Emiliano Paglia

A language for enabling model-driven analysis of business processes

The use of simulation-based approaches for the analysis of business processes enables the design-time prediction of the process behavior and/or the operation-time process reconfiguration. However, the effectiveness of BP simulation is still limited for several reasons (e.g., lack of simulation know-how of BP analysts, simulation model parameters that can be hard to gather, large semantic gap between the business process model and the simulation model). To overcome such limitations, this paper introduces a model-driven method to automatically build the executable simulation code of a business process from its abstract definition in BPMN, the standard language for specifying business processes. The simulation code is specified in eBPMN, a novel domain-specific language that has been designed and implemented according to the BPMN execution semantics.

A Transformation Approach to Enact the Design-Time Simulation of BPMN Models

Simulation is a key technique for enabling business process analysts to predict the process behavior at design time. However, some issues limit the effectiveness of business process simulation (e.g., lack of simulation know how, costs and difficulties for gathering process data, semantic gap between the business process model and the simulation model). This paper proposes a model-driven method that automates the generation of executable business process simulation code. In order to address the increasing complexity and to take into account the inherent collaborative aspects of modern business processes, the simulation code produced by the proposed method replicates the business process distributed structure (in terms, e.g., of a service-oriented architecture) by including a set of simulation services that are orchestrated into a distributed simulation execution. The characterization of business processes in terms of the required performance properties is introduced through standard BPMN annotations according to a well-defined syntax, thus avoiding the need of additional languages. The implementation of the executable simulation code is based on the eBPMN language, a domain-specific language that preserves the semantic behavior of the original BPMN standard.

Simulation-based performance and reliability analysis of business processes

The use of process modeling combined with the use of simulation-based analysis provides a valuable way to analyze business processes (BPs) and to evaluate design alternatives before committing resources and effort. The simulation-based analysis of BPs usually addresses performance in terms of efficiency, i.e., focusing on time-related properties (e.g., throughput or execution time). Differently, this paper proposes an automated method for the analysis of BPs in terms of both efficiency-related performance and reliability. In addition, the method allows business analysts to carry out a joint performance and reliability analysis by introducing a so-called performability attribute. The proposed method is illustrated by use of a running example dealing with a conventional e-commerce scenario.

Towards performance-oriented perfective evolution of BPMN models

Simulation techniques are successfully applied to analyze and validate the performance of a business process (BP) since the early phases of its lifecycle, when the BP representation is commonly specified in BPMN. The BP simulation model is first to be built from the BPMN model, then implemented and finally executed to yield the performance indices of interest.

A BPMN extension for modeling Cyber-Physical-Production-Systems in the context of Industry 4.0

Industry 4.0 denotes a recent trend that aims at exploiting Cyber Physical Systems (CPS), based on IoT (Internet of Things) and cloud computing technologies, to obtain increased degrees of cooperation and communication in production systems, thus leading to what is referred to as Cyber Physical Production Systems (CPPS) or “Smart Factories”.

An HLA-based BPMN extension for the specification of business process collaborations

Inter-organization business process collaboration is one of the most significant factors driving todays global business development. Such collaborations are typically composed by various processes executed by different organizations and are often difficult to specify and analyze, due to their distributed nature and to data interoperability issues. The standard notation for business process modeling, namely BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation), only provides a limited support to the specification of collaborations. This paper introduces a data model extension of BPMN inspired by the HLA (High Level Architecture) distributed simulation standard. In addition, the paper proposes a metamodel-based mapping from BPMN to HLA, which can be seen as a significant step towards the implementation of a conceptual framework for specifying and analyzing collaborative business processes by use of distributed simulation approaches.