Chulsoon Park

An XML-based process definition language for integrated process management

Business processes are increasingly recognized as important corporate assets that need to be managed throughout their lifecycle. Specially, interests in supply chain management and virtual enterprises require a new paradigm that provides lifecycle support for business processes. Integrated Process Management (IPM) has been proposed as a business process management paradigm that aims at integrating processes using eXtensible Markup Language (XML) and supporting design, analysis, automation, and management of business process knowledge. This paper introduces IPM-PDL, an XML-based process definition language for IPM. Process definitions and related data are integrated using XML which will be translated to a colored Petri Net. Various analysis and simulation can be performed to check the validity of a new process and estimate its performance. The paper also introduces ProcessWare, a prototype system for IPM-process definition language (PDL), along with an extended example which will demonstrate how IPM can effectively manage business processes throughout their lifecycle ranging from process modeling to process knowledge management.

Task net: Transactional workflow model based on colored Petri net

Abstract Workflow management systems are increasingly identified as a tool that cannot only integrate existing computer applications but also dynamically change existing business processes. Unlike database transactions that have a mechanism to guarantee consistency against failures or concurrent execution, there is no known mechanism that guarantees safety of workflow transactions. Therefore, capability to forecast the effects of workflow transactions is very important. That is, a model is required which allows to determine whether a workflow transaction can terminate, whether it is free from dead lock, whether it can recover from error or crash, etc. In this paper, we propose Task net which is a transactional workflow model based on colored Petri net. First, we introduce a workflow specification language that can express task state dependency relationships such as forward, backward, and mutual exclusion among intra-task states (states of the same task) and inter-task states (states of different tasks). The proposed workflow language will enable the users to express both the transaction- and application-oriented requirements of complex business rules. We, then, describe how a basic workflow specification and its task state dependencies are translated to a Task net which will allow simulation of the given workflow. Before executing a Task net, tests for deadlocks and redundant task state dependencies are performed to prevent futile efforts. Task nets are expected to provide a theoretically sound basis for current workflow systems to expand their transactional workflow supports.

A rule-based approach to proactive exception handling in business processes

Effectively handling exceptions in business process is an important capability of enterprises in the current global market environment, since their business processes are becoming more complex. Effective exception handling requires systematic support for the entire scope of exception handling: from exception prediction to exception prevention, and from exception detection to exception resolution. Most existing research approaches to exception handling in business process management and workflow areas have focused on reactive exception handling which resolves exceptions only after their occurrences. Therefore, a proactive exception handling approach is required to predict and prevent business process exceptions as early as possible before they occur, and detect and resolve exceptions as soon as possible after they occur. This paper presents comprehensive behavioral, functional, and informational requirements for proactive exception handling from the lifecycle perspective. Then, it proposes a rule language for proactive exception handling based on the requirements. The proposed rule language will enable effective and flexible exception handling by providing the information required for the entire scope of exception handling, especially, for exception prediction and prevention. Finally, the paper illustrates and validates the rule language with an example of exception prevention and a prototype system.

A transactional workflow model for engineering/manufacturing processes

Workflow management systems are increasingly identified as a tool that can not only integrate existing computer applications but also dynamically change existing processes in engineering and manufacturing areas as well as business areas. Since workflow transactions do not have a mechanism to guarantee consistency against failures orconcurrent execution, the capability to forecast the effects of workflow transactions is very important. Further, workflow modelling involves many problems that originate from application-oriented requirements as well as transaction-oriented requirements. Thus, it is necessary to represent task state dependencies that are used to define the execution order of each task to be able to express fine control requirements for engineering/manufacturing processes. This paper proposes Task Net, which is a transactional workflow model based on coloured Petri nets. First, a workflow specification language is introduced that can express task state dependency relationships such as forward, backward, and mutual exclusion among intra-task states (states of the same task) and inter-task states (states of different tasks). Then, translation procedures of a basic workflow specification and its task state dependencies into a Task Net are described. The proposed workflow language will enable the users to express both the transaction-oriented and application-oriented requirements of complex rules. The Task Net will allow simulation of the given workflow. Before executing a Task Net, tests for deadlocks and redundant task state dependencies are performed to prevent futile efforts. The proposed language, along with various analyses and simulation of Task Nets, is expected to expand the transactional workflow supports provided by current workflow systems, hence, enabling effective integration of existing computer aided (CA) applications as well as flexible definition, control and redesign of engineering and manufacturing processes.

Management of business process constraints using BPTrigger

This paper proposes a new mechanism, called BPTrigger, which can overcome limitations of current Database (DB) Triggers. DB Triggers are used to enforce integrity constraints related to data stored in databases. They are not adequate, however, for complex business constraints that must be applied to several business processes or activities, hence, involving many data items. Further, DB Triggers does not properly support distributed and heterogeneous environments and may incur serious performance degradation including non-termination. BPTrigger enables representation and flexible enforcement of complex business process constraints in a distributed and heterogeneous environment. Unlike a DB Trigger that must be defined on each data item participating in a constraint and must be checked every time the data item is updated, BPTrigger allows a constraint to be defined only once on a business process and enforces the constraint once at the time of execution of the process. To provide comprehensive support, the paper identifies all possible constraints related to business processes based on literature survey and classifies them into four types: entry, exit, running, and invariant, according to the time of enforcement. Reflecting the requirements suggested by the classification, the syntax of BPTrigger is defined. An additional construct is proposed to enable flexible management of invariants. The paper also introduces a prototype system for BPTrigger along with an extended example to demonstrate its feasibility and to provide a performance comparison with typical DB Triggers.

Interactive analysis of product development experiments using On-line Analytical Mining

We propose an On-line Analytical Mining based on product data analysis technique.We propose a comprehensive OLAM process based on the information system architecture.An experiment result shows the feasibility of the proposed architecture and process.The architecture and operations are important in ambiguous product development processes. This paper proposes an On-line Analytical Mining (OLAM) based product data analysis technique that analyzes product data in Product Data Management (PDM) databases. It aims to understand and evaluate product development processes indirectly through product data analysis. In this approach, OLAM integrates On-line Analytical Processing (OLAP) with data mining, allowing it to support flexible and interactive OLAP operations to find product data patterns in intangible and uncertain product development processes. This integration also allows efficient preparation of product data for various data analysis and data mining processes. In this paper, a product data analysis process and its information system architecture are proposed, and the prototype system is implemented to show the efficiency and feasibility of the approach. In addition, the proposed approach is applied to clarify critical failure factors in product development experiments to show that the proposed approach can help engineers proactively evaluate and manage in-progress product development processes.

Terminability and compensatibility of cycles in business processes with a process-oriented trigger

BPTrigger is a process-oriented trigger model that provides economy of specification and efficient execution for complex business constraints. An essential part of trigger execution is detection and resolution of cycles. This paper presents an approach to determine the terminability of a cycle introduced by a BPTrigger in a business process and determine whether a cycle is allowable in terms of compensatibility. The foundation of the approach is a set of conditions for cycle termination derived from classifications of business processes by resource usage and activity types by compensation status. This paper formally presents cycle analysis procedures using the notion of cycle analysis graph. Further, a procedure is proposed which checks the terminability of multiple cycles using a composite cycle analysis graph constructed from the cycle analysis graphs of the associated cycles. The paper proves the correctness of the analysis and presents a validation example. The presented results extend some limitations of well-formed sphere which has addressed atomicity of workflow transactions.