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Research Topics in Business Process Management

Research Topics in Business Process Management. Marlon Dumas University of Tartu. Business Process Management (BPM).

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Research Topics in Business Process Management

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  1. Research Topics in Business Process Management Marlon Dumas University of Tartu

  2. Business Process Management (BPM) Collection of methods and techniques to design, analyze, execute and monitor business operations involving humans, software, information and physical artifacts using process models.

  3. OK, so what is a process model? • Collection of inter-dependent activities whose collective performance is intended to achieve a goal such as delivering a product or a service. • E,g. order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, issue-to-resolution

  4. Process models serve many purposes… ProcessImprovement Compliance /Risk Management Process Documentation KnowledgeManagement Process CostAnalysis / Simulation EnterpriseSystems EnterpriseArchitecture WorkflowManagement DocumentManagement Software Evaluation/ Selection

  5. … and have have many faces Abstract Models EPC, BPMN Communication, simulation, activity-based costing… Detailed Models BPEL, State Machines, YAWL Data types, conditions, data mappings, fault handling… Integration, testing, deployment…

  6. …and come in many versions…

  7. ...and in multiple modelling notations... • Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN) • Event-driven Process Chains (EPC) • Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) • State machines and variants • Petri nets (and variants, e.g. YAWL)

  8. Topic 1: Model transformations • BPMN-to-BPEL • Purpose: Transform models produced by analysts into models for developers (and vice-versa) • Commonly supported in commercial tool, but in a limited manner • BPEL-to-Petri nets, BPMN-to-YAWL • For analysis & verification

  9. Quick BPMN example

  10. BPEL in a Nutshell • Basic activities: <assign>, <invoke>, <receive> • Block-structured constructs: • <sequence>, <while>, <switch>, <flow> • Graph-oriented flow construct: <link> • Not “graphically” supported by most BPEL editors • Considered “less readable” than structured constructs • Event-action rules: <onEvent> • Considered even less readable than control links! • Other constructs not relevant to this talk…

  11. Example: Only Structured Components

  12. Generated BPEL code <sequence> <invoke “check stock availability” …/> <switch (…) …/> <case “reject”> <invoke “order rejection” …/> </case> <otherwise> <sequence> <invoke “order acceptance” … /> <flow> <invoke “invoicing” … /> <invoke “ship goods” … /> </flow> </sequence> </otherwise> </switch> </sequence>

  13. BPMN-to-BPEL: Interesting cases…

  14. BPMN-to-BPEL: Questions • Can every BPMN model be translated into a BPEL model (under bisimulation equivalence)? • Yes, but using event handlers  “unreadable” • Are there classes of BPMN models that can be translated into “readable” BPEL process models? • Structured/quasi-structured process models • Synchronizing process models • Which of these transformations can be made reversible?

  15. Empirical evaluation • Applied BPMN2BPEL to 568 models from SAP’s Reference Model • Only 3 models required control links & 3 event handlers • Dataset might be biased because SAP ref models are highly structured

  16. Topic 2: Process Merging

  17. Configurable Process Models

  18. Process Merging: Issues • Representing and managing configurable process models • Comparing process models • Semantic comparison (Wordnet sim, NGram, etc.) • Behaviour comparison (sets of traces, causality links) • Structural comparison: graph matching • Merging process models • Semantic uniformization • Behavioural merging • Structural merging

  19. Topic 3: Process-Service Binding Purchaser’s System Supplier’s System Process Instance Service Endpoint Service Endpoint Process Instance Order Record Order Process Instance Order Response Send Order Process Instance Receive Order Check Stock Change Order Create Order Receive Response Change Response Send Response Process Response Process Instance Shipment Notice Process Instance Process Instance Process Instance Invoice ProcessModel(s) ServiceInterface(s) ServiceInterface(s) ProcessModel(s)

  20. X Z W Y y x x z Process-Service Binding Service Interface / Protocol Events in service interface related to events in business process Business Process Model

  21. BPEL Conformance Checker: Architecture Services Services abstract BPEL process Services Conformance? SOAP Messages Translation Monitoring / Correlation Petri net model Event Log Conformance Checking!

  22. Process-Service Binding: Issues • Matching business processes against service interfaces/protocols • Guidelines for designing reusable services – i.e. services that plug into multiple processes • What is the right “granularity” of services?

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