International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=115&year=2011&vol=5&issue=4 Inderscience Publishers Ltd en-uk International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management 1741-8763 1741-8771 © 2011 Inderscience Publishers Ltd editor@inderscience.com https://www.inderscience.com/images/files/coverImgs/ijbpim_scoverijbpim.jpg http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=115&year=2011&vol=5&issue=4 http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=43388 Expectations of the 21st century enterprise are, first of all, coping with complexity of modern business settings, dynamicity of business environment, and possessing corresponding flexibility. These expectations require rigid, explicit, and precise definition and description of business rules. To identify, define and incorporate business rules into the enterprise business process models, it is needed to design an ontological model (construction-oriented model) of an enterprise, where the white-box system approach is applied. The white-box approach allows capturing not only each action, but also the actors (actor roles) and their interactions. In this article, the focus is on two important components of enterprise process modelling. The first component is the construction-oriented (platform and realisation independent) ontological models. The second component is rules-based description of business processes. These two components are put together as an integrated method for rules complemented enterprise process modelling. For illustration, an example of patient examination process is discussed, where first an enterprise process model is developed, then the model is further complemented with business rules. Enterprise process modelling complemented with business rules
Joseph Barjis
International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management, Vol. 5, No. 4 (2011) pp. 276 - 286
Expectations of the 21st century enterprise are, first of all, coping with complexity of modern business settings, dynamicity of business environment, and possessing corresponding flexibility. These expectations require rigid, explicit, and precise definition and description of business rules. To identify, define and incorporate business rules into the enterprise business process models, it is needed to design an ontological model (construction-oriented model) of an enterprise, where the white-box system approach is applied. The white-box approach allows capturing not only each action, but also the actors (actor roles) and their interactions. In this article, the focus is on two important components of enterprise process modelling. The first component is the construction-oriented (platform and realisation independent) ontological models. The second component is rules-based description of business processes. These two components are put together as an integrated method for rules complemented enterprise process modelling. For illustration, an example of patient examination process is discussed, where first an enterprise process model is developed, then the model is further complemented with business rules.

]]> 10.1504/IJBPIM.2011.043388 International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management, Vol. 5, No. 4 (2011) pp. 276 - 286 Joseph Barjis Department of Systems Engineering, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, Jaffalaan 5, 2628 BX Delft, The Netherlands enterprise modelling integrated modelling business process modelling ontological modelling rule modelling business rules healthcare process modelling process management patient examination process. 2011-10-26T23:20:50-05:00 5 4 276 286 2011-10-26T23:20:50-05:00 http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=43389 Efficient organisations need to ensure that their business processes are flexible so that these processes can easily accommodate changes in regulations and policies. Appropriate techniques to model and verify these processes are required. In this paper, we present a rule-based approach, which is built upon the event-condition-action model (ECA) and supported by a rule-based business process definition language (RbBPDL). In this approach, rules, which specify business processes, are represented using the event-condition-action-post-condition-event (ECAPE) model. This allows translating a process into a graph of rules that is used to check how flexible a business process is, and estimating this process's cost of changes. This cost is based on a rule change cost model (R2CM) that will be presented in this paper. In addition, the ECAPE model allows the translation of a process into a coloured Petri net, called ECAPE net, in order to verify process functioning prior to any deployment. A rule-based approach to model and verify flexible business processes
Mohamed Boukhebouze; Youssef Amghar; Aïcha-Nabila Benharkat; Zakaria Maamar
International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management, Vol. 5, No. 4 (2011) pp. 287 - 307
Efficient organisations need to ensure that their business processes are flexible so that these processes can easily accommodate changes in regulations and policies. Appropriate techniques to model and verify these processes are required. In this paper, we present a rule-based approach, which is built upon the event-condition-action model (ECA) and supported by a rule-based business process definition language (RbBPDL). In this approach, rules, which specify business processes, are represented using the event-condition-action-post-condition-event (ECAPE) model. This allows translating a process into a graph of rules that is used to check how flexible a business process is, and estimating this process's cost of changes. This cost is based on a rule change cost model (R2CM) that will be presented in this paper. In addition, the ECAPE model allows the translation of a process into a coloured Petri net, called ECAPE net, in order to verify process functioning prior to any deployment.

]]> 10.1504/IJBPIM.2011.043389 International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management, Vol. 5, No. 4 (2011) pp. 287 - 307 Mohamed Boukhebouze; Youssef Amghar; Aïcha-Nabila Benharkat; Zakaria Maamar PReCISE Research Center, University of Namur, rue de Bruxelles 61, B-5000 Namur, Belgium. ' CNRS, INSA-Lyon, LIRIS, Université de Lyon, UMR5205, F-69621, France. ' CNRS, INSA-Lyon, LIRIS, Université de Lyon, UMR5205, F-69621, France. ' College of Information Technology, Zayed University, P.O. Box 19282, Dubai, UAE business processes modelling reaction rules declarative language rule graphs flexible modelling business processes verification coloured Petri nets. 2011-10-26T23:20:50-05:00 5 4 287 307 2011-10-26T23:20:50-05:00 http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=43390 Due to the typical long-running character of business processes, it is often desirable to be able to change a running process to respond to changes of business requirements and company policies. However, current process orchestration engines do not provide the flexibility and dynamism needed to support ad hoc changes (e.g., add, shift or delete activities) to a pre-defined service composition in order to deal with an exceptional situation that may occur during process execution. In this paper, we advocate a policy-based framework to manage customisation and corrective adaptation of web services in a controlled and reliable way. WSPolicy4MASC language is used to define process-level adaptation requirements. The latter are enforced by manageable and adaptable service compositions (MASC) middleware both at creation time and during an instance's lifecycle. This paper presents MASC middleware prototype implementation and some experimental results showing the viability and scalability of our approach to providing adaptive services. Policy-based customisation and corrective adaptation of composite web services
Abdelkarim Erradi
International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management, Vol. 5, No. 4 (2011) pp. 308 - 323
Due to the typical long-running character of business processes, it is often desirable to be able to change a running process to respond to changes of business requirements and company policies. However, current process orchestration engines do not provide the flexibility and dynamism needed to support ad hoc changes (e.g., add, shift or delete activities) to a pre-defined service composition in order to deal with an exceptional situation that may occur during process execution. In this paper, we advocate a policy-based framework to manage customisation and corrective adaptation of web services in a controlled and reliable way. WSPolicy4MASC language is used to define process-level adaptation requirements. The latter are enforced by manageable and adaptable service compositions (MASC) middleware both at creation time and during an instance's lifecycle. This paper presents MASC middleware prototype implementation and some experimental results showing the viability and scalability of our approach to providing adaptive services.

]]> 10.1504/IJBPIM.2011.043390 International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management, Vol. 5, No. 4 (2011) pp. 308 - 323 Abdelkarim Erradi Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Qatar University, P.O. Box 2713, Doha, Qatar adaptive composite web services process customisation exceptions management web services middleware. 2011-10-26T23:20:50-05:00 5 4 308 323 2011-10-26T23:20:50-05:00 http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=43391 In this article, we present research results about tools for supporting dynamic business processes. This research work has been conducted in a three-year cooperation between our department and an IT service provider for insurance companies. Our partner's process management system (PMS) is rather aligned with static processes, whose structure is not changed at process run time. Therefore, we contribute an approach for obtaining dynamic process execution support based on this static PMS by automatically augmenting existent WS-BPEL process definitions and run time data. Dynamically changeable processes are presented to process participants as graphical models by a process model editor. This editor aids process participants with performing dynamic changes in as much as it is aware of explicit and implicit technical and professional process knowledge and detects violations against this knowledge in dynamically changed process instance models. We delineate how explicit process knowledge can be graphically modelled and exploited in automatic checks using OCL-constrained and integrated meta-models. Checks versus explicit knowledge are complemented by checks versus implicit knowledge which is contained in other process definition and process instance models. These checks include process similarity computations based on graph grammar formalisms and tools. DYPROTO tools for dynamic business processes
René Wörzberger; Thomas Heer
International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management, Vol. 5, No. 4 (2011) pp. 324 - 343
In this article, we present research results about tools for supporting dynamic business processes. This research work has been conducted in a three-year cooperation between our department and an IT service provider for insurance companies. Our partner's process management system (PMS) is rather aligned with static processes, whose structure is not changed at process run time. Therefore, we contribute an approach for obtaining dynamic process execution support based on this static PMS by automatically augmenting existent WS-BPEL process definitions and run time data. Dynamically changeable processes are presented to process participants as graphical models by a process model editor. This editor aids process participants with performing dynamic changes in as much as it is aware of explicit and implicit technical and professional process knowledge and detects violations against this knowledge in dynamically changed process instance models. We delineate how explicit process knowledge can be graphically modelled and exploited in automatic checks using OCL-constrained and integrated meta-models. Checks versus explicit knowledge are complemented by checks versus implicit knowledge which is contained in other process definition and process instance models. These checks include process similarity computations based on graph grammar formalisms and tools.

]]> 10.1504/IJBPIM.2011.043391 International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management, Vol. 5, No. 4 (2011) pp. 324 - 343 René Wörzberger; Thomas Heer Informatics 3 Software Engineering, RWTH Aachen University, Ahornstrasse 55, D-52074 Aachen, Germany. ' Informatics 3 Software Engineering, RWTH Aachen University, Ahornstrasse 55, D-52074 Aachen, Germany dynamic business processes process tools WS-BPEL dynamics graphical modelling process knowledge object constraint language OCL metamodels graph grammars process similarity process management. 2011-10-26T23:20:50-05:00 5 4 324 343 2011-10-26T23:20:50-05:00 http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=43392 This article presents a novel framework for creating sense-and-respond rules, which allow detecting noteworthy event situations from streams of business incidents and responding to them in near real-time. Focusing on expressiveness as well as manageability, the proposed framework uses a model-driven approach for the rule definition, where the different aspects of a rule are specified in clearly separated, comprehensible sub-models. This includes models for event-type and correlation information, virtual business-object representations, event patterns ('sense') and actions ('respond'), as well as event processing networks. Event patterns are modelled in a visual decision graph from easy-to-understand pieces of pattern-detection logic, and/or from sub-level event patterns. The proposed system has been fully implemented with a service-oriented architecture. The rule model is illustrated with a business case from the workload-automation domain. Model-driven rule composition for event-based systems
Hannes Obweger; Josef Schiefer; Martin Suntinger; Peter Kepplinger
International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management, Vol. 5, No. 4 (2011) pp. 344 - 357
This article presents a novel framework for creating sense-and-respond rules, which allow detecting noteworthy event situations from streams of business incidents and responding to them in near real-time. Focusing on expressiveness as well as manageability, the proposed framework uses a model-driven approach for the rule definition, where the different aspects of a rule are specified in clearly separated, comprehensible sub-models. This includes models for event-type and correlation information, virtual business-object representations, event patterns ('sense') and actions ('respond'), as well as event processing networks. Event patterns are modelled in a visual decision graph from easy-to-understand pieces of pattern-detection logic, and/or from sub-level event patterns. The proposed system has been fully implemented with a service-oriented architecture. The rule model is illustrated with a business case from the workload-automation domain.

]]> 10.1504/IJBPIM.2011.043392 International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management, Vol. 5, No. 4 (2011) pp. 344 - 357 Hannes Obweger; Josef Schiefer; Martin Suntinger; Peter Kepplinger UC4 Senactive, Prinz-Eugen-Strasse 72/1/5, 1040 Vienna, Austria. ' UC4 Senactive, Prinz-Eugen-Strasse 72/1/5, 1040 Vienna, Austria. ' UC4 Senactive, Prinz-Eugen-Strasse 72/1/5, 1040 Vienna, Austria. ' UC4 Senactive, Prinz-Eugen-Strasse 72/1/5, 1040 Vienna, Austria rule composition rule management complex event processing sense-and-respond rules model-driven event patterns modelling service-oriented architecture SOA. 2011-10-26T23:20:50-05:00 5 4 344 357 2011-10-26T23:20:50-05:00