Process Reference Model Research Articles

A compliance assessment system for Incident Management process

The Incident Management (IM) process is one of the core activities for increasing the overall security level of organizations and better responding to cyber attacks. Different security frameworks (such as ITIL and ISO 27035) provide guidelines for designing and properly implementing an effective IM process. Currently, assessing the compliance of the actual process implemented by an organization with such frameworks is a complex task. The assessment is mainly manually performed and requires much effort in the analysis and evaluation. In this paper, we first propose a taxonomy of compliance deviations to classify and prioritize the impacts of non-compliant causes. We combine trace alignment techniques with a new proposed cost model for the analysis of process deviations rather than process traces to prioritize interventions. We put these contributions into use in a system that automatically assesses the IM process compliance with a reference process model (e.g., the one described in the chosen security framework). It supports the auditor with increased awareness of process issues to make more focused decisions and improve the process’s effectiveness. We propose a benchmark validation for the model, and we show the system’s capability through a usage scenario based on a publicly available dataset of a real IM log. The source code of all components, including the code used for benchmarking, is publicly available as open source on GitHub.

The Representational Challenge for Designing and Managing 5P Medicine Ecosystems.

Health and social care systems around the globe currently undergo a transformation towards personalized, preventive, predictive, participative precision medicine (5PM), considering the individual health status, conditions, genetic and genomic dispositions, etc., in personal, social, occupational, environmental and behavioral context. This transformation is strongly supported by technologies such as micro- and nanotechnologies, advanced computing, artificial intelligence, edge computing, etc. For enabling communication and cooperation between actors from different domains using different methodologies, languages and ontologies based on different education, experiences, etc., we have to understand the transformed health ecosystems and all its components in structure, function and relationships in the necessary detail ranging from elementary particles up to the universe. That way, we advance design and management of the complex and highly dynamic ecosystem from data to knowledge level. The challenge is the consistent, correct and formalized representation of the transformed health ecosystem from the perspectives of all domains involved, representing and managing them based on related ontologies. The resulting business view of the real-world ecosystem must be interrelated using the ISO/IEC 21838 Top Level Ontologies standard. Thereafter, the outcome can be transformed into implementable solutions using the ISO/IEC 10746 Open Distributed Processing Reference Model. Model and framework for this system-oriented, architecture-centric, ontology-based, policy-driven approach have been developed by the first author and meanwhile standardized as ISO 23903 Interoperability and Integration Reference Architecture.

Stable Heuristic Miner 2: Evaluating the Statistical Stability in Event Logs to Discover Business Processes

Automated process discovery as one of the paradigms of process mining has attracted both industries and academic researchers. These methods offer visibility and comprehension out of complex and unstructured event logs. Over the past decade, the classic heuristic miner and applied heuristic-based process discovery algorithms showed promising results in revealing the hidden process patterns in information systems. One of the challenges related to such algorithms is the arbitrary selection of recorded behaviors in an event log. The offered filtering thresholds are manually adjustable, which could lead to the extraction of a non-optimal process model. This is also visible in commercial process mining solutions. Recently, the first version of the stable heuristic miner algorithm targeted this issue by evaluating the statistical stability of an event log. However, the previous version was limited to evaluating only activities’ behaviors. In this article, we’ll be evaluating the statistical stability of both activities and edges of a graph, which could be discovered from an event log. As a contribution, the stable heuristic miner 2 is introduced. Consequently, the definition of the descriptive reference process model has improved. The novel algorithm is evaluated by using two real-world event logs. These event logs are the familiar Sepsis data set and the urology department patients’ pathways event log, which is recorded by monitoring the interpreted location data of patients on hospital premises and is shared with the scientific community in this article.

Enhancing Software Process Assessment with an Ontology-Based Tool: Integrating CMMI, SPICE, and TMMI Models

Software process reference models like Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) and Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination (SPICE) have played a crucial role in evaluating processes for several decades. Their adoption by institutions has become essential for consistently delivering software projects to customers on time and with expected quality. However, conducting software process assessments demands considerable time, effort, and skilled personnel. This research introduces an ontology-based tool that facilitates software process assessment for organizations by integrating widely used process reference models, namely CMMI, SPICE, and Test Maturity Model Integration (TMMI). The development of this tool involves multiple stages: creating ontologies for each process reference model, integrating them into the tool, enabling querying capabilities, and visualizing the ontologies. Through a validation study in a selected organization, two sets of processes were assessed using the Ontology-Based Software Process Assessment Tool (OSPAT). The results demonstrated that organizations can benefit from OSPAT in evaluating their software development processes across diverse reference models, thereby enhancing overall process efficiency and quality.

Establish and Implement PAM and PRM ISO 20000-1:2011

Most enterprises are now using information technology services as their assets to support business objectives. These kind of services are provided by internal service provider (inside enterprise) or external service provider (outside enterprise). To deliver quality information technology services, service provider (which from now on will be called “organization”) either internal or external, must have standard for service management system. At present, the standard that is recognized as best practice for service management system for organization is international standard ISO/IEC 20000:2011. The most important part of this international standard is the first part or ISO/IEC 20000-1:2011-Service Management System Requirement, because it contains 22 for organization processes as requirement to be implemented in organizational environment in order to build, manage and deliver quality service to customer. Assessing organization management processes is the first step to implement ISO/IEC 20000:2011 into the organization management processes. This assessment needs Process Assessment Model (PAM) as assessment instrument. PAM comprises two parts: Process Reference Model (PRM) and Measurement Framework (MF). PRM is built by transforming the 22 process of ISO/IEC 20000-1:2011 and MF is based on ISO/IEC 33020. This assessment instrument was designed to assess the capability of service management process in Divisi Teknologi dan Sistem Informasi (Information Systems and Technology Division) as an internal organization of PT Pos Indonesia. The result of this assessment model can be proposed to improve the capability of service management system.

Development reference model to build management reporter using dynamics great plain aggregated

The digital technology transformation impacts changes in business patterns that require companies to innovate to act appropriately in making strategic decisions quickly, precisely, and accurately to increase efficiency, be practical company performance, and impacts changes in business patterns that require companies to innovate to act appropriately in making strategic decisions quickly to improve the performance. An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is one step toward achieving performance. ERP system is one step to achieving performance. ERP system is essential for companies to automate the efficiency of business processes. The decisions from management in implementing the ERP system are necessary for ERP implementation to be successful. However, in practice, companies still experience complexity. For that, it needs to be considered related a business process reference model is essential to enhance efficiency in implementing the ERP used. This research discusses the business process reference model based on the ERP dynamics great plain (GP) application aggregated using management reporter (MR) to help users better understand the practical overview. The methodology utilizes a reference model based on Microsoft Dynamics GP guidelines with a business process redesign approach. This contributes to developing business processes to help users understand using the ERP dynamics GP application.

Development reference model to build management reporter using dynamics great plain aggregated

The digital technology transformation impacts changes in business patterns that require companies to innovate to act appropriately in making strategic decisions quickly, precisely, and accurately to increase efficiency, be practical company performance, and impacts changes in business patterns that require companies to innovate to act appropriately in making strategic decisions quickly to improve the performance. An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is one step toward achieving performance. ERP system is one step to achieving performance. ERP system is essential for companies to automate the efficiency of business processes. The decisions from management in implementing the ERP system are necessary for ERP implementation to be successful. However, in practice, companies still experience complexity. For that, it needs to be considered related a business process reference model is essential to enhance efficiency in implementing the ERP used. This research discusses the business process reference model based on the ERP dynamics great plain (GP) application aggregated using management reporter (MR) to help users better understand the practical overview. The methodology utilizes a reference model based on Microsoft Dynamics GP guidelines with a business process redesign approach. This contributes to developing business processes to help users understand using the ERP dynamics GP application.

Development of a Reference Process Model for the Modularization of Production‐Related Logistics in the Chemical Industry

AbstractTrends towards product differentiation, fast changing market conditions, and shorter product lifecycles demand flexible production solutions for the chemical industry. Modular production systems promise to provide the required capacities as needed in a short period of time. However, the potential of modular production systems can only be fully utilized if they are embedded in modular and thus flexible logistics processes. For this reason, standardized logistic modules need to be defined. Process standardization is the starting point for reducing the number of variants and minimizing the number modules. Thus, in this paper a reference process model is developed. The standardized processes defined in this model are then used to form modules by applying a method from cluster analysis.

Multi-perspective conformance checking of uncertain process traces: An SMT-based approach

Conformance checking, one of the central tasks in process mining, compares the expected behavior described by a reference process model to the actual behavior recorded in an event log, with the goal of detecting deviations. Traditionally, it is assumed that the log provides a faithful and complete digital footprint of reality. However, assuming perfect logs is often unrealistic: real-life logs typically suffer from data quality issues, exposing uncertainty in their events, timestamps, and data attributes. We attack this problem by introducing a comprehensive framework for multi-perspective conformance checking dealing with uncertainty along three perspectives: control-flow, time, and data. From the modeling point of view, we consider process models formalized as Petri nets operating over data variables, and event logs presenting uncertainty at the event- and attribute-level. We cast conformance checking as an alignment problem, extending the traditional notions of alignment and cost function to deal with uncertainty along the three aforementioned perspectives. From the operational point of view, we show how (optimal) alignments can be computed through well-established automated reasoning techniques from Satisfiability Modulo Theories (SMT). Specifically, we show how previous results on data-aware SMT-based conformance checking can be lifted to this more sophisticated setting, obtaining a flexible framework that can seamlessly handle different variants of the problem. We formally prove correctness of our approach and implement it in the conformance checker cocomot. Finally, we perform a thorough experimental evaluation on synthetic and real-life logs, demonstrating the overall promising performance of our framework.

Modeling & Simulation SPICE: Assessing the Capability of Credible Simulation Processes

AbstractWhile systems or products are becoming increasingly complex and new technologies emerge to manage this growing complexity, the potential of virtualized or simulation‐based product development is not yet fully exploited. This is mainly due to the fact that simulation results are still not trusted enough. Therefore, this paper outlines a possible approach to derive and ensure required levels of modeling and simulation credibility from the criticality of a simulation task. Furthermore, a framework is presented for assessing the implementation of a credible simulation process. This framework is based on an existing process reference model, ensuring modeling and simulation credibility, and on a process assessment model, which has proven itself in the German automotive industry in the assessment of process capability. Finally, the introduction to this framework is demonstrated using an example from the automotive domain, i.e., the simulation‐based safety approval for the virtual testing of an Automated Lane Keeping System.

Revolutionizing Pharmaceutical Cold Chain Competency Framework with Reference Process Model and Reference Architecture

The utilization of the reference process model (RPM) and reference architecture (RA) as disruptive information and communication technologies (ICT) in the pharmaceutical cold chain (PCC) industry has enabled the management of tasks through a model-architecture-based approach. This research presents an innovative method for competency development in the cold chain sector, leveraging RPM and RA. By introducing a comprehensive conceptual framework encompassing RPM and RA design and workflow into cold chain competency development, this study outlines the key areas for incorporating RPM and RA into the PCC field. The framework elucidates the functioning of RPM and RA concerning occupational standards (OS) and units of competencies (UOC) within the industry. The study generates a research framework for the PCC industry by systematically implementing RPM and RA using a proposed method. The primary outcomes and empirical evidence are UOC and OS derived from RPM and RA implementation and integration, substantiating the conceptual framework's validity. The research highlights the evolutionary aspects and the significance of the conceptual framework in guiding the research framework and proposes a method for competency development. Furthermore, recommendations are provided for future research endeavors. Doi: 10.28991/HIJ-2023-04-02-011 Full Text: PDF

Development of Reference Process Model and Reference Architecture for Pharmaceutical Cold Chain

Although the competence level in pharmaceutical cold chain logistics is adequate in the current healthcare sector, the future will be more unpredictable, disruptive, and chaotic than the world of today because of rapid technological changes, as well as social disruption. This work introduces and evaluates a new cold chain structure based on the enhanced reference process model (RPM) and reference architecture (RA) for the pharmaceutical cold chain competence design. The modified Delphi technique is used to design a systematic decision context to evaluate the improved RPM and RA and produce a competence design by obtaining agreement from a panel of experts. Ten experts in cold chain logistics took part in the modified Delphi assessment process to describe the model and architecture for an evaluation lead. They defined it as the assessment associated with the professional related to cold chain accreditation. Ten participants from six countries were asked questions regarding their expertise, abilities, and opinions in the first round, and their comments were collected. In the second and third rounds, comments and consensus were collected, which were set at 80% for RPM and RA. This work proposes an innovative scheme for developing occupational standards based on the RPM and RA, as opposed to the traditional method of employing functional analysis to establish occupational standards. This work can be further expanded to develop professional competencies in the pharmaceutical cold chain.

A strategic decision framework using soft-computing for agri-food production: case study living lab in universities

Designing autonomous or semi-autonomous greenhouses that can supply food under extreme environmental conditions or restricted social distances is an endeavor that has to be considered under pandemic conditions such as COVID-19. However, generally advanced greenhouses have been designed using conventional methodologies that are not integrated easily into reconfigurable designs. Moreover, those design methodologies are complex for novice product designers. This paper proposes a novel SDF (Strategic Decision Framework) to support reconfigurable agri-food production systems design. The framework proposed is based on the Integrated Product, Process, and Manufacturing System Development (IPPMD) reference model that uses reconfigurable manufacturing systems (RMS) and Fuzzy Cluster Mean (FCM) algorithms in its decision support system. As a result, the proposed methodology generates fuzzy clusters using degrees of membership that can describe the design constraints straightforwardly. Those fuzzy clusters support a hierarchical decision-making process, so the design process is easily implemented. Besides, the proposed methodology is deployed in a complex, highly non-linear system (a greenhouse) that has an internal ecosystem autonomously controlled by mechanical, electrical, digital, and telecommunication subsystems. Hence, an innovative design methodology implemented for advanced reconfigurable systems is presented. The results confirm that the proposed SDF can be implemented in complex reconfigurable design systems when the manufacturing decisions are unclear to decision-makers and designers. Thus, this methodology provides useful, coherent information regarding the design process that simplifies decision-making when designing a reconfigurable greenhouse. Besides, this research shows an entirely reconfigurable greenhouse as a living lab implemented at Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico City campus to validate the proposed SDF.

ISO/IEC 27000 Certification Impact on The Effectiveness of Managing an Educational Organization

The article refers to the most important methodologies for managing information systems to which ISO/IEC 2700 standards belong. Although the literature on this issue is quite rich, an area has been identified that has a great need for system solutions in the field of standardization. These are educational organizations. There is a need for research and published solutions in this area. Based on the implementation of the author’s model of information processes in a higher education institution, it was decided to study the effects of this implementation in a real facility. In order to obtain information to evaluate the impact of the implementation of an ISMS based on ISO 27001 (with appropriate modifications), a case study was selected as the research method. Main result is the conclusion that the path of development of information security management systems is through achieving process maturity of the organization itself in which a significant contribution can be made by starting this transformation with the application of process reference models including information systems security reference models.

A Business Process Reference Model for the Development of a Wine Traceability System

Traceability is among the most significant challenges in supply chains, where multiple stakeholders and activities are involved in the production and distribution of products. No supply chain can become sustainable without effectively addressing the problem of traceability by recognizing, monitoring, and implementing all necessary activities of the processes. This research provides a reference model for effective wine supply chain traceability and is part of a research project for the development of a blockchain-enabled traceability system. The reference model not only depicts processes but also covers all views that are necessary for achieving the whole picture of an effective traceability system. These views include the value chain, organizational resources, functions, processes, systems, data, and risks that are related to wine production and distribution. The reference model has a strong contribution to practice and research as it pertains to bridging the barrier between developers and users while also offering significant research outcomes. The research output is the reference model that includes standard wine traceability processes and all necessary data for effective wine supply chain traceability. The results of this research will be used for creating the traceability system’s specifications and ensuring that it will be effectively designed and implemented. The reference model can also be used for the implementation and adaptation of the traceability system to the stakeholders of the wine supply chain.

Development of a retail supply chain process reference model incorporating Lean Six Sigma initiatives

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is the development of a reference model contributing to the identification of the retail supply chain activities that can be improved by the implementation of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) initiatives, following DMAIC steps and using proposed tools, based on contemporary technologies and best practices.Design/methodology/approachThe reference model was developed combining the existing literature knowledge about the areas of supply chain that LSS can improve and the data collected by two big retailers in Greece about their supply chain operation. The integration of two sources of information led to the modeling of the retail supply chain processes and the proposal of appropriate LSS initiatives for their improvement.FindingsThis paper aimed to detect the pain points of a retail supply chain, which can be achieved by following the steps of DMAIC and applying specific LSS initiatives as described in the reference model, to introduce the trends of the sector in terms of logistics and supply chain.Practical implicationsThe reference model of this paper can be used as a comprehensive guide of LSS implementation in the retail supply chain and help the companies of such a significant sector for the economy.Originality/valueThe literature review revealed that there is a lack of publications concerning LSS implementation in retail supply chain and in the retail sector in general. The development of this model contributes to the filling of this gap by providing a complete reference model, which strives to overcome the barriers of LSS adoption in retail supply chain.

Process-oriented metrics to provide feedback and assess the performance of students who are learning surgical procedures: The percutaneous dilatational tracheostomy case

Purpose Assessing competency in surgical procedures is key for instructors to distinguish whether a resident is qualified to perform them on patients. Currently, assessment techniques do not always focus on providing feedback about the order in which the activities need to be performed. In this research, using a Process Mining approach, process-oriented metrics are proposed to assess the training of residents in a Percutaneous Dilatational Tracheostomy (PDT) simulator, identifying the critical points in the execution of the surgical process. Materials and methods A reference process model of the procedure was defined, and video recordings of student training sessions in the PDT simulator were collected and tagged to generate event logs. Three process-oriented metrics were proposed to assess the performance of the residents in training. Results Although the students were proficient in classic metrics, they did not reach the optimum in process-oriented metrics. Only in 25% of the stages the optimum was achieved in the last session. In these stages, the four more challenging activities were also identified, which account for 32% of the process-oriented metrics errors. Conclusions Process-oriented metrics offer a new perspective on surgical procedures performance, providing a more granular perspective, which enables a more specific and actionable feedback for both students and instructors.

Stable heuristic miner: Applying statistical stability to discover the common patient pathways from location event logs

• A novel algorithm for discovering the descriptive reference process model. • Application of the statistical stability phenomenon to extract process models. • Removing the arbitrary selection of the thresholds’ values in the heuristic miner. • Automatically extraction of deviating behaviors from location event logs. Purpose: The classic heuristic miner algorithm has received lots of attention in the healthcare sector for discovering patient pathways. The extraction of these pathways provides more transparency about patient activities. The previous versions of this algorithm receive an event log and discover several process models by using manually adjustable thresholds. Then, the expert is left with the difficult task of deciding which discovered model can serve as the descriptive reference process model. Such a decision is completely arbitrary and it has been seen as a major structural issue in the literature of process mining. This paper tackles this problem by proposing a new process discovery algorithm to facilitate patient pathways diagnosis. Approach: To address this scientific challenge, this paper proposes to consider the statistical stability phenomenon in an event log, and it introduces the stable heuristic miner algorithm as its contribution. To evaluate the applicability of the proposed algorithm, a case study has been presented to monitor patient pathways in a medical consultation platform. Originality: Thanks to this algorithm, the value of thresholds will be automatically calculated at the statistically stable limits . Hence, instead of several models, only one process model will be discovered. To the best of our knowledge, applying the statistical stability phenomenon in the context of process mining to discover a reference process model from location event logs has not been addressed before. Findings/Practical implications: The results enabled to remove the uncertainty to determine the threshold that represents the common patient pathways and consequently, leaving some room for potential diagnosis of the pathways.

First step climbing the Stairway to Heaven Model - Results from a Case Study in Industry

Context: Nowadays, software development organizations have adopted agile practices and data-driven software development aiming at a competitive advantage. Moving from traditional to agile and data-driven software development requires changes in the organization´s culture and structure, which may not be easy. The Stairway to Heaven Model (StH) describes this evolution path in five stages. Objective: We aimed to investigate how Systems Theory tools, GUT Matrix, and reference ontologies can help organizations in the first transition of StH, i.e., moving from traditional to agile development. Method: We performed a participative case study in a Brazilian organization that develops software in partnership with a European organization. We applied Systems Theory tools (systemic maps and archetypes) to understand the organization and identify undesirable behaviors and their causes. Thus, we used GUT Matrices to decide which ones should be addressed first and we defined strategies to change the undesirable behaviors by implementing agile practices. We also used the conceptualization provided by reference ontologies to share a common understanding of agile and help implement the strategies. Results: By understanding the organization, a decision was made to implement a combination of agile and traditional practices. The implemented strategies improved software quality and project time, and cost. Problems due to misunderstanding agile concepts were solved by using reference ontologies, process models, and other diagrams built based on the ontologies conceptualization, allowing the organization to experience agile culture and foresee changes in its business model. Conclusion: Systems Theory tools and GUT Matrix aid organizations to move from traditional to agile development by supporting better understanding the organization, finding leverage points of change, and enabling to define strategies aligned to the organization characteristics and priorities. Reference ontologies can be useful to establish a common understanding about agile, enabling teams to be aware of and, thus, more committed to agile practices and concepts. The use of process models and other diagrams can favor learning the conceptualization provided by the ontologies.

The EDiT method guideline - enabling distributed teams through situation-adequate method application

To counteract individual losses in distributed product development, the EDiT method (Enabling Distributed Teams) enables product development teams to continuously improve their distributed collaboration based on the characteristics of distributed product development. The EDiT method is the result of research into supporting distributed product development teams and is continuously being developed. For the successful transfer of the method into practice, a guideline for the situation-adequate adaptation and user-centered application of the EDiT method is designed. Therefore, a comprehensive understanding of the requirements for the EDiT method is compiled. An online guideline provides access and situation-adequate selection, adaptation, and application of the suitable method variant. A reference process model serves as orientation support for the situation-adequate application.