Falko Koetter

A model-driven approach for event-based business process monitoring

Today event-driven business process management has matured from a scientific vision to a realizable methodology for companies of all sizes and shapes. This vision can be applied for business monitoring, as well as for compliance monitoring. However, leveraging the power of complex event processing for supporting business process monitoring is cumbersome because of the complicated modeling of rules and alerts as well as key performance indicators (KPIs) in machine readable format using the event languages. However, using a model-driven approach for generating a monitoring infrastructure based on events like the aPro architecture is one possibility to enable companies with various infrastructures to leverage the advantages of business process monitoring. This article describes how KPIs are modeled and transferred into event rules by a model-driven approach. Two use cases are the basis for defining requirements and evaluating the approach, showing it tackles challenges from business monitoring as well as from compliance monitoring.

Goal-Oriented Model-Driven Business Process Monitoring Using ProGoalML

In today’s fast changing business world, the fulfillment of process goals needs to be constantly evaluated and adjusted. But processes are often carried out by systems which are not process aware. aPro is a modular architecture for business process optimization. In aPro process models can’t be guaranteed to be executable but need to be monitored. In this paper, we propose a modeling language for process metrics, key performance indicators and goals and use the interchange format ProGoalML to automate creation and setup of monitoring infrastructure.

Business process change management based on process model synchronization of multiple abstraction levels

Management of business processes is typically performed on multiple levels, each with different granularity, language constructs, and abstraction. Starting from an initial sketch of the activities to be performed, several refinements are made to entirely specify the business process, its artifacts, and participants. Then, information relevant for process execution can be added to enable efficient automation in the context of a service-oriented architecture (SOA). However, dealing with changes initiated by business or technology is a key difficulty in this approach. If change management is not performed properly then process models become out of sync which results in losing the alignment of business and IT. To address this challenge, we propose a synchronization method based on model element correspondence that considers change management between process models on different abstraction levels. We show how synchronization can be established and changes are propagated using a change queue for synchronization continuity. Finally we present a prototypical implementation of the key concepts.

Unifying Compliance Management in Adaptive Environments through Variability Descriptors (Short Paper)

When managing IT environments and designing business processes, compliance regulations add challenges. Especially considering adaptive environments in the context of a service-oriented architecture in combination with exploiting the advantages of cloud technologies, maintaining compliance is cumbersome. Measures have to be taken on many application levels - including business processes, IT architecture, and business management. Although a lot of work has been done on various approaches covering compliance on one or more of these levels, in large companies more than one approach is likely to be employed. However, a unified approach for supporting the compliance tasks - like introduction, maintenance, and especially adaptation - on different levels of business and IT is missing. This work introduces this unifying approach, which links compliance requirements to implementing technology using variable compliance descriptors in order to comprehensively support compliance tasks. The advantage of this approach is that the impact of compliance on these different levels is tracked, thus enabling change propagation from changes in compliance requirements to infrastructure and business process reconfiguration.

Integrating Compliance Requirements across Business and IT

Ensuring compliance to laws and regulations in their business processes is a burdensome obligation for todays companies. Compliance requirements cover many areas of business and IT, including process design, deployment and run-time. Past approaches only covered some of these aspects. In this work we introduce a generic compliance descriptor, integrating different technical compliance implementations and keeping the link between laws, requirements and implementations, thus facilitating compliance in face of changes in laws, processes, and IT.

A Model-Driven Approach for Event-Based Business Process Monitoring

Today event-driven business process management has matured from a scientific vision to a realizable methodology for companies of all sizes and shapes. However, leveraging the power of complex event processing for supporting business process monitoring is cumbersome because of the complicated modeling of rules and alerts as well as key performance indicators in machine readable format using the event languages. However, using a model-driven approach for generating a monitoring infrastructure based on events like the aPro architecture is one possibility to enable companies with various infrastructures to leverage the advantages of business process monitoring. This paper describes how KPIs are modeled and transferred into event rules by a model-driven approach.

Business Process Optimization in Cross-Company Service Networks: Architecture and Maturity Model

Today, a companys service processes are interwoven with external services and customers. In these cross-company service networks, partners are interchangeable and market conditions may shift rapidly. Thus, a need for business process optimization arises, though conventional approaches often cannot be used as companys IT is not process centered. To achieve business process optimization in existing distributed infrastructures, we propose the modular aPro reference architecture, which builds upon existing components. Based on the architecture, we develop a maturity model for process optimization, which may be used to assess the need for change and select necessary measures.

Guaranteeing Soundness of Adaptive Business Processes Using ABIS

The Internet of Services necessitates ad-hoc collaboration of companies in business processes. Each collaboration requires specific adjustments of the underlying process. While adapting these variable processes in collaboration with multiple parties, a need for guaranteeing the soundness of business process variants arises. In this paper we extend the ABIS approach of adaptive business process modeling with soundness concepts, apply them in an interactive variant creation algorithm and implement this algorithm in a prototype.

Synchronization of Adaptive Process Models Using Levels of Abstraction

Today many companies use several technologies, modeling languages, and software tools for designing, analyzing, and executing their business processes. The need for adapting processes to new requirements, to reuse parts of processes, and to involve different stakeholders in the process design leads to process changes on multiple process models of different granularity and level of abstraction. These changes cause a need for process models on different abstraction levels to be synchronized in order to avoid inconsistencies. To bridge the resulting Business IT gap, we introduce an approach which supports the creation and adaptation of business processes on different abstraction levels based on reusable process building blocks. The advantage of the approach is that changes of the process can be driven by IT and Business in the same manner, though on different levels of abstraction. In addition to the methodology for this approach, we define reusable process building blocks, describe sychronization mechanisms, and propose a supporting infrastructure. We show the application of these concepts in a real world case study.

An Universal Approach for Compliance Management Using Compliance Descriptors

Trends like outsourcing and cloud computing have led to a distribution of business processes among different IT systems and organizations. Still, businesses need to ensure compliance regarding laws and regulations of these distributed processes. This need gave way to many new solutions for compliance management and checking. Compliance requirements arise from legal documents and are implemented in all parts of enterprise IT, creating a business IT gap between legal texts and software implementation. Compliance solutions must bridge this gap as well as support a wide variety of compliance requirements. To achieve these goals, we developed an integrating compliance descriptor for compliance modeling on the legal, requirement and technical level, incorporating arbitrary rule languages for specific types of requirements. Using a modeled descriptor a compliance checking architecture can be configured, including specific rule checking implementations. The graphical notation of the compliance descriptor and the formalism it’s based on are described and evaluated using a prototype as well as expert interviews. Based on evaluation results, an extension for compliance management in unstructured processes is outlined.