Management Information Systems

Business process modeling and design, which has attracted much attention in recent years, emphasizes mainly graphical representation, usually without an underlying theory. The lack of a theoretical foundation causes several important issues to remain intuition-rather than theory-based. In particular, many process-modeling methods, being semi-formal, lack a mechanism for verifying the” correctness” of a process in terms of completeness, consistency, and feasibility.

Abstract Visitors often tend to visit museums in groups, mainly with family or friends, yet most of the today mobile museum guides focus on supporting the individual visitor. The technology described in this paper allows supporting groups of visitors in addition to individuals by providing context-aware services aimed at supporting the whole group.

K. Ploesser, M. Peleg, P. Soffer, M. Rosemann, and J. Recker, are members of a team of researchers from Queensland University, Australia, Stanford University, USA and Haifa University, Israel, who are currently investigating how context-awareness can become an integral part of business process modeling. They argue that to get to the next level of process management we must broaden our analysis beyond internal processes to the contextual environment in which the processes are embedded.

Abstract Organizations often change their business processes in reaction to changes in the environment or as a result of improvement efforts. These changes lead to adjustments in the Business Process Support (BPS) system. The impact of a change in a business process may extend beyond the specific point that has been changed, affecting preconditions required for other activities, outputs to be created, or requiring new inputs.

Process models are considered to be a major asset in modern business organizations. They are expected to apply to all the possible business contexts in which the process may be executed, however not all of these are known a priori. Instead of identifying all contexts before the process is established, we propose to learn from runtime experience which contextual properties should be taken into account by the process model.

Organizational processes in general and patient-care processes in particular, change over time. This may be in response to situations unpredicted by a predefined business process model (or clinical guideline), or as a result of new knowledge which has not yet been incorporated into the model. Process mining techniques enable capturing process changes, evaluating the gaps between the predefined model and the practiced process, and modifying the model accordingly.

The aim of this working paper is to suggest a taxonomy of flexibility in business processes. The taxonomy should be generic. Hence, it relies on a minimal set of assumptions. We consider business processes as the dynamic aspect of an organization. Business processes can be addressed using the two layers of instance, and type. A process instance layer is an actual occurrence in the organization. The process type layer aggregates the instances as a template they all should fit.

One of the main problems in ERP implementation projects is how to align an off-the-shelf software package with the business processes of the enterprise implementing it. The paper proposes a requirement-driven approach, which benefits from reusing the business process design without being restricted by predefined solutions and criteria. The approach applies an iterative alignment process, which employs an algorithm that matches a model of the enterprise requirements with a model of the ERP system capabilities.

ABSTRACT Ubiquitous computing plays an increasing role in our lives. Typically, applications in ubiquitous computing environments are context aware, namely, they react to the situations of their users at a given moment in time. One example for such environment is visitor's guides in cultural heritage sites, supporting visits of individuals or small groups, such as families or friends. In such environments, it is well known that interaction among visitors enhances the overall visit experience.

As previously suggested, a formal process modeling framework, termed the Generic Process Model (GPM), has been used to define the notion of process model validity. In GPM, validity is based on the idea that the purpose of process design is to assure that an enacted process can reach its goal. In practice, often several processes “work” together to accomplish goals in an organizational domain.

Reference models, whose aim is to capture domain knowledge, can assist in the adequate design of enterprise specific business processes. In complex organisations, business processes can be locally designed by specific organisational units. However, in order to be adequate, these processes should meet the local needs while maintaining the organisational standards.

We present a generic reverse engineering process, aimed at developing a model that captures the available alternatives at different application levels of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. Such a model is needed when ERP systems are aligned with the needs of the enterprise in which they are implemented.

Research on quality issues of business process models has recently begun to explore the process of creating process models. As a consequence, the question arises whether different ways of creating process models exist. In this vein, we observed 115 students engaged in the act of modeling, recording all their interactions with the modeling environment using a specialized tool. The recordings of process modeling were subsequently clustered.

Abstract Nowadays, technology enables museums to become" active". Shortly, museum visitors will be equipped with smart personal devices and the museum environment will be able to interact proactively with them, offering them various services. Visitors often tend to visit museums in groups, mainly with family or friends, yet most of today mobile museum guides focus on supporting the individual visitor.

Abstract Reuse of models assists in constructing a new model on the basis of existing knowledge by retrieving a model that matches a preliminary partial input model or some facts about the domain and adapting it to the current needs. It often employs similarity measures to identify reusable models that are structurally and semantically similar to the input model.

In the current business environment, collaborative business processes serve a variety of organizations for accomplishing their business goals. Such processes require an integration infrastructure, which, in turn, should build on a profound model encompassing the details of the collaborative process. A proper model gives the stakeholders a clear-cut understanding of the whole process and assists in discovering possible failures, optimizing and documenting the integration processes.

Enterprise systems implementations are often accompanied by changes in the business processes of the organizations in which they take place. However, not all the changes are desirable. In “vanilla” implementations it is possible that the newly operational business process requires many additional steps as “workarounds” of the system limitations, and is hence performed in an inefficient manner. Such inefficiencies are reflected in the event log of the system as recurring patterns of log entries.

Learning how to improve business processes is an evolutionary process that must be managed as other business processes (BPs) are managed in modern organizations. The proposed model–the learning process model (LPM)–suggests a closed-loop-model approach applied to a generic process model (GPM), which is a formal state-based and goal-based approach to process modeling.

Abstract Conceptual models are aimed at providing a formal representation of a domain in the real world. However, it is commonly known that different people construct different models of a given domain. While prior research dealt mainly with modeling errors, this paper explores variations among correct models. Model variations, though frequently harmless, may have severe consequences when similarity of models is to be assessed for purposes of reuse. This paper presents the problem of model variations and its effect on reusability.

• A business process is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks that produce a specific service or product (serve a particular goal) for a particular customer or customers.• It often can be visualized with a flowchart as a sequence of activities with interleaving decision points.