Business Process Model And Notation Models Research Articles

Towards Enacting a SPEM-based Test Process with Maturity Levels

Effective monitoring and testing during each step are essential for document verification in research and development (R&D) projects. In software development, proper testing is required to verify it carefully and constantly because of the invisibility features of software. However, not enough studies on test processes for R&D projects have been done. Thus, in this paper, we introduce a Test Maturity Model integration (TMMi)-based software field R&D test process that offers five integrity levels and makes the process compatible for different types of projects. The Software & Systems Process Engineering Metamodel (SPEM) is used widely in the software process-modeling context, but it lacks built-in enactment capabilities, so there is no tool or process engine that enables one to execute the process models described in SPEM. Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN)-based workflow engines can be a solution for process execution, but process models described in SPEM need to be converted to BPMN models. Thus, we propose an approach to support enactment of SPEM-based process models by converting them into business processes. We show the effectiveness of our approach through converting software R&D test processes specified in SPEM in a case study.

Generating event logs for high-level process models

Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is a de-facto standard for practitioners working in the Business Process Management (BPM) field. The BPMN standard [1] offers high-level modeling constructs, such as subprocesses, events, data and message flows, lanes, and is widely used to model processes in various domains. Recently several BPMN-based process mining techniques [2, 3, 4] were introduced. These techniques allow representing processes, discovered from the event logs of process-aware information systems, in a convenient way, using the BPMN standard. To test these mining approaches an appropriate tool for the generation of event logs from BPMN models is needed. In this work we suggest such a tool. We propose a formal token-based executable BPMN semantics, which takes into account BPMN 2.0 with its expressive constructs. The developed tool is based on these semantics and allows simulation of hierarchical process models (including models with cancellations), models with data flows and pools, and models interacting through message flows. To manage the control flow, script-based gateways and choice preferences are implemented as well. The proposed simulation technique was implemented on top of existing plug-ins for ProM (Process Mining Framework) [5], and was verified on models created by practitioners from various domains.

From Process Models to Concurrent Systems in Alvis Language

Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is the leading visual notation used for modelling business processes. This paper shows how the Alvis modelling language can be used for formal analysis of BPMN models. Alvis supports graphical modelling of interconnections among subsystems called agents as well as a high-level programming specification for describing the agents’ behaviour. Its advantage is the possibility of formal verification using proven model checking techniques. We propose a translation from the BPMN model to the Alvis representation, which is discussed and evaluated using an illustrative example of a process for evaluation of a student assignment. Thanks to the translation it is possible to perform formal verification of a BPMN model in a high-level concurrent environment. As opposed to some low-level representations, such as Petri nets, semantics of Alvis is close to the original BPMN model. Moreover, if a concurrent system behaviour is specified using a BPMN model, it is possible to generate a formal model (a preliminary implementation) of the system.

A model-driven engineering approach to formally verify BPMN models using Petri nets

Business process model and notation (BPMN) is a standard for modelling business processes (BP). Despite the fact that it is a BP specific notation, it suffers from a lack of semantics. Indeed, BPMN model can be interpreted in several ways, which may lead to undesirable situations such as deadlocks. To solve this problem, we propose to use formal verification to guarantee certain properties at the BP designer. In this context, our approach is to transform BPMN models to a Petri net model. Petri nets are a formal language for distributed concurrent systems. They are suitable for modelling the behaviour of systems in terms of flows and are well supported by analysis tools. The Petri net model resulting from the transformation is then verified. We also define an interpretation module of the verification results in terms of BPMN.

A model-driven engineering approach to formally verify BPMN models using Petri nets

Business process model and notation (BPMN) is a standard for modelling business processes (BP). Despite the fact that it is a BP specific notation, it suffers from a lack of semantics. Indeed, BPMN model can be interpreted in several ways, which may lead to undesirable situations such as deadlocks. To solve this problem, we propose to use formal verification to guarantee certain properties at the BP designer. In this context, our approach is to transform BPMN models to a Petri net model. Petri nets are a formal language for distributed concurrent systems. They are suitable for modelling the behaviour of systems in terms of flows and are well supported by analysis tools. The Petri net model resulting from the transformation is then verified. We also define an interpretation module of the verification results in terms of BPMN.

An ontological account of flow-control components in BPMN process models

The Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) has been widely adopted in the recent years as one of the standard languages for visual description of business processes. BPMN however does not include a formal semantics, which is required for formal verification and validation of behaviors of BPMN models. Towards bridging this gap using first-order logic, we in this paper present an ontological/formal account of flow-control components in BPMN, using Situation Calculus and Petri nets. More precisely, we use SCOPE (Situation Calculus Ontology of PEtri nets), developed from our previous work, to formally describe flow-control related basic components (i.e., events, tasks, and gateways) in BPMN as SCOPE-based procedures. These components are first mapped from BPMN onto Petri nets. Our approach differs from other major approaches for assigning semantics to BPMN (e.g., the ones applying communicating sequential processes, or abstract state machines) in the following aspects. Firstly, the approach supports direct application of automated theorem proving for checking theory consistency or verifying dynamical properties of systems. Secondly, it defines concepts through aggregation of more basic concepts in a hierarchical way thus the adoptability and extensibility of the models are presumably high. Thirdly, Petri-net-based implementation is completely encapsulated such that interfaces between the system and its users are defined completely within a BPMN context. Finally, the approach can easily further adopt the concept of time.

Learning from Quality Issues of BPMN Models from Industry

Many organizations use business process models to document business operations and formalize business requirements in software-engineering projects. The Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN), a specification by the Object Management Group, has evolved into the leading standard for process modeling. One challenge is BPMN's complexity: it offers a huge variety of elements and often several representational choices for the same semantics. This raises the question of how well modelers can deal with these choices. Empirical insights into BPMN use from the practitioners' perspective are still missing. To close this gap, researchers analyzed 585 BPMN 2.0 process models from six companies. They found that split and join representations, message flow, the lack of proper model decomposition, and labeling related to quality issues. They give five specific recommendations on how to avoid these issues.

BPMN Miner: Automated discovery of BPMN process models with hierarchical structure

Existing techniques for automated discovery of process models from event logs generally produce flat process models. Thus, they fail to exploit the notion of subprocess as well as error handling and repetition constructs provided by contemporary process modeling notations, such as the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN). This paper presents a technique, namely BPMN Miner, for automated discovery of hierarchical BPMN models containing interrupting and non-interrupting boundary events and activity markers. The technique employs approximate functional and inclusion dependency discovery techniques in order to elicit a process–subprocess hierarchy from the event log. Given this hierarchy and the projected logs associated to each node in the hierarchy, parent process and subprocess models are discovered using existing techniques for flat process model discovery. Finally, the resulting models and logs are heuristically analyzed in order to identify boundary events and markers. By employing approximate dependency discovery techniques, BPMN Miner is able to detect and filter out noise in the event log arising for example from data entry errors, missing event records or infrequent behavior. Noise is detected during the construction of the subprocess hierarchy and filtered out via heuristics at the lowest possible level of granularity in the hierarchy. A validation with one synthetic and two real-life logs shows that process models derived by the proposed technique are more accurate and less complex than those derived with flat process discovery techniques. Meanwhile, a validation on a family of synthetically generated logs shows that the technique is resilient to varying levels of noise.

BUSINESS PROCESS SIMULATION: REQUIREMENTS FOR BUSINESS AND RESOURCE MODELS / VERSLO PROCESŲ SIMULIACIJA: VERSLO PROCESŲ IR IŠTEKLIŲ MODELIŲ REIKALAVIMAI

The purpose of Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is to provide easily understandable graphical representation of business process. Thus BPMN is widely used and applied in various areas one of them being a business process simulation. This paper addresses some BPMN model based business process simulation problems. The paper formulate requirements for business process and resource models in enabling their use for business process simulation. Pagrindinis verslo procesų modeliavimo kalbos (angl. Business Process Model and Notation, BPMN) tikslas yra paprastai ir suprantamai atvaizduoti grafiškai verslo procesų modelius. BPMN naudojama vis plačiau, ją bandoma pritaikyti įvairiose srityse. Viena iš sričių yra verslo procesų simuliacija, t. y. verslo proceso vyksmo atkūrimas programinėmis priemonėmis. Straipsnyje aprašomos verslo procesų simuliacijos, grindžiamos BPMN modeliais, problemos. Formuluojami išteklių ir verslo proceso modeliui keltini reikalavimai, kad šiuos modelius būtų galima panaudoti simuliacijai.

Wand and Weber's good decomposition conditions for BPMN

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to specify the decomposition conditions of Wand and Weber for the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN). Therefore, an interpretation of the conditions for BPMN is derived and compared to a specification of the conditions for enhanced Event-Driven Process Chains (eEPCs). Based on these results, guidelines for a conformance check of BPMN and eEPC models with the decomposition conditions are shown. Further, guidelines for decomposition are formulated for BPMN models. The usability of the decomposition guidelines is tested with modelling experts. Design/methodology/approach – An approach building on a representational mapping is used for specifying the decomposition conditions. Therefore, ontological constructs of the Bunge-Wand-Weber ontology are mapped to corresponding modelling constructs and an interpretation of the decomposition conditions for BPMN is derived. Guidelines for a conformance check are then defined. Based on these results, decomposition guidelines are formulated. Their usability is tested in interviews. Findings – The research shows that the decomposition conditions stemming from the information systems discipline can be transferred to business process modelling. However, the interpretation of the decomposition conditions depends on specific characteristics of a modelling language. Based on a thorough specification of the conditions, it is possible to derive guidelines for a conformance check of process models with the conditions. In addition, guidelines for decomposition are developed and tested. In the study, these are perceived as understandable and helpful by experts. Research limitations/implications – Research approaches based on representational mappings are subjected to subjectivity. However, by having three researchers performing the approach independently, subjectivity can be mitigated. Further, only ten experts participated in the usability test, which is therefore to be considered as a first step in a more comprising evaluation. Practical implications – This paper provides the process modeller with guidelines enabling a conformance check of BPMN and eEPC process models with the decomposition conditions. Further, guidelines for decomposing BPMN models are introduced. Originality/value – This paper is the first to specify Wand and Weber's decomposition conditions for process modelling with BPMN. A comparison to eEPCs shows, that the ontological expressiveness influences the interpretation of the conditions. Further, guidelines for decomposing BPMN models as well as for checking their adherence to the decomposition conditions are presented.

Business Process Verification: The Application of Model Checking and Timed Automata


 
 
 The most important result to standardize the notation for graphical representation of Business Processes (BPs) is the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN). Despite the BPs modeled with BPMN being able to support business designers, BPMN models are not appropriate to support the analysis phase. BPMN models have no formal seman- tics to conduct qualitative analysis (validation and verification). In this work is presented how Model Checking (MC) verification technique for software and Timed Automata (TA) formal language are integrated within a formal verification approach to check BPs mod- eled with BPMN. Also, are introduced a set of guideline to transform BPMN models into TA. The use of our approach allow to business analysts and designers to perform evaluation (i.e., qualitative analysis) of BPs, based on the formal specification of BP–task model with TA. The application of the approach is aimed to evaluate the behavior of the BP–task model with respect to business performance indicators (for instance, service time, waiting time or queue size) derived from business needs, as is shown in an instance of an enterprise–project related to Customer Relationship Management.
 
 

Deontic BPMN: a powerful extension of BPMN with a trusted model transformation

The Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is a widely-used standard for process modelling. A drawback of BPMN, however, is that modality is implicitly expressed through the structure of the process flow but not directly within the corresponding activity. Thus, an extension of BPMN with deontic logic has been proposed in previous work, called Deontic BPMN. Deontic BPMN reduces the structural complexity of the process flow and increases the readability by explicitly highlighting obligatory and permissible activities. In addition, an algebraic graph transformation from a subset of BPMN to Deontic BPMN, called Deontic BpmnGTS, has been defined. The goal of the current research is to show that DeonticBpmnGTS is terminating and confluent, resulting in a globally deterministic transformation. Moreover, the semantic equivalence of BPMN models and the respective Deontic BPMN models is proven based on Abstract State Machines (ASMs). Thus, DeonticBpmnGTS can be called a trusted model transformation.

Collaborative Process to Facilitate BIM-based Clash Detection Tasks for Enhancing Constructability

One of reasons for introducing Building Information Modeling (BIM) is to support clash detection tasks by means of a 3D product model. In the conventional construction project process, clashes have been found during construction phase. However, it can cause cost overrun and time delay. In order to investigate and correct clash detections at design phase, relevant business process and guide for this task should be provided. This study aims to identify hindrances in clash detection tasks at the design phase and analyze its current process using IDEF0 model. Despite the convenience of IDEF0 as a systems analysis tool, professional participants might have difficulties to understand their own tasks according to business process. For this reason, in this research, Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is introduced to provide ideal process and required decision making governance. The provide BPMN model will provide insights for a BIM-based collaborative environment to enhance the constructability through the construction project.