the enterprise processes management based on appropriate management strategies.

A highly efficient algorithm towards optimal data storage and regeneration cost in multiple clouds

Abstract The proliferation of cloud computing provides flexible ways for users to utilize cloud resources to cope with data complex applications, such as Business Process Management (BPM) System. In the BPM system, users may have various usage manner of the system, such as upload, generate, process, transfer, store, share or access variety kinds of data, and these data may be complex and very large in size. Due to the pay-as-you-go pricing model of cloud computing, improper usage of cloud resources will incur high cost for users. Hence, for a typical BPM system usage, data could be regenerated, transferred and stored with multiple clouds, and a data storage, transfer and regeneration strategy is needed to reduce the cost of resource usage. The current state-of-art algorithm can find a strategy that achieves minimum data storage, transfer and computation cost, however, this approach has very high computation complexity and is neither efficient nor practical to be applied at runtime. In this paper, by thoroughly investigating the trade-off problem of resources utilization, we propose a Provenance Candidates Elimination (PCE) algorithm, which can efficiently find the minimum cost strategy for data storage, transfer and regeneration. Through comprehensive experimental evaluation, we demonstrate that our approach can efficiently calculate the minimum cost data storage and regeneration strategy, which outperforms the exiting algorithm by 2 to 4 magnitudes.

A Similarity-Based Hierarchical Clustering Method for Manufacturing Process Models

As the adoption of information technologies increases in the manufacturing industry, manufacturing companies should efficiently manage their data and manufacturing processes in order to enhance their manufacturing competency. Because smart factories acquire processing data from connected machines, the business process management (BPM) approach can enrich the capability of manufacturing operations management. Manufacturing companies could benefit from the well-defined methodologies and process-centric engineering practices of this BPM approach for optimizing their manufacturing processes. Based on the approach, this paper proposes a similarity-based hierarchical clustering method for manufacturing processes. To this end, first we describe process modeling based on the BPM-compliant standard so that the manufacturing processes can be controlled by BPM systems. Second, we present similarity measures for manufacturing process models that serve as a criterion for the hierarchical clustering. Then, we formulate the hierarchical clustering problem and describe an agglomerative clustering algorithm using the measured similarities. Our contribution is considered on the assumption that a manufacturing company adopts the BPM approach and it operates various manufacturing processes. We expect that our method enables manufacturing companies to design and manage a vast amount of manufacturing processes at a coarser level, and it also can be applied to various process (re)engineering problems.

Эволюция системы управления бизнес-процессами в кредитных организациях

The paper features the main trends in the technological development of the banking industry in the Russian Federation. The tendencies determine the prospects of structural changes in the banking sector at the basic level in the near future. The article describes the probable consequences of intensive introduction of technological innovations in traditional banking from the point of view of changes in infrastructure on a national scale. It includes a review of new financial technologies in the banking industry, reflecting the evolution of the business process management system in credit institutions, based on the changes in their infrastructure. The research is conducted from the position of personal practical experience of the author. It concentrates business processes in credit institutions (banks) in terms of processing credit applications of legal entities and individual entrepreneurs. The expansion of the conceptual and categorical apparatus of the field of banking is considered from the position of introduction of new information technologies. The authors propose an image of the future business process management system in banking organizations. They describe the tasks facing the management of a credit institution concerning the structural and qualitative changes in the business process management. Its basic principles include removal of all stages of lending to legal entities outside the regional infrastructure; revision of risk management; introduction of scoring algorithms in the risk assessment of a potential credit transaction. All these aspects can be interesting and promising subjects for further research.

Batch activity: enhancing business process modeling and enactment with batch processing

Organizations strive for efficiency in their business processes by process improvement and automation. Business process management (BPM) supports these efforts by capturing business processes in process models serving as blueprint for a number of process instances. In BPM, process instances are typically considered running independently of each other. However, batch processing–the collectively execution of several instances at specific process activities—is a common phenomenon in operational processes to reduce cost or time. Currently, batch processing is organized manually or hard-coded in software. For allowing stakeholders to explicitly represent their batch configurations in process models and their automatic execution, this paper provides a concept for batch activities and describes the corresponding execution semantics. The batch activity concept is evaluated in a two-step approach: a prototypical implementation in an existing BPM System proves its feasibility. Additionally, batch activities are applied to different use cases in a simulated environment. Its application implies cost-savings when a suitable batch configuration is selected. The batch activity concept contributes to practice by allowing the specification of batch work in process models and their automatic execution, and to research by extending the existing process modeling concepts.

Edge Process Management: A case study on adaptive task scheduling in mobile IoT

Service-oriented standards and architectures provide a useful way of interfacing Internet of Things (IoT) devices with each other and outside applications, while managing the IoT-related automation and decision-making. Specifically, Business Process Management Systems (BPMS) and its’ standards (e.g. BPMN 2.0) help model the composition of devices and tasks involved in an IoT workflow. The conventional centralized BPMS architecture, where remote servers handle decision-making and orchestration, does not fit IoT paradigms such as Edge- and Fog Computing, where adaptability and de-centralized processing is required. Edge Process Management (EPM) aims to adapt BPMS to such requirements. For instance, in case the users smartphone is executing processes involving communication with nearby fog servers, the process execution engine needs to consider user mobility and available fog servers to ensure energy-efficient and adaptive edge process execution. We propose an EPM system architecture featuring a delay-aware fog server selection scheme that optimizes cost-efficiency of edge processes based on run-time context factors such as user movement, fog server load and location. We demonstrate a prototype implementation using this scheme alongside existing BPMS software and evaluate the performance of the server selection with simulated experiments, showing how interrupted connections are avoided and energy efficiency is improved.

Resistance to change in BPM implementation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate individuals’ attitudes toward organizational change, considering each phase of a business process management (BPM) implementation and some antecedents of resistance as hierarchical position, sector and trust in management.Design/methodology/approachThe study examines employees’ attitudes toward BPM change in the Brazilian market. To measure resistance to organizational change, the research adopted the change attitude scale developed by Oreg (2006). As potential antecedents for resistance, hierarchical position, sector and trust in management were considered. Five control variables were included: gender, company size, educational background, educational level and age range. The application of the survey considered three main parties: BPM implementers, BPM end-users and developers of BPM systems. The survey data, drawn from 113 useable questionnaires, were analyzed by structural equation modeling with partial least squares estimation.FindingsThe results of this research showed some interesting insights. First, hierarchical position has no significant effect on the reduction of resistance to process improvement changes. Contrary to what was expected, results showed that being in the manufacturing sector has no significant effect on the reduction of resistance. Finally, only trust in management has a significant effect on employees’ attitudes toward BPM implementation, and as phases go by this effect increases.Practical implicationsThe paper could support BPM decision makers by providing a better understanding of employees’ attitudes toward BPM change. In this sense, the study could also provide real-life application, by facilitating the task of allocating priorities and supporting process-related decisions.Originality/valueThe research could incentivize a closer relationship between BPM implementers and BPM end-users, promoting opportunities, respect and mutual trust.

Adaptive control of criticality infrastructure in automatic closed-loop supply chain considering uncertainty

There are many processes in the business world which are dependent on Critical Infrastructure Systems (CISs) to provide important services. Hence, undesirable behaviors of these processes can provide cascading disturbances and might cause high impacts on criticality infrastructure in Automatic Closed-Loop Supply Chain (A-CLSC). Thus, this level of vulnerability needs to monitor and control the disturbances related to uncertain parameters. In order to develop the controller component inward uncertain Business Process Management System (BPMS), the authors provided adaptive controller considering uncertainty, which could be tuned with an intelligent algorithm called Improved Particle Swarm Optimization (IPSO). In addition to multi-objective optimization, the novel controller has been used to control the two most important activities includes inventory and transportation evolving the criticality infrastructure in A-CLSC at the desired behavior as a simulation and practical case study. Furthermore, the proposed IPSO algorithm has been compared against legendary methods such as adaptive PSO (APSO) and classic PSO. Also, the paper has been provided some metrics to statistical evaluation of proposed method performance. The results indicated the better set response of the new controller to control the A-CLSC as well as effective control of CISs.