Business Process Meta-model Research Articles

Applying the Business Process and Practice Alignment Meta-model: Daily Practices and Process Modelling

Abstract Background: Business Process Modelling (BPM) is one of the most important phases of information system design. Business Process (BP) meta-models allow capturing informational and behavioural aspects of business processes. Unfortunately, standard BP meta-modelling approaches focus just on process description, providing different BP models. It is not possible to compare and identify related daily practices in order to improve BP models. This lack of information implies that further research in BP meta-models is needed to reflect the evolution/change in BP. Considering this limitation, this paper introduces a new BP meta-model designed by Business Process and Practice Alignment Meta-model (BPPAMeta-model). Our intention is to present a meta-model that addresses features related to the alignment between daily work practices and BP descriptions. Objectives: This paper intends to present a metamodel which is going to integrate daily work information into coherent and sound process definitions. Methods/Approach: The methodology employed in the research follows a design-science approach. Results: The results of the case study are related to the application of the proposed meta-model to align the specification of a BP model with work practices models. Conclusions: This meta-model can be used within the BPPAM methodology to specify or improve business processes models based on work practice descriptions.

Modeling Dynamic Aspects of Sensitive Business Processes for Knowledge Localization

This paper introduces BPM4KI- a generic Business Process Meta-Model for Knowledge Identification, which encompasses a clear and semantically rich definition of Sensitive Business Processes (SBPs). This meta-model is well founded on «core» domain ontologies. It covers all aspects of business process modeling and knowledge management: the functional, organizational, behavioral, informational, intentional and knowledge perspectives. The aim of BPM4KI is to develop a rich and expressive graphical representation of SBPs in order to identify and localize the crucial knowledge that is mobilized and created by these processes. In this research work, we focus more specifically on the description of the « Functional Perspective», which represents the core dimension in SBP modeling, exploring the collaboration, interaction and knowledge aspects. Besides, we evaluate the relevance of some proposed concepts through a real SBP scenario from medical domain in the context of the organization of protection of the motor disabled people of Sfax-Tunisia (ASHMS).

Context-Aware Business Process Versions Management

This work deals with a very active and promising research area that is the Business Process (BP) flexibility. One possible way to deal with this flexibility is the conjoint use of versioning and contextualization techniques. Versioning permits BP evolution by supporting the alternative use of BP versions. Contextualization ensures the definition of use conditions of BP versions to help the designer choosing a version among several ones. In a previous work, BP flexibility had been addressed using only versioning technique by considering the informational, organizational and process perspectives. In this work, the authors show how they conjointly use both versioning and contextualization techniques to address the BP flexibility. More precisely, they propose an extension of the VBP2M meta-model (Versioned Business Process Meta Model), introduced in their previous work, by adding a contextual perspective that offers two levels of contexts granularity (local and global). This perspective is illustrated using a well-known case study «automatic production process of mineral water bottle ». An extension of the VBPQL language (Versioned Business Process Query Language) is also introduced to allow the definition, manipulating and querying of BP versions' contexts. Furthermore, the authors propose an ontology-based method to select the appropriate BP version. Finally, they present our tool that represents the implementation of the proposed solution.

Business Process and Practice Alignment Meta-model

Abstract Business Process Modelling (BPM) is one of the most important phases of information system design. Business Process meta-models allow capturing informational and behavioural aspects of business processes. Unfortunately, standard business process meta-modelling approaches, such as the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) Meta-model, Quality-Oriented Business Process Meta-Model (QOBPM) and Transactional Meta-Model for Business Process (TMBP) focus just on process description, providing different business process models. According to these meta-modelling approaches, it is not possible to compare and identify related daily practices in order to improve business process models. This lack of information recognizes that further research in Business Process (BP) meta-model is needed to reflect the evolution/change on software processes. Considering this limitation in BP meta-modelling, this paper presents a comparative study of the most recognized business process meta-models approaches and introduces a new BP meta-model designed by Business Process and Practice Alignment Meta-model (BPPAMeta-model). Our intention is to present observed problems in existing approaches and propose a business process meta-model that addresses features related to the alignment between daily work practices and business process descriptions.

Evaluation of the BPMN According to the Requirements of the Enterprise Architecture Methodology

This article evaluates some characteristics of the Business Process Modelling Notation from the perspective of the business system modelling methodology. Firstly the enterprise architecture context of the business process management as well as the importance of standards are discussed. Then the Business System Modelling Methodology is introduced with special attention paid to the Business Process Meta-model as a basis for the evaluation of the BPMN features. Particular basic concepts from the Business Process Meta-model are mapped to the usable constructs of the BPMN and related issues are analysed. Finally the basic conclusions are made and the general context is discussed.

Towards an MDA-based multi-agent system

Most agent-oriented methodologies do not provide a development approach that ensures the transition from the design phase to the implementation phase. To certify the system consistency during the development process, and to avoid developers putting an extra effort to implement the system on a specific platform, we propose a new approach based on agent meta-model, business process (BP) meta-model, MAS-ML meta-model, Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) and Multi-Agent System (MAS). This approach defines different meta-models and models that instantiate the defined meta-models. This allows a mapping from the requirement model to the platform-specific model. To validate our proposal, we propose a case study in visual agent environment.

Incorporating risk into business process models

Although business process modeling is considered as a core activity in enterprise risk management, existing process modeling languages do not include a complete notation for documenting how processes can fail. This paper develops a conceptual framework for extending standard business process metamodels to include comprehensive information that is useful for managing and quantifying operational risk in business processes. We provide formal extensions of the Business Process Modeling Notation standard, as well as a step-by-step process for creating a risk-extended process model.