Frédérick Bénaben

Knowledge-based system for collaborative process specification

This paper presents an ontology-based approach for the design of a collaborative business process model (CBP). This CBP is considered as a specification of needs in order to build a collaboration information system (CIS) for a network of organizations. The study is a part of a model-driven engineering approach of the CIS in a specific enterprise interoperability framework that will be summarised. An adaptation of the Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN) is used to represent the CBP model. We develop a knowledge-based system (KbS) which is composed of three main parts: knowledge gathering, knowledge representation and reasoning, and collaborative business process modelling. The first part starts from a high abstraction level where knowledge from business partners is captured. A collaboration ontology is defined in order to provide a structure to store and use the knowledge captured. In parallel, we try to reuse generic existing knowledge about business processes from the MIT Process Handbook repository. This results in a collaboration process ontology that is also described. A set of rules is defined in order to extract knowledge about fragments of the CBP model from the two previous ontologies. These fragments are finally assembled in the third part of the KbS. A prototype of the KbS has been developed in order to implement and support this approach. The prototype is a computer-aided design tool of the CBP. In this paper, we will present the theoretical aspects of each part of this KbS as well as the tools that we developed and used in order to support its functionalities.

Event-driven agility of interoperability during the Run-time of collaborative processes

The modern business environment tends to involve a large network of heterogeneous people, devices and organizations that engage in collaborative processes among themselves. Given the nature of this type of collaboration and the high degree of interoperability between partner Information Systems, these processes need to be agile in order to respond to changes in context, which may occur at any time during the collaborative situation. The objective is to build a Mediation Information System (MIS), in support of collaborative situations, whose architecture must be (i) built to be relevant to the collaborative situation under consideration, (ii) more easily integrated into the existing systems, and (iii) sufficiently agile, through its awareness of the environment and of process events, and through the way it reacts to events detected as being relevant. To apply agility mechanisms, it is crucial to detect the significant events that will lead to a subsequent evolution of the situation (detection step). Event-Driven Architecture (EDA) is used to design the structure of the part of the system that is in charge of MIS agility. This architecture takes the events into account, manages them and, if needed, uses them to trigger the adaptation of the MIS. We have defined a means to monitor the evolution of the situation. If relevant changes are detected, and if the situation does not evolve in the expected way, an adaptation is proposed. It is concluded that the principles of detection and adaptation, combined with the responsiveness of the system (provided by the automation of transitions), and based on Event Driven Architecture principles, together provide the agility required for collaborative processes.

Supporting interoperability of collaborative networks through engineering of a service-based Mediation Information System MISE 2.0

The Mediation Information System Engineering project is currently finishing its second iteration (MISE 2.0). The main objective of this scientific project is to provide any emerging collaborative situation with methods and tools to deploy a Mediation Information System (MIS). MISE 2.0 aims at defining and designing a service-based platform, dedicated to initiating and supporting the interoperability of collaborative situations among potential partners. This MISE 2.0 platform implements a model-driven engineering approach to the design of a service-oriented MIS dedicated to supporting the collaborative situation. This approach is structured in three layers, each providing their own key innovative points: (i) the gathering of individual and collaborative knowledge to provide appropriate collaborative business behaviour (key point: knowledge management, including semantics, exploitation and capitalisation), (ii) deployment of a mediation information system able to computerise the previously deduced collaborative processes (key point: the automatic generation of collaborative workflows, including connection with existing devices or services) (iii) the management of the agility of the obtained collaborative network of organisations (key point: supervision of collaborative situations and relevant exploitation of the gathered data). MISE covers business issues (through BPM), technical issues (through an SOA) and agility issues of collaborative situations (through EDA).

Interoperability of Information Systems in Crisis Management: Crisis Modeling and Metamodeling

In a crisis situation (natural disaster, industrial accident, etc.) several partners have to act simultaneously to solve the emergency situation. Their coordination in such a context is a crucial point, especially in the first moments of the crisis. Their interoperability (precisely their Information Systems interoperability) is a major component of the success of the network. ISyCri17 French project propose to tackle this topic according to two aspects: (i) responsiveness of the network (its ability to act rapidly and efficiently) and (ii) flexibility of the obtained system of systems (its ability to evolve and follow the changing situation). This is so an agility problem of ISs of partners. This article presents the first results of this work: a metamodel of crisis situation and its ontological links with collaborative process design, and also the treatment of a first case of study, a NRBC18 exercise.

Collaborative Process Definition Using An Ontology-Based Approach

This paper presents all ontology-based approach dedicated to automate file specification of collaborative processes for virtual organization networks. Our approach takes as input the knowledge coming from the characterization of network and produces as output a BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation) compliant process. The collaborative network ontology (CNO) including deduction rides has been defined in order to accomplish this approach under two keys (i) some specific attributes of file considered collaboration included network and participant (ii) collaborative processes inspired from the enterprise Process Handbook (MIT). This CNO coupled with a reasoning engine will be used with an editor, provided by EBM WebSourcing, to model the network, and build the colloborative process of a given collaboration. A model transformation will be applied offer that to convert a collaborative process of the editor to a BPMN relevant one.

A road crisis management metamodel for an information decision support system

During the winter, snowfalls may occur, producing potential problems for traffic management. These road crises might be reduced setting up a collaborative network of heterogeneous actors aiming to solve this critical situation. Because crises deal with a lot of information, an Information Decision Support System might be deployed. Our point of view is to design it through a Model-Driven Engineering (MDE). Thus, an unavoidable issue for designing such an IDSS concerns knowledge management. This paper aims at presenting and defining a Metamodel dealing with specific road crisis situations. This is the first result of the French project SIM-PeTra.

A Metamodel for Knowledge Management in Crisis Management

This article considers collaboration issue and data management issue as the key points of crisis management. In this context, the presented research works focus on a crisis management metamodel, dedicated to provide a way to class incoming data by connecting it to concepts of the metamodel. Such instances would then become intelligible for crisis management tools. This metamodel includes several points of view, specific to the domain of crisis management (including characteristics of the crisis, of the context, of the actors involved, etc.). Besides, the models built from this metamodel can be used as information bases for tools dedicated to support collaboration of actors: collaborative processes may be deduced from the models (and then orchestrated). Similarly, the evolution of the situation can be recorded as updates of the crisis models and contribute to the agility of the crisis management.

Information Systems design for emerging ecosystems

This article presents a model-driven approach to improve interoperability into emerging ecosystems. This approach proposes to design a Mediation Information System (MIS) dedicated to deal with exchanged data, shared services and collaborative processes. The MIS design crosses the different abstraction layers (business, logic and technological) and exploits at each level the associated models to build the models of the next level. This article presents the involved models (dedicated to the CIM, PIM and PSM levels of the MDE approach) and the transition mechanisms between levels.

A methodology proposal for collaborative business process elaboration using a model-driven approach

Business process management (BPM) principles are commonly used to improve processes within an organisation. But they can equally be applied to supporting the design of an Information System (IS). In a collaborative situation involving several partners, this type of BPM approach may be useful to support the design of a Mediation Information System (MIS), which would ensure interoperability between the partners’ ISs (which are assumed to be service oriented). To achieve this objective, the first main task is to build a collaborative business process cartography. The aim of this article is to present a method for bringing together collaborative information and elaborating collaborative business processes from the information gathered (by using a collaborative situation framework, an organisational model, an informational model, a functional model and a metamodel and by using model transformation rules).

Towards a better management of complex emergencies through crisis management meta-modelling

Managing complex emergency situations is a challenging task, mainly due to the heterogeneity of the partners involved and the critical nature of such events. Whatever approach is adopted to support this objective, one unavoidable issue is knowledge management. In the context of our research project, gathering, formalising and exploiting all the knowledge and information about a given crisis situation is a critical requirement. This paper presents some research results concerning this specific topic: from a theoretical point of view, the generic dimensions of crisis characterisation are defined, while from a technical point of view, we describe a software solution able to collect that knowledge (based on meta-models and ontologies). This is used to confront the characteristics of the situation (context) with characteristics of the resources (relief system) in order to design a suitable response. Finally, an illustrative example concerning a crash between a tanker truck and a train is described.