Research Topics in Business Process Management

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Research Topics in Business Process Management

• Marlon Dumas
• University of Tartu

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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.

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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

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Process models serve many purposes
ProcessImprovement
Compliance /Risk Management
Process Documentation
KnowledgeManagement
Process CostAnalysis / Simulation
EnterpriseSystems
EnterpriseArchitecture
WorkflowManagement
DocumentManagement
Software Evaluation/ Selection
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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
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and come in many versions
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...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)

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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

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Quick BPMN example
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BPEL in a Nutshell

• Basic activities ltassigngt, ltinvokegt, ltreceivegt
• Block-structured constructs
• ltsequencegt, ltwhilegt, ltswitchgt, ltflowgt
• Graph-oriented flow construct ltlinkgt
• Not graphically supported by most BPEL editors
• Considered less readable than structured
  constructs
• Event-action rules ltonEventgt
• Considered even less readable than control links!
• Other constructs not relevant to this talk

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Example Only Structured Components
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Generated BPEL code

• ltsequencegt
• ltinvoke check stock availability /gt
• ltswitch () /gt
• ltcase rejectgt ltinvoke order rejection
  /gt lt/casegt
• ltotherwisegt
• ltsequencegt
• ltinvoke order acceptance /gt
• ltflowgt ltinvoke invoicing /gt
• ltinvoke ship goods /gt
• lt/flowgt
• lt/sequencegt lt/otherwisegt lt/switchgt
  lt/sequencegt

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BPMN-to-BPEL Interesting cases
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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?

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Empirical evaluation

• Applied BPMN2BPEL to 568 models from SAPs
  Reference Model
• Only 3 models required control links 3 event
  handlers
• Dataset might be biased because SAP ref models
  are highly structured

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Topic 2 Process Merging
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Configurable Process Models
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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

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Topic 3 Process-Service Binding
Purchasers System
Suppliers 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)
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Process-Service Binding
Service Interface / Protocol
Events in service interface related to events in
business process
Business Process Model
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BPEL Conformance Checker Architecture
Services
Services
abstract BPEL process
Services
Conformance?
SOAP Messages
Translation
Monitoring / Correlation
Petri net model
Event Log
Conformance Checking!
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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?