Abstract
Recently, a variety of workflow patterns has been proposed focusing on specific aspects like control flow, data flow, and resource assignments. Though these patterns are relevant for implementing Business Process Modeling (BPM) tools and for evaluating the expressiveness of BPM languages, they do not contribute to reduce redundant specifications of recurrent business functions when modeling business processes. Furthermore, contemporary BPM tools do not support process designers in defining, querying, and reusing activity patterns as building blocks for process modeling. Related to these problems this paper proposes a set of activity patterns, evidences their practical relevance, and introduces a BPM tool for the modeling of business processes based on the reuse of these activity patterns. Altogether our approach fosters reuse of business function specifications and helps to improve the quality and comparability of business process models.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Rummler, G., Brache, A.: Improving Performance: How to Manage the White Space on Organizational Chart. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco (1990)
Lenz, R., Reichert, M.: IT Support for Healthcare Processes – Premises, Challenges, Perspectives. Data and Knowledge Engineering 61, 39–58 (2007)
Thom, L., Iochpe, C., Amaral, V., Viero, D.: Toward Block Activity Patterns for Reuse in Workflow Design. In: Workflow Handbook 2006, pp. 249–260 (2006)
Mutschler, B., Reichert, M., Bumiller, J.: Unleashing the Effectiveness of Process-oriented Information Systems: Problem Analysis, Critical Success Factors and Implications. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (Part C) 38(3), 280–291 (2008)
van der Aalst, W.M.P., ter Hofstede, A.H.M., Kiepuszewski, B., Barros, A.: Workflow Patterns. Distributed and Parallel Databases 14(3), 5–51 (2003)
Russel, N., Aalst, W., Hofstede, A., Edmond, D.: Workflow Resource Patterns: Identification, Representation and Tool Support. In: Pastor, Ó., Falcão e Cunha, J. (eds.) CAiSE 2005. LNCS, vol. 3520, pp. 216–232. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)
Russel, N., Hofstede, A., Edmond, D.: Workflow Data Patterns. In: Delcambre, L.M.L., Kop, C., Mayr, H.C., Mylopoulos, J., Pastor, Ó. (eds.) ER 2005. LNCS, vol. 3716, pp. 353–368. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)
Russel, N., Aalst, W., Hofstede, A.: Workflow Exception Patterns. In: Dubois, E., Pohl, K. (eds.) CAiSE 2006. LNCS, vol. 4001, pp. 288–302. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)
Ohnmacht, A.: Development of a Collaborative Process Modeling Methodology for Domain Experts. Master Thesis, University of Ulm (2007)
Barros, A., Dumas, M., ter Hofstede, A.: Service Interaction Patterns. In: van der Aalst, W.M.P., Benatallah, B., Casati, F., Curbera, F. (eds.) BPM 2005. LNCS, vol. 3649, pp. 302–318. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)
Weber, B., Rinderle, S., Reichert, M.: Change Patterns and Change Support Features in Process-Aware Information Systems. In: Krogstie, J., Opdahl, A., Sindre, G. (eds.) CAiSE 2007. LNCS, vol. 4495, pp. 574–588. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)
Namiri, K., Stoganovic, N.: Pattern-Based Design and Validation of Business Process Compliance. In: Proc. CoopIS 2007, pp. 59–76 (2007)
Thom, L.: Applying Block Activity Patterns in Workflow Modeling. In: Proc. 8th Int’l Conf. on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2006), Paphos, Cyprus, pp. 457–460 (2006)
Ellis, C.: Workflow Mining: Definitions, Techniques, Future Directions. In: Fischer, L. (ed.) Workflow Handbook 2006. Lighthouse Point: Future Strategies, pp. 213–228 (2006)
Günther, C.W., Rinderle-Ma, S., Reichert, M., van der Aalst, W.M.P., Recker, J.: Using Process Mining to Learn from Process Changes in Evolutionary Systems. Int’l Journal of Business Process Integration and Management (2008)
Davis, M.R., Weckler, D.A.: A Practical Guide to Organization Design. Crisp Publications, Boston (1996)
Chiao, C., Thom, L.H., Iochpe, C., Reichert, M.: Verifying Existence, Completeness and Sequences of Workflow Activity Patterns in Real Process Models. In: IV Brazilian Symposium of Information Systems (SBSI), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2008)
Le Clair, C., Teubner, C.: The Forrester Wave: Business Process Management for Document Processes, Q3 (2007)
Wiley, J.: Methods Engineering, United States of America (1962)
Intalio. Creating Process Flows (2006), http://bpms.intalio.com
IDS Scheer: Aris Platform: Product Brochure (2007), http://www.ids-scheer.com/set/82/PR_09-07_en.pdf
Reichert, M., Rinderle, S., Kreher, U., Dadam, P.: Adaptive Process Management with ADEPT2. In: Proc. Int’l Conf. on Data Engineering (ICDE 2005), Tokyo, Japan, pp. 1113–1114. IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos (2005)
Ambler, S.W.: An Introduction to Process Patterns (1998)
Russell, N., Hofstede, A.H.M., ter Aalst, W.M.P., van der Mulyar, N.: Workflow Control Flow Patterns: A Revised View. BPM Center Report BPM-06-22, BPM center.org (2006)
van der Aalst, W.M.P.: Patterns and XPDL: A Critical Evaluation of the XML Process Definition Language. QUT Technical report, FIT-TR-2003-06, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane (2003)
Wohed, P., Aalst, W.M.P., van der Dumas, M., ter Hofstede, A.H.M., Russell, N.: Pattern-based Analysis of BPMN - An extensive evaluation of the Control-flow, the Data and the Resource Perspectives. BPM Center Report BPM-06-17, BPMcenter.org (2006)
SAP. SAP Business Workflow (2008), http://www.sap.com
SCOR. Supply-Chain Operations Reference-model (2008)
Becker, J., Pfeiffer, D., Räckers, M.: Domain Specific Process Modelling in Public Administrations – The PICTURE-Approach. In: Wimmer, M.A., Scholl, J., Grönlund, Å. (eds.) EGOV. LNCS, vol. 4656, pp. 68–79. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)
Weber, B., Reichert, M., Rinderle-Ma, S.: Change Patterns and Change Support Features - Enhancing Flexibility in Process-Aware Information Systems. Data and Knowledge Engineering (accepted for publication, 2008)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Thom, L.H., Reichert, M., Chiao, C.M., Iochpe, C., Hess, G.N. (2008). Inventing Less, Reusing More, and Adding Intelligence to Business Process Modeling. In: Bhowmick, S.S., Küng, J., Wagner, R. (eds) Database and Expert Systems Applications. DEXA 2008. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5181. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-85654-2_75
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-85654-2_75
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-85653-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-85654-2
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)