Matthias Born

User-friendly semantic annotation in business process modeling

Current problems in Business Process Management consist of terminology mismatches and unstructured and isolated knowledge representation in process models. Semantic Business Process Management aims at overcoming many of those weaknesses of Business Processes Management through the use of explicit semantic descriptions of process artifacts. However, this vision has a prerequisite: semantic annotations need to be added to the process models. In this paper, we present an approach that allows flexibly annotating semantics in a user-friendly way, by exposing ontological knowledge to the business user in appropriate forms and by employing matchmaking and filtering techniques to display options with high relevance only. By adding semantic information the precision of process models increases, ultimately supporting Web Service discovery and composition. As a proof-of-concept, the work has been implemented prototypically in a process modeling tool.

Semantic annotation and composition of business processes with Maestro

One of the main problems when creating execution-level process models is finding implementations for process activities. Carrying out this activity manually can be time consuming, since it involves searching in large service repositories. We present Maestro for BPMN, a tool that allows to annotate and automatically compose activities within business processes. We explain the main assumptions and algorithms underlying the tool, and we overview what will be demonstrated at ESWC.

Auto-completion for Executable Business Process Models

This work presents an auto-completion mechanism for supporting the creation of executable business process models. Currently, process modeling tools provide only little support to identify the relevant services that are needed to execute the process model – the selection of appropriate services is left to the skills of the modeler. A novel solution technique for this problem is proposed here as the combination of (1) a context-based analysis, (2) by taking pre and post-conditions into account, and by (3) evaluating the non-functional properties of the functionally and context-wise fitting services.

Procedure and guidelines for evaluation of BPM methodologies

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology that may be used to perform evaluation of business process management (BPM) methodologies. As this area lacks proper formalized approaches, the aim of the publication is to promote the new approach, proposed by the authors.Design/methodology/approach – The authors analyse related methodologies and theoretical background. Based on that, they suggest an evaluation approach, which is used to verify correctness of a semantic BPM (SBPM) methodology.Findings – The proposed evaluation methodology has been practically tested. Additional interviews have been conducted and interviewees stress high value of the approach. The presented evaluation methodology was validated on the example of the SBPM methodology used in a European integrated project.Research limitations/implications – The results of this paper can be used to guide development and verify correctness of new BPM methodologies.Practical implications – The paper demonstrates how validation of B...

Supporting Execution-Level Business Process Modeling with Semantic Technologies

When creating execution-level process models from conceptual to-be process models, challenges are to find implementations for process activities and to use these implementations correctly. Carrying out these activities manually can be time consuming, since it involves searching in large service repositories and cycles of testing and re-designing. We present Maestro for BPMN , a tool that allows to annotate and automatically compose activities within business processes, and to verify the consistency of an annotated process.