Representation Of Business Processes Research Articles

Ontological Representation of Business Processes in an Educational Institution

Management business processes of educational work in an institution of secondary special education, such as the planning of ideological, educational and information work, organization of curator’s work, organization and formation of culture of safe life activity, everyday life, leisure, physical culture and healthy lifestyle are considered. The business process model “Curator’s work management” in BPMN notation is presented. With the help of set theory, the output data of business process models of educational work are presented. The ontological model of educational work in an institution of secondary specialized education is developed. This model displays classes, instances, and relations between them, which allows structuring and unifying the knowledge base of the subject area under consideration.

A Petri Net Approach for Business Process Modeling and Simulation

A business process is a set of activities executed in a specific sequence involving various actors. This relationship between actors, activities, and sequence is crucial for achieving the goals and objectives of organizations. Business process modeling involves determining the actors, activities, and execution sequence necessary to accomplish the organization’s objectives, permitting analysis of the overall process in order to identify and rectify potential failures, improve operations, or eliminate activities that do not generate value. In this study, Petri nets have been selected as the modeling tool due to their ability to provide graphical and mathematical representations of business processes, which offers a significant advantage over other tools. The objective of this research is to develop a BP modeling algorithm using Petri nets. It aims to simulate the behavior of each activity within a case study in which the mathematical representation of Petri nets is utilized to measure process performance. Additionally, a software artifact is created to assess the algorithm’s functionality and compare the performance of two different business process that share the same goal.

Exploration of the Decision Model and Notation (DMN) Standard for Representation of Knowledge Bases Encoded in the Arden Syntax.

Arden Syntax encodes knowledge as Medical Logic Modules (MLMs). Current work involves improvement of its representation of business processes. Assess how DMN can represent decision-making in MLMs. A sample of 340 MLMs was tabulated for DMN representation. While DMN can represent all MLMs at the decision requirements level, some are not supported at the decision logic level. DMN facilitates representation of business processes but would not address all decision logic.

The Application of Directed Hyper-Graphs for Analysis of Models of Information Systems

Hyper-graphs offer the opportunity to formulate logical statements about their components, for example, using Horn clauses. Several models of Information Systems can be represented using hyper-graphs as the workflows, i.e., the business processes. During the modeling of Information Systems, many constraints should be maintained during the development process. The models of Information Systems are complex objects, for this reason, the analysis of algorithms and graph structures that can support the consistency and integrity of models is an essential issue. A set of interdependencies between models and components of architecture can be formulated by functional dependencies and can be investigated via algorithmic methods. Information Systems can be perceived as overarching documents that includes data collections; documents to be processed; and representations of business processes, activities, and services. Whe selecting and working out an appropriate method encoding of artifacts in Information Systems, the complex structure can be represented using hyper-graphs. This representation enables the application of various model-checking, verification, and validation tools that are based on formal approaches. This paper describes the proposed representations in different situations using hyper-graphs, moreover, the formal, algorithmic-based model-checking methods that are coupled with the representations. The model-checking methods are realized by algorithms that are grounded in graph-theoretical approaches and tailored to the specificity of hyper-graphs. Finally, the possible applications in a real-life enterprise environment are outlined.

Extending BPMN Models with Sensitive Business Process Aspects

This research article aims to apply the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) for the representation of Sensitive Business Processes (SBPs). Therefore, we propose a new extension “BPMN4SBP” explicitly integrate all the relevant issues and aspects relevant at the coupling of the business process modeling (BPM) domain and the knowledge management (KM) domain for improving the management of crucial knowledge which are mobilized and created by these processes. This article provides the analysis of requirements and relevant concepts for modeling SBP. Based on a core domain ontology, need for extension is identified and the valid BPMN4SBP extension is designed (according to the BPMN extension mechanism) by the construction of a conceptional domain model and the corresponding BPMN extension model.

Hypergraph Application on Business Process Performance

The modeling of the graphical representation of business processes (BP) or workflows in enterprise information systems (IS) is often to represent various activities, entities, relations, functions, and communicate between them in an enterprise to achieve the major goal of operational support. In this work, we decided to use graph representation approaches, especially hypergraphs to depict the complex relationships that exist among the artifacts and constituents of BP for more efficient and accurate manipulations. We used bipartite and further hypergraph formats for storing and curating data. We have investigated the various descriptive languages and representation models of BP as process modeling, workflow and process integration, and object-oriented (OO) languages. We have carried out experiments using different approach combinations, but for observing quiltedrepresentation, we focused on the main consistencies of “DBP”. As the final approach, we used the “DBP” stream and data schemes that are defined by us to proceed with using pure Python for manually generating data and external Python libraries to store, curate, and visualize “DBP”.

Representation and presentation of knowledge and processes – an integrated approach for a dynamic communication-intensive environment

PurposeKnowledge- and communication-intensive domains still long for a better support of creativity that considers legal requirements, compliance rules and administrative tasks as well, because current systems focus either on knowledge representation or business process management. The purpose of this paper is to discuss our model of integrated knowledge and business process representation and its presentation to users.Design/methodology/approachThe authors follow a design science approach in the environment of patent prosecution, which is characterized by a highly standardized, legally prescribed process and individual knowledge study. Thus, the research is based on knowledge study, BPM, graph-based knowledge representation and user interface design. The authors iteratively designed and built a model and a prototype. To evaluate the approach, the authors used analytical proof of concept, real-world test scenarios and case studies in real-world settings, where the authors conducted observations and open interviews.FindingsThe authors designed a model and implemented a prototype for evolving and storing static and dynamic aspects of knowledge. The proposed solution leverages the flexibility of a graph-based model to enable open and not only continuously developing user-centered processes but also pre-defined ones. The authors further propose a user interface concept which supports users to benefit from the richness of the model but provides sufficient guidance.Originality/valueThe balanced integration of the data and task perspectives distinguishes the model significantly from other approaches such as BPM or knowledge graphs. The authors further provide a sophisticated user interface design, which allows the users to effectively and efficiently use the graph-based knowledge representation in their daily study.

Modeling and Verification of ERP Functional Requirements based on Colored Petri Net

The rise of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems has been a major event in the software industry and it became a solution for most enterprises to manage their data and business processes. Successful ERP implementations can reduce costs by improving efficiency then lead to improved company performance and better competitive edge. Despite these benefits and the age of ERP existing for several decades still high percentage of implementation failures are documented. ERP is packaged software designed by following the best practice from the specific industry to support typical business processes in the entire industrial field, it was designed by ERP vendors and used by the organization which implement it. Since the designer and user are two independent entity misalignments between user’s needs and the software design are often happen. The misalignment define new specific requirements must be embedded into selected ERP. Requirement engineering (RE) is a main part and initial activity of software engineering concern about defines stakeholder requirements, needs and desire. Requirements engineering is the basis for efficient software implementation and quality management. Tools and theories which support RE in general are numerous nowadays; however, the task of providing a tools and theories that specializes in Requirements engineering for Enterprise resource planning systems has been addressed rarely. For that; this paper discusses modelling and verification of ERP functional requirements based on colored Petri nets (CPN) after evaluation of different Business process modelling techniques by using analytical hierarchy process (AHP). CPN considered one of powerful business process modelling techniques and using it help in stakeholder involvement and appropriate organization’s business process representation. The nature of colored Petri nets that help in verification of internal completeness and consistency of ERP functional requirements model.

A taxonomic proposition for the representation of business processes - a multiple perspective

A taxonomic proposition for the representation of business processes - a multiple perspective

A taxonomic proposition for the representation of business processes - a multiple perspective

A taxonomic proposition for the representation of business processes - a multiple perspective

Formalization of Technological Processes for Accounting and Storage of Information in a Healthcare Institution

Introduction. To ensure the effective delivery of health services, it is important to provide accessible mechanisms for interaction between different levels of health care and patients. mHealth, eHealth and other technological developments, such as telemedicine, constitute a new digital health paradigm. The purpose of the paper is to develop the formalized components of the digital medicine integrating environment to ensure effective interaction between patients, family physicians and health care workers at various levels. Results. The general structure of information flows of the integrative environment of digital medicine is described and the formalized representation of health care business processes are developed.An analysis of the characteristics of the main actors actively involved in medical care was provided, and the access level to medical information of each participant, which is an obligatory condition, in particular in the case of mobile medicine, was determined. To ensure the storage of this information, an infologicalmodel of the database was developed, indicating the internal links between the blocks of the database. Model elements are defined for each block: classes, attributes and operations (using UML). Conclusions. Formalized representation of eHealth business processes using mHealth reflects the interaction of participants in these processes (patient and different groups of health professionals) and information flows that arise in this interaction. To ensure reliable mechanisms for the digital medical data exchange, access levels were prescribed for each participant included in the eHealth system.

СОКРАЩЕНИЕ БЮДЖЕТНЫХ АССИГНОВАНИЙ СУБЪЕКТОВ РЫНКА ПУТЕМ УНИФИКАЦИИ ДЕЛОВЫХ ПРОЦЕССОВ ОДНОГО НАЗНАЧЕНИЯ

Целью исследования является разработка методики и инструментальных средств для оценки экономической целесообразности унификации деловых процессов одного назначения.
 Методологическую базу исследования представляют экономическая теория, идеи и рекомендации по совершенствованию рыночной экономики, содержащиеся в работах Мориса Алле (M. Allais) и Фредерика Хайека (F. Hayek), экономико-математические методы и модели.
 Результаты исследования. Создано методическое и инструментальное обеспечение расчетов экономического эффекта от унификации деловых процессов одного назначения. Обосновано использование визуализации для *наглядного представления деловых процессов одного назначения, *автоматизированного преобразования визуальных моделей в имитационные модели, *сокращения финансовых и трудовых затрат на оценку ресурсоемкости и себестоимости выполнения деловых процессов. Разработана оригинальная компьютерная программа для сравнительной оценки состава операций деловых процессов одного назначения, предложен метод количественной оценки взаимосвязи по операциям между деловыми процессами, позволяющий выявить и исключить дублирование процессов и операций.
 Перспектива исследования состоит в том, что созданное в процессе исследований методическое и инструментальное обеспечение расчетов экономического эффекта от унификации деловых процессов одного назначения позволяет субъектам рынка целенаправленно сокращать бюджетные ассигнования, содействовать росту социально устойчивой экономики.

A microservice composition approach based on the choreography of BPMN fragments

Microservices must be composed to provide users with complex and elaborated functionalities. It seems that the decentralized nature of microservices makes a choreography style more appropriate to achieve such cooperation, where lighter solutions based on asynchronous events are generally used. However, a microservice composition based on choreography distributes the flow logic of the composition among microservices making further analysis and updating difficult, i.e. there is not a big picture of the composition that facilitates these tasks. Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is the OMG standard developed to represent Business Processes (BPs), being widely used to define the big picture of such compositions. However, BPMN is usually considered in orchestration-based solutions, and orchestration can be a drawback to achieve the decoupling pursued by a microservice architecture . Defining a microservice composition approach that allows us to create a composition in a BPMN model, which facilitates further analysis for taking engineering decisions, and execute them through an event-based choreography to have a high degree of decoupling and independence among microservices. We followed a research methodology for information systems that consists of a 5-step process: awareness of the problem, suggestion, development, evaluation, and conclusion. We presented a microservice composition approach based on the choreography of BPMN fragments. On the one hand, we propose to describe the big picture of the composition with a BPMN model, providing a valuable mechanism to analyse it when engineering decisions need to be taken. On the other hand, this model is split into fragments in order to be executed through an event-based choreography form, providing the high degree of decoupling among microservices demanded in this type of architecture. This composition approach is supported by a microservice architecture defined to achieve that both descriptions of a composition (big picture and split one) coexist. A realization of this architecture in Java/Spring technology is also presented. The evaluation that is done to our work allows us to conclude that the proposed approach for composing microservices is more efficient than solutions based on ad-hoc development.

BITA*: Business-IT alignment framework of multiple collaborating organisations

Context Businesses today must collaborate in a coordinated fashion. To collaborate, they must align their business processes and IT by complying to a common reference architecture. The common reference architecture that addresses their specific collaboration requirements is generally an adaptation of an existing generic reference architecture. However, a design framework for adapting reference architectures is lacking. Objective In this paper we propose a design framework for aligning business processes and IT across diverse collaborating organisations in order to derive a more specific reference architecture from a generic one. Method We developed the design framework using the guidelines of ISO/IEC/IEEE standard for modelling design viewpoints and validated it in a real-life business case study. Results We developed an architectural design framework which we call BITA* that is composed of three coherent architectural design viewpoints. The BP2BP alignment viewpoint provides alignment modelling abstractions for business analysts to be used to align business collaboration processes. The IT2IT alignment viewpoint provides alignment modelling abstractions for software architects to be used to align distributed IT systems. The BP2IT alignment viewpoint provides alignment modelling abstractions for interdisciplinary teams of business and IT specialists for aligning the mapping of business collaboration processes and the underlying distributed IT. The modelling abstractions are applied in a case study to derive a reference architecture for meat supply chain transparency systems. Conclusion A key challenge in developing the design framework is the difficulty of comparing models of business processes and IT that come from diverse organisations. Our main contribution is the set of modelling abstractions, which enabled us to represent business processes and IT in a uniform and comparable manner, and the systematic approach for applying the modelling abstractions. The framework is applied in the agri-food sector and needs to be evaluated further in multiple case studies from various application domains.

Showing and coding: venture pitching and nonmaterial production

ABSTRACT This article explores practices of representation and role stabilization in an emerging innovation ecosystem in Beirut, Lebanon. With little local track record of software startup activity, any overt practices of venture or business process representation were of immediate utility. The two moments explored, a pitch session at a mentorship committee meeting and a startup founding competition, capture parts of the nascent topology of a venture development setting in the making. In both, pitches for software products were at the heart of the productive process, and this paper argues that these moments of performative representation were not surplus to the process of founding a startup, but rather are crucial productive elements in themselves. Early-stage software development consists of a constant oscillation between making and modeling. The interdependence of writing software code, stabilizing social platforms for work and industry development, and finding specialists who could relate these tasks was crucial to the development of this business ecosystem in Lebanon. It was a system in motion, built of code and confidence. The circulation of information crucial to decision making within a single project required distinct practices of publicity, which in turn required articulatory platforms.

Combining Domain Ontologies and BPMN Models at the CIM Level to generate IFML Models

Abstract The use of Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) has been widely adopted by several research studies as one of the standard metamodels dedicated to the representation and design of business processes at the CIM level of MDA-oriented approaches. However, all of these researches don’t include semantic data that accompanies business processes in the early stages of software development. Thus, the involvement of domain ontologies in this software development phase is key for a complete representation of the CIM level. This article presents a new modeling approach based on a model-driven development process, starting with the representation of BPMN and ODM models as CIM Models, then transforming them into an IFML diagram by applying a transformation engine. We can obtain easily a final code from the abstract model generated. A case study illustrates our approach. It represents a scenario of managing medications of an eHealth information system.

Design of Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) in E-Planning and E-Budgeting Systems

Information system integration is needed to support business processes in order to achieve organizational goals. E-Planning and E-Budgeting are systems that are managed by the Department of Communication and Information Technology in Pasuruan Regency. E-Planning is taking part in planning activities, while E-Budgeting is taking part in assigning activities budget. Both systems are working separately that may cause data to exist only in one of those systems. Lacks of data in another system can lead to activity without fund and vice versa. Of course, this problem can disrupt the annual budget plan of the Department of Communication and Information of Pasuruan Regency. This problem can be solved using Enterprise Application Integration (EAI). EAI allows the exchange of data and business processes from several different applications that are interconnected. EAI have 12-steps program that come from best practices for system integration. Despite requiring full steps, this research will only take the first seven steps and then proceed with making UML diagrams. The result of this research are UML diagrams such as use case diagram, class diagram, sequence diagram, and object-oriented data model. These designs can represent business processes that are needed for integration process between E-Planning and E-Budgeting system. These designs will be validated through user debriefing and user validation. These designs can be used as references to build a system to integrate E-Planning and E-Budgeting systems

A Pattern Based Method for Simplifying a BPMN Process Model

BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation) is currently the preferred standard for the representation and analysis of business processes. The elaboration of these BPMN diagrams is usually carried out in an entirely manual manner. As a result of this human-driven process, it is not uncommon to find diagrams that are not in their most simplified version possible (regarding the number of elements). This work presents a fully automatic method to simplify a BPMN process model document. A two-phase iterative algorithm to achieve this simplification is described in detail. This algorithm follows a heuristic approach that makes intensive use of a Pattern Repository. This software element is concerned with the description of feasible reductions and its enactment. The critical concept lies in the discovery of small reducible patterns in the whole model and their substitution with optimised versions. This approach has been verified through a double validation testing in total 8102 cases taken from real world BPMN process models. Details for its implementation and usage by practitioners are provided in this paper along with a comparison with other existing techniques concerned with similar goals.

A Multi-criteria Evaluation Approach for Selecting a Sensitive Business Process Modeling Language for Knowledge Management

In an organizational context, the modeling and representation of sensitive business processes (SBPs) have become an effective way of managing and developing organization’s knowledge that needs to be capitalized. These processes are characterized by a high complexity and dynamism in their execution, high number of critical activities with intensive acquisition, sharing, storage and (re)use of very specific crucial knowledge, large diversity of heterogeneous knowledge and information sources, high number of knowledge conversion actions and high degree of collaboration among experts. Thus, the specification of a precise conceptualization for SBPs, and the selection of an appropriate SBP modeling language that adequately characterizes and integrates all their relevant dimensions are of prime importance. We aim at improving the localization and identification of the crucial knowledge that are mobilized by and created by these processes. This paper proposes a multi-criteria-based approach for evaluating and comparing currently widely used modeling languages (process oriented and knowledge oriented) for the representation of SBPs, taking into account their specific modeling requirements. We consider guiding and justifying the choice of the most suitable SBP modeling language for knowledge identification purposes. The different modeling languages are originally assessed according to the ontological completeness of SBP modeling aspects (i.e., the coverage of the functional, organizational, behavioral, informational, intentional and knowledge dimensions) based on the BPM4KI meta-model (as an SBP specification based on core ontologies). Secondly, they are evaluated according to several key requirement indicators (e.g., understandability, expressibility, complexity, level of adoption, tools availability and extendibility). Results show that none of the studied languages, individually, satisfies all the SBP modeling requirements. In this study, we choose the better one positioned nowadays, BPMN 2.0, as the best suited standard for SBP representation. Moreover, we develop a valid extension of BPMN 2.0 «BPMN4SBP» for integrating and implementing all relevant SBP modeling dimensions (the six BPM4KI dimensions), exploring the dynamic, interaction and knowledge aspects. The extension is then used to illustrate the representation of SBPs in a real case study in the healthcare domain.

The Play Your Process Method for Business Process-Based Digital Game Design

Serious games have been understood as a useful tool to engage, educate and train individuals in many areas. They are also suitable for the business processes management area where it is expected that business-process-based digital games can bring together players (process actors) to better understand and learn organizational business processes. This paper presents a game design method for the development of serious games which aims to provide business process understanding to players, as well as to allow them to reflect on process challenges and difficulties. The design of serious business process games requires game designers to have business process modeling skills and instructions on how to represent business process elements in the game context. This research was conducted using the Design Science Research Methodology, and addresses the challenge of providing a method for the design of serious business process games. The method receives business process models as input and comprises steps to (i) map business process elements into game design elements, game design and development, and (ii) evaluate games with game designers, process actors, and game players. In order to validate the method, a set of games was built and evaluated with players. The designed games were evaluated as to adequate quality, although fun and entertainment can still be improved, and players´ understanding regarding process increase after games are played