Decisions for information or information for decisions? Optimizing information gathering in decision-intensive processes

2021 | Decision Support Systems | Citations: 0

Authors: Voorberg, S.; Eshuis, R.; van Jaarsveld, W.; van Houtum, G.J.

Abstract: Decision-intensive business processes are performed by decision makers who gathe ... Expand

Abstract: Decision-intensive business processes are performed by decision makers who gather different pieces of infor­ mation to reach the process objective: a final decision of high quality, for instance, the final price of a quote or the diagnosis of a failure of a hightech machine, as a result of an information-gathering process with minimum costs and efforts. Gathering all possible pieces of information results in high quality decisions, but also yields high costs and efforts. Therefore, decision makers require decision support to determine which information to gather to make the best final decision. This paper introduces an approach that supports a decision maker in the continuous trade-off between the effective acquisition of more information and cost-efficient decision making. The approach uses a well-defined modeling notation for decision-intensive processes, CMMN, and links it to a standard optimization technique, Markov Decision Processes. The approach calculates an optimal informationgathering solution, such that the expected result of the main decision minus the process cost for collecting in­ formation is optimized. The approach uses the solution to configure a run-time recommendation tool for the decision maker. The approach is flexible and allows that a decision maker ignores the advice; it then continues to offer recommendations in the subsequent states. We show the feasibility and effectiveness of our approach on a real-world quote process. Collapse

Topics: decision making decision support Python declarative language business process management

Methods: decision tree classification computational algorithm design science Markov decision process business process modeling

The Influence of Using Collapsed Sub-processes and Groups on the Understandability of Business Process Models

2020 | Business & Information Systems Engineering | Citations: 0

Authors: Turetken, Oktay; Dikici, Ahmet; Vanderfeesten, Irene; Rompen, Tessa; Demirors, Onur

Abstract: Many factors influence the creation of business process models which are underst ... Expand

Abstract: Many factors influence the creation of business process models which are understandable for a target audience. Understandability of process models becomes more critical when size and complexity of the models increase. Using vertical modularization to decompose such models hierarchically into modules is considered to improve their understandability. To investigate this assumption, two experiments were conducted. The experiments involved 2 large-scale real-life business process models that were modeled using BPMN v2.0 (Business Process Model and Notation) in the form of collaboration diagrams. Each process was modeled in 3 modularity forms: fully-flattened, flattened where activities are clustered using BPMN groups, and modularized using separately viewed BPMN sub-processes. The objective was to investigate if and how different forms of modularity representation (used for vertical modularization) in BPMN collaboration diagrams influence the understandability of process models. In addition to the forms of modularity representation, the presentation medium (paper vs. computer) and model reader’s level of business process modeling competency were investigated as factors that potentially influence model comprehension. 60 business practitioners from a large organization and 140 graduate students participated in our experiments. The results indicate that, when these three modularity representations are considered, it is best to present the model in a ‘flattened’ form (with or without the use of groups) and in the ‘paper’ format in order to optimally understand a BPMN model. The results also show that the model reader’s business process modeling competency is an important factor of process model comprehension. Collapse

Topics: business process management perceived usefulness innovation management web page virtual teamwork

Methods: experiment business process modeling business process model and notation modeling language survey

Theories: technology acceptance model

CONCEPTUALIZING EA CITIES: TOWARDS VISUALIZING ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURES AS CITIES

2019 | European Conference On Information Systems | Citations: 0

Authors: Rehring, Kevin; BrÃ, Tim

Abstract: Enterprise Architectures (EAs) are commonly visualized in the form of text, numb ... Expand

Abstract: Enterprise Architectures (EAs) are commonly visualized in the form of text, numbers, tables, graphs, models, and diagrams. These information visualization types are used to describe EAs in today’s organizations, but often lack an intuitive representation. In this paper, we provide another form of EA visualization utilizing the city metaphor. This spatial metaphor is suitable for visualizing complex information structures and potentially facilitates easy understanding of EAs, especially for non-IT staff. Based on a literature review and three rounds of open card sorting, we mapped eleven classes of EA objects to city elements. Our results enabled us to develop a formal language that allows an implementable and human-readable specification of various views, which we call EA City. We created an early stage 3D EA City prototype to demonstrate its applicability. Our model provides a solid foundation for further work on the city metaphor in the context of EA visualization. Collapse

Topics: TOGAF enterprise architecture declarative language internet technology data visualization

Methods: card sorting design artifact literature study design science metamodel

Business process flexibility - a systematic literature review with a software systems perspective

2018 | Information Systems Frontiers | Citations: 1

Authors: Cognini, Riccardo; Corradini, Flavio; Gnesi, Stefania; Polini, Andrea; Re, Barbara

Abstract: Business Process flexibility supports organizations in changing their everyday w ... Expand

Abstract: Business Process flexibility supports organizations in changing their everyday work activities to remain competitive. Since much research has been done on this topic a better awareness on the current state of knowledge is needed. This paper reports the results of a systematic literature review to develop a map on Business Process flexibility with a special focus on software systems related aspects. It covers a spectrum of the state of the art from academic point of view. It includes 164 research works from the main computer science digital libraries. After an introduction into the topic the applied methodology is described. The output of the paper is in the form of schemes and reflections. Starting from the needs for Business Process flexibility, its impact on Business Process life-cycle is introduced. Successively instruments used to express and to support Business Process flexibility are presented together with related validation scenarios. In this paper we also highlight possible future research lines needing further investigations. In particular we identified room for future works in the area of languages for modeling flexibility, on-the-fly verification solutions, adaptation of Business Process running instances, and techniques for evolution recognition. Collapse

Topics: declarative language systems development business process management legal context information technology infrastructure

Methods: modeling language survey business process model and notation Petri net design science

Normative requirements for regulatory compliance: An abstract formal framework

2016 | Information Systems Frontiers | Citations: 2

Authors: Hashmi, Mustafa; Governatori, Guido; Wynn, Moe Thandar

Abstract: By definition, regulatory rules (in legal context called norms) intend to achiev ... Expand

Abstract: By definition, regulatory rules (in legal context called norms) intend to achieve specific behaviour from business processes, and might be relevant to the whole or part of a business process. They can impose conditions on different aspects of process models, e.g., control-flow, data and resources etc. Based on the rules sets, norms can be classified into various classes and sub-classes according to their effects. This paper presents an abstract framework consisting of a list of norms and a generic compliance checking approach on the idea of (possible) execution of processes. The proposed framework is independent of any existing formalism, and provides a conceptually rich and exhaustive ontology and semantics of norms needed for business process compliance checking. Apart from the other uses, the proposed framework can be used to compare different compliance management frameworks (CMFs). Collapse

Topics: business process management evaluation criteria communication service infrastructure declarative language top management support

Methods: business process modeling modeling language computational algorithm Petri net business process model and notation

A framework for efficiently mining the organisational perspective of business processes

2016 | Decision Support Systems | Citations: 7

Authors: Schönig, Stefan; Cabanillas, Cristina; Jablonski, Stefan; Mendling, Jan

Abstract: Process mining aims at discovering processes by extracting knowledge from event ... Expand

Abstract: Process mining aims at discovering processes by extracting knowledge from event logs. Such knowledge may refer to different business process perspectives. The organisational perspective deals, among other things, with the assignment of human resources to process activities. Information about the resources that are involved in process activities can be mined from event logs in order to discover resource assignment conditions, which is valuable for process analysis and redesign. Prior process mining approaches in this context present one of the following issues: (i) they are limited to discovering a restricted set of resource assignment conditions; (ii) they do not aim at providing efficient solutions; or (iii) the discovered process models are difficult to read due to the number of assignment conditions included. In this paper we address these problems and develop an efficient and effective process mining framework that provides extensive support for the discovery of patterns related to resource assignment. The framework is validated in terms of performance and applicability. Collapse

Topics: process mining information retrieval declarative language

Methods: event log machine learning computational algorithm business process modeling simulation

Multilevel Modeling: Toward a New Paradigm of Conceptual Modeling and Information Systems Design

2014 | Business & Information Systems Engineering | Citations: 0

Authors: Frank, Ulrich

Abstract: The paper presents a novel approach to conceptual modeling that serves to addre ... Expand

Abstract: The paper presents a novel approach to conceptual modeling that serves to address a fundamental conflict inherent in designing languages and information systems. It not only promises to improve the economics of developing and using models and respective software systems, but also to foster the empowerment of users by providing them with specific languages that correspond directly to the perspective on a domain they are used to. Collapse

Topics: enterprise modelling information technology infrastructure Java declarative language predicate logic

Methods: metamodel hierarchical linear modeling conceptual modelling design science design artifact

TMS-RFID: Temporal management of large-scale RFID applications

2011 | Information Systems Frontiers | Citations: 0

Authors: Li, Xue; Liu, Jing; Sheng, Quan Z.; Zeadally, Sherali; Zhong, Weicai

Abstract: In coming years, there will be billions of RFID tags living in the world tagging ... Expand

Abstract: In coming years, there will be billions of RFID tags living in the world tagging almost everything for tracking and identification purposes. This phenomenon will impose a new challenge not only to the network capacity but also to the scalability of event processing of RFID applications. Since most RFID applications are time sensitive, we propose a notion of Time To Live (TTL), representing the period of time that an RFID event can legally live in an RFID data management system, to manage various temporal event patterns. TTL is critical in the “Internet of Things” for handling a tremendous amount of partial event-tracking results. Also, TTL can be used to provide prompt responses to time-critical events so that the RFID data streams can be handled timely. We divide TTL into four categories according to the general event-handling patterns. Moreover, to extract event sequence from an unordered event stream correctly and handle TTL constrained event sequence effectively, we design a new data structure, namely Double Level Sequence Instance List (DLSIList), to record intermediate stages of event sequences. On the basis of this, an RFID data management system, namely Temporal Management System over RFID data streams (TMS-RFID), has been developed. This system can be constructed as a stand-alone middleware component to manage temporal event patterns. We demonstrate the effectiveness of TMS-RFID on extracting complex temporal event patterns through a detailed performance study using a range of high-speed data streams and various queries. The results show that TMS-RFID has a very high throughput, namely 170,000–870,000 events per second for different highly complex continuous queries. Moreover, the experiments also show that the main structure to record the intermediate stages in TMS-RFID does not increase exponentially with the number of events. These results demonstrate that TMS-RFID not only supports high processing speeds, but is also highly scalable. Collapse

Topics: radio frequency identification data management database languages enterprise architecture database system

Methods: experiment computational algorithm design artifact literature study

Constraint-centric workflow change analytics

2011 | Decision Support Systems | Citations: 0

Authors: Wang, Harry Jiannan; Zhao, J. Leon

Abstract: In a globalized economic environment with volatile business requirements, contin ... Expand

Abstract: In a globalized economic environment with volatile business requirements, continuous process improvement needs to be done regularly in various organizations. However, maintaining the consistency of workflow models under frequent changes is a significant challenge in the management of corporate information services. Unfortunately, few formal approaches are found in the literature for managing workflow changes systematically. In this paper, we propose an analytical framework for workflow change management through formal modeling of workflow constraints, leading to an approach called Constraint-centric Workflow Change Analytics (CWCA). A core component of CWCA is the formal definition and analysis of workflow change anomalies. We operationalize CWCA by developing a change anomaly detection algorithm and validate it in the context of procurement management. A prototype system based on an open-source rule engine is presented to provide a proof-of-concept implementation of CWCA. Collapse

Topics: procurement management predicate logic change management business process management system open source

Methods: computational algorithm business process modeling design artifact anomaly detection reference modelling

Rethinking the Meaning of Identifiers in Information Infrastructures

2010 | Journal of the Association for Information Systems | Citations: 35

Authors: Eriksson, Owen; Ågerfalk, Pär J.

Abstract: Identifiers - such as personal identification numbers, student numbers, and lice ... Expand

Abstract: Identifiers - such as personal identification numbers, student numbers, and license numbers - are used for identifying individual objects and constitute an important part of the information infrastructures of organizations and society. The design, choice, assignment, withdrawal, and replacement of identifiers are significant economic and political issues with more profound consequences than are perhaps commonly perceived. Use of identifiers can result in significant costs because they may include descriptive information, because an inappropriate identifier may be chosen for the object in question, or because there may be a lack of institutional control of the identifier. The objective of this paper is to elaborate on these problems by explaining the identifier construct from a technical, institutional, ontological, and information infrastructural perspective. Based on this understanding, we provide guidelines for how identifiers should be designed, chosen, replaced, and controlled. Accordingly, we address the practical need for improved design principles relating to the increasingly important infrastructural character of computerized information systems that stems from the importance of appropriate identifiers for information infrastructures and society as a whole. In order to understand the role, function, and meaning of identifiers, it is important to acknowledge that the identifier is fundamentally a linguistic construct used when referring to socially constructed institutional objects. Institutional objects are symbolic entities that represent institutional and brute facts, which are the results of human actions. Collapse

Topics: information technology infrastructure declarative language

Methods: conceptual modelling theory development design guideline design principle

Theories: speech act theory