Artifact-Centric%20Approach%20to%20Business%20Process%20Modeling

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Artifact-Centric Approach toBusiness Process
Modeling
Artifact????????????

• Jianwen Su
• University of California, Santa Barbara

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Outline

• Challenges in Business Process Management
• Artifact-centric Modeling Approach
• A Design Methodology
• Conclusions

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Business (Biz) Processes

• A set of one or more linked activities (automated
  or manual) that collectively realize a business
  objective or policy goal, normally within the
  context of an organizational structure defining
  functional roles and relationships

Obtaining a Permit
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BP Management Systems

• Manage and support (and control)
• biz models
• data (documents, files, )
• enactments
• resources
• others (e.g. auditing)

A key enabler is suitable BP model
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Major Obstacles in BPM

• Hard to design, ad hoc solutionsLack of
  hierarchical approach with good disciplines
• Hard to modify (evolution)E.g., go back to the
  original contractor (if lucky)
• Hard to analyzeBiz intelligence is a growing
  research area
• Hard to interoperateE.g., hard to get data out
  in Cottage Hospital at Santa Barbara, CA
• A key factor for many problems insufficient
  conceptual modeling

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The Challenge of BPM
High Executive

• Business Strategy
• Be more green
• Use our differentiators

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A Business Component Map is a tabular view of the
business components in the scope of interest
A Representative Model at Biz Manager Level
Business Planning
Sector Planning
Portfolio Planning
Account Planning
Sales Planning
Fulfillment Planning
Business Unit Tracking
Sales Management
Compliance
Relationship Management
Sector Management
Fulfillment Planning
Reconciliation
Product Management
Credit Assessment
Staff Appraisals
Product Fulfillment
Sales
Product Directory
Credit Administration
Customer Accounts
Staff Administration
Marketing Campaigns
Customer Dialogue
Document Management
General Ledger
Production Administration
Contact Routing
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The Challenge of BPM
High Executive

• Business Strategy
• Be more green
• Use our differentiators

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Common Model at IT Level
An Activity Flow is a (typically) graph-based
specification of how activities/processes are to
be sequenced
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The Challenge of BPM

• Operations need to be
• Faithful
• Measurable
• Flexible

High Executive

• Business Strategy
• Be more green
• Use our differentiators

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Common Model at IT Level
An Activity Flow is a (typically) graph-based
specification of how activities/processes are to
be sequenced

• Data and business objects are typically an
  afterthought
• Hard for stake-holders to communicate about the
  big picture
• People see the trees but not the forest
• Overall process can be chaotic Cf. staple
  yourself to a customer order
• Hard to manage versions
• E.g., evolution, re-use, generic workflow with
  numerous specializations

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Typical Biz Process Modeling

• A bookseller example Traditional control-centric
  models

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Typical Biz Process Modeling

• A bookseller example Traditional control-centric
  models
• Multiple steps needed for each activity

Hard to reason, find useful views missing data
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BP Analytics (Biz Intelligence)

• Extract-Transform-Load

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Why We Should Look for a Unifying Model

• Good models go beyond description they support
  action
• Selecting the right model for the job matters

Example Game of 15 Winner First one to reach
exactly 15 with any 3 chips
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4
5
6
7
8
9
2
3
4
5
8
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
2
3
what is Bs move?
Second model
Bs move is 6!

• Can we find a model of business operations that
  is
• Useful natural for the business level
  stake-holders to use
• Useful natural for mapping to the IT
  infrastructure

Example due to David Cohn (IBM)
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A Fundamental Theorem of Databases

• Physical data independence allows us to focus
  only data management issues

logical data model
SQL
conceptual
automated mapping
physical
query plan
physical organization (files, pages, indexes, )
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Future of BPM

• Automate s

process model
changes
data model
business
IT
system (model) (databases, services,workflows,
resources)
Changes to system

• Reuse concepts, tools, techniques developed in CS
• First step a single conceptual model for biz
  processes
• both data and processes are 1st class citizens

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Outline

• Challenges in Business Process Management
• Artifact-centric Modeling Approach
• A Design Methodology
• Conclusions

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Data in BP Modeling Exclusion to Centricity

• Data exclusive models focus on activity flow and
  management
• WfMC, BPMN,
• Incorporating data as views complements well (but
  separate from) activity views
• UML (object modeling and activity diagrams)
• Executable models integrate data and activities
  with low level of abstraction
• BPEL
• Recent data-centric approaches treat both data
  and activities equally in a more uniformed
  manner
• biz artifact-centric, form-based,
  spreadsheet-based

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Business Artifacts
Nigam-Caswell 03

• A business artifact is a key conceptual business
  entity that is used in guiding the operation of
  the business
• fedex package delivery, patient visit,
  application form, insurance claim, order,
  financial deal, registration,
• both information carrier and road-maps
• Very natural to business managers and BP modelers
• Includes two parts
• Information model data needed to move through
  workflow
• Lifecycle possible ways to evolve

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Example Restaurant
repository
Activity
Artifacts
Add Item
CreateGuest Check
OpenGCs
Guest Check
Kitchen Order
PrepareReceipt
PendingKOs
Receipt
Cash Balance
PendingReceipts
Prepare Test Quality
ClosedGCs
ReadyKOs
Payment
UpdateCash Balance
PaidReceipts
Deliver
DisagreedReceipts
ArchivedReceipts
ArchivedGCs
CashBalance
ArchivedKOs
RecalculateReceipt
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Example Restaurant
Artifacts
Add Item
CreateGuest Check
OpenGCs
Guest Check
Kitchen Order
PrepareReceipt
PendingKOs
Receipt
Cash Balance
PendingReceipts
Prepare Test Quality
ClosedGCs
ReadyKOs
Payment
UpdateCash Balance
PaidReceipts
Deliver
DisagreedReceipts
ArchivedReceipts
ArchivedGCs
CashBalance
ArchivedKOs
RecalculateReceipt
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Artifact Life Cycle Nigam-Caswell 03

• An artifact life cycle captures the end-to-end
  processing of a specific artifact, from creation
  to completion and archiving
• Artifact processing is a way to describe the
  operations of a business
• Described by
• Repositories, a means for archiving artifacts
• Tasks (activity), a localization of function
• Biz operations are described by IFF (Information,
  Function, and Flow)

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Properties on Tasks Nigam-Caswell 03

• A task performs an action and records the outcome
  on artifacts in its possession
• A task transforms artifacts in its possession by
  adding/modifying content of an artifact using
  information in the other artifacts
• multiple artifacts can reside in a task, and
  their content can be arbitrarily exchanged
• After a task completes, it ejects all artifacts
  within it
• no residual information all artifacts are either
  sent out or discarded

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Flows Nigam-Caswell 03

• Tasks and repositories can be connected through
  flow connectors which may be viewed as transport
  pipes
• Through these pipes, artifacts or artifact
  content can be transmitted from one place
  (task/repository) to another
• Properties on flow
• A flow connector is a directed connector between
  a fromPlace and a toPlace
• A flow connector ensures reliable transmission of
  artifacts
• A flow connector, when connecting a task to a
  repository, provides a reliable request-response
  style of communication
• a task that sends a request to a repository is
  ensured to receive one or more artifacts (or
  artifact content) ora NONE FOUND indication

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Life Cycle of Guest Check Artifact
Nigam-Caswell 03
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Data (Biz Objects, Documents, ) vs Artifacts

• They all contain data needed for business logic,
  e.g., customer info, shopping cart, product
  catalog,
• Biz objects are not artifacts artifacts are
  uniquely identified with biz process instances,
  biz objects are just data objects needed for biz
  process
• Biz artifacts also contain
• (Schema) Lifecycle, i.e., process (or workflow)
  to evolve an artifact from creation to archive
• (Enactment) Runtime states of instances (cases),
  i.e., containing a part of the system snapshot
  concerning this artifact/enactment

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Case Study IBM Global Financing
Chao, Cohn, et al BPM 2009

• Finance HW, SW services from IBM others for
  clients
• IBM internal financing business w/ global reach
• Worlds largest IT financier w/ 38B asset base
• Financing gt40B IT assets / year for last 3 years
• 125K clients across gt50 countries (9 of IBM
  profit)
• Business challenges
• Operations tailored to mega-deals becoming too
  costly
• Efficiency cost control required global
  performance metrics
• Country silos inhibited integration annoyed
  clients
• Current methods failed to produce end-to-end
  tangible model
• Needed globally standard process w/ local
  variations

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How the Artifact-Centric Approach Helped

• In a 3-day workshop with 15 business SMEs from
  IGF, a preliminary artifact design was created
• Already useful to stakeholders from different
  regions as a common vocabulary
• 6 weeks of design refinements lead to final
  design
• Enabled visibility into the global process and
  the regional variations not possible before
• A blueprint for transformation of IGF operations
• VP roles assigned to pieces of top-level artifact
  model
• Current plan automate the global-level artifact
  model
• Anticipate significant improvement in efficiency
• Plan to substantially augment the sales staff

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Outline

• Challenges in Business Process Management
• Artifact-centric Modeling Approach
• A Design Methodology
• Conclusions

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A Data-Centric Design Methodology
Bhattacharya-Hull-S. 09

• A three-level framework

Business Operations Model (BOM) (artifacts,
activities, flow)
Specification
Conceptual Flow (artifacts, services,
choreography/orchestration)
Optimization
Workflow (artifacts, executable services,
messages)
Execution
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Key Elements in BOMs

• Artifact information model
• Represent all information needed for the biz
  process
• Artifact (macro-level) lifecycle
• Specify how an artifact evolves using e.g., state
  machines
• Services
• Represent activities
• Associations
• Define how and when artifacts are changed by
  services

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Artifact-Centric Design Methodology

• Step 1 Business Artifacts Discovery
• Identify critical artifacts for the business
  process
• Discover key stages of artifacts life cycles
  from the scenario-based requirements
• Step 2 Design of Business Operations Model (BOM)
• Logical design of artifact schemas
• Specify services for artifacts needed for moving
  artifacts through the life-cycles
• Develop ECA rules that enable artifacts progress
  in their life cycles
• Step 3 Design of Conceptual Flow Diagram
• Step 4 Workflow Realization

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Business Artifact Discovery

• Key artifacts in Distributed Enterprise Services

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Schedule and Vendor Lifecycles

• Schedule
• Vendor

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Data-Centric Design Methodology

• Step 1 Business Artifacts Discovery
• Identify critical artifacts for the business
  process
• Discover key stages of artifacts life cycles
  from the scenario-based requirements
• Step 2 Design of Business Operations Model (BOM)
• Logical design of artifact schemas
• Specify services for artifacts needed for moving
  artifacts through the lifecycles
• Develop ECA rules that enable artifacts progress
  in their lifecycles
• Step 3 Design of Conceptual Flow Diagram
• Step 4 Workflow Realization

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BOM Logical Design for Artifacts

• ER diagrams or other suitable modeling approaches

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BOM Specifying Services

• Create_schedule (Offered DES Service o,
  Customer c, Site si)Has the effect of
  creating a schedule artifact for o, c, and si
  (where si is a site of c)
• Create_vendor_task (Schedule sch, Generic Task
  g)Has the effect of creating a vendor task
  artifact that will be associated with g in sch
• Adjust_task_general (Vendor task t, Vender v,
  Schedule sch, listTask, start_date,
  end_date)Used to revise all aspects of a
  vendor task t during the Task_planning stage. The
  task t serves as the primary artifact for this
  service and the following ones the other
  artifacts that are used as input are all
  reachable from the primary artifact. The list of
  tasks with start- and end-dates is intended to
  hold all tasks that are immediate successors of t
  according to sch

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BOM Service IOPEs of Create_schedule
Inputs
Outputs
Pre-

• An Offered DES Service artifact o, and
  specifically the listing of used Generic Tasks,
  along with whether they are optional, and
  information about the Precedence relationships
  between them
• A Customer artifact c, ...
• A Site artifact si for c, ...
• A new Schedule artifact sch. The data written
  will include attributes schedule_ID, stage,
  planned_start_date, and the Generic Task portion
  of the includes relationship
• The Site artifact si is updated
• Offered DES Service artifact o must be compatible
  with the infrastructure and needs of site si
• If true, then sch is in stage Schedule_planning
• If true, then sch holds a schedule skeleton
  (i.e., appropriate portions of the relationship
  includes are filled in)
• If true,

Cond. effect
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BOM ECA Rules

• R1 initiate schedule
• event request by performer p to create a
  schedule instance for Offered DES Service
  artifact o, Customer artifact c, and Site
  artifact si
• condition the appropriate non-disclosure
  agreements (NDAs) are in place for c
• action invoke Create_schedule(o, c, si)
• by performer p where offer_manager in role(p)
  and qualification(p, o, region si.region) 5

Alternative models can also be used
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Data-Centric Design Methodology

• Step 1 Business Artifacts Discovery
• Identify critical artifacts for the business
  process
• Discover key stages of artifacts life cycles
  from the scenario-based requirements
• Step 2 Design of Business Operations Model (BOM)
• Logical design of artifact schemas
• Specify services for artifacts needed for moving
  artifacts through the life-cycles
• Develop ECA rules that enable artifacts progress
  in their life cycles
• Step 3 Design of Conceptual Flow Diagram
• Step 4 Workflow Realization

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Conceptual Flow Diagram (EZ-Flows)
ArtiFlow 2009
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Interpreting EZ-Flows
Alternative Mapping to BPEL ArtiFlow 2009
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Emerging Artifact-Centric BPs
customer info
cart
. . .
Specification of artifact lifecycles

Artifacts (Info models)

• Informal model Nigam-Caswell 03
• Systems BELA (IBM 2005), Siena (IBM
  2007),ArtiFlow (Fudan-UCSB 2010), Barcelona (IBM
  2010)
• Formal models
• State machines Gerede-Bhattacharya-S. SOCA
  07Gerede-S. ICSOC 07
• Rules Bhattacharya-Gerede-Hull-Liu-S. BPM
  07Hull et al WSFM 2010

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Declarative Biz Processes
if C enable


Artifacts (info models)
Semantic services (IOPEs)
Condition-action rules

• Variation of Bhattacharya-Gerede-Hull-Liu-S. BPM
  07

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GSM Requisition Order Lifecycle
Hull et al WSFM 2010
Creating Proc. Orders
InitiateReq.Order
All Line Items ordered
Req.Order cancelled
some Proc.Order Rejected affectedLine
Itemsresearched
Generating Report
Reportrequested
Reportgenerated
Top ofeach hour

• Milestone
• Business-relevant operational objective
• Expressed as event and/or condition
• Has effect of closing the stage

• Guard
• Has the effect of opening the stage
• Expressed as event and/or condition

• Stage
• Cluster of activities intended to achieve one
  (of perhaps several) milestones
• May be nested

Data attributes Event
(occurrence) attributes
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Operational Semantics in a Nutshell
Assembling
Assembly finished
Creating Proc. Orders
All Line Items ordered
Initiate Req. Order
Request to begin assembling and enough Line
Items to start
Assembly abandoned
some Proc.Order Rejected affected Line Items
researched
Req.Order cancelled
Generating Report
Report requested
Report generated
Top of each hour
Optimal line items partition

• Stylized ECA
• Guard Event/Cond -gt open stage
• Milestone Event/Cond -gt close stage and set
  milestone status attribute to true

• Line Items

Procurement Orders
Done allocating Line Items
Request new Req. Order
milestones

• Customer

• ID

Event (occurrence)attributes
Data Attributes
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Nesting of Substages
All Line Items not in a Procurement Order have
been Researched
Creating Proc. Orders
Initiate Req. Order
Assembling
All Line Items ordered
Planning Proc. orders
LaunchingLine Items
some Proc.Order Rejected affected Line Items
researched
Generating Report
Launching Sending Proc. Orders
This milestone becomes true once all Proc. Orders
have been sent
This milestone becomes compromised if a Proc.
Order is later rejected
Done only in first occurrence of this stage
Optimal line items partition
Stage(active or inactive)

• Line Items

Procurement Orders

• Stylized ECA (cont.)
• Milestone Invalidator Event/Cond -gt set
  milestone to false

Done allocating Line Items
Request new Req. Order
milestones

• Customer

• ID

Event (occurrence)attributes
Statusattributes
Data Attributes
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Atomic Stages and Tasks
Creating Proc. Orders
Assembling
All Line Items ordered
Initiate Req. Order
Planning Proc. orders
LaunchingLine Items
some Proc.Order Rejected affected Line Items
researched
Generating Report
Launching Sending Proc. Orders

• Atomic stage has a task inside
• Task reads from Data Attributes, and later writes
  into them

Atomic stage has a task inside
Optimal line items partition
Stage(active or inactive)

• Line Items

Procurement Orders
Done allocating Line Items
Request new Req. Order
milestones

• Stylized ECA (cont.)
• If open atomic stage -gt invoke task
• Note task return is key incoming event it will
  close the atomic stage

• Customer

• ID

Event (occurrence)attributes
Statusattributes
Data Attributes
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Outline

• Challenges in Business Process Management
• Artifact-centric Modeling Approach
• A Design Methodology
• Conclusions

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Brief Summary of Research Problems

• Verification
• Temporal properties of transition
  systemsGerede-S. ICSOC07 Bhattacharya-Gerede-H
  ull-Liu-S. BPM07Deutch et al ICDT09,
  Damaggio-Deutsch-Vianu ICDT11
• Interoperation Hull-Narendra-Nigam ICSOC09
• Automated construction Frits-Hull-S. ICDT09
• Dominance Calvanese-De Giacomo-Hull-S. ICSOC09
• Modeling Declarative, semantics,
  executionCangialosi-De Giacomo-De
  Masellis-Rosati ICSOC10
• Flexible execution Xu-S.-Yan-Yang-Zhang
  CoopIS11
• Preserving Data ICs Liu-S.-Yang CoopIS 2011

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Conclusions

• Biz process modeling a foundation for many BPM
  issues
• Many challenges old and new
• Data-centric or data aware approaches promising
• Business artifacts as the modeling foundation
• Extension of business objects with
  lifecycle/enactments
• Many styles of modeling approaches declarative,
  procedural, combinations
• Modeling is/need be explored in conjunction with
  various technical issues in BP management
• A longer tutorial is at BPM 2011 (next week)

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References

• Nigam-Caswell 03 A. Nigam and N. S. Caswell.
  Business artifacts An approach to operational
  specification. IBM Systems Journal,
  42(3)428445, 2003
• Chao, Cohn, et al, BPM 2009 T. Chao, D. Cohn,
  A. Flatgard, S. Hahn, M.H. Linehan, P. Nandi, A.
  Nigam, F. Pinel, J. Vergo, F.Y. Wu.
  Artifact-Based Transformation of IBM Global
  Financing, Proc. BPM 2009, pages 261-277
• Bhattacharya-Hull-S. 09 K. Bhattacharya,
  R. Hull, and J. Su. A data-centric design
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• ArtiFlow 2009 G. Liu, X. Liu, H. Qin, J. Su, Z.
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  Workflow Specification. ICSOC/ServiceWave
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• Bhattacharya-Gerede-Hull-Liu-S. BPM 07
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  2007
• Gerede- Bhattacharya-S. SOCA 07 C.E. Gerede, K.
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  133-140
• Gerede-S. ICSOC 07 C.E. Gerede and J. Su
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• Hull et al WSFM 2010 R. Hull, E. Damaggio, F.
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  Vaculín Introducing the Guard-Stage-Milestone
  Approach for Specifying Business Entity
  Lifecycles. WS-FM 2010 1-24

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References

• Fritz-Hull-S. ICDT09 C. Fritz, R. Hull, and J.
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  225-238
• Deutsch et al ICDT09 A. Deutsch, R. Hull, F.
  Patrizi, and V. Vianu. Automatic verification of
  data-centric business processes. ICDT 2009
  252-267
• Damaggio-Deutsch-Vianu ICDT11 E. Damaggio, A.
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