Enabling Flexibility in Process-Aware Information Systems Challenges, Methods, Technologies Bearbeitet von Manfred Reichert, Barbara Weber 1. Auflage 2012. Buch. xviii, 518 S. Hardcover ISBN 978 3 642 30408 8 Format (B x L): 15,5 x 23,5 cm Gewicht: 962 g Wirtschaft > Betriebswirtschaft: Theorie & Allgemeines > Wirtschaftsinformatik, SAP, IT-Management schnell und portofrei erhältlich bei Die Online-Fachbuchhandlung beck-shop.de ist spezialisiert auf Fachbücher, insbesondere Recht, Steuern und Wirtschaft. Im Sortiment finden Sie alle Medien (Bücher, Zeitschriften, CDs, ebooks, etc.) aller Verlage. Ergänzt wird das Programm durch Services wie Neuerscheinungsdienst oder Zusammenstellungen von Büchern zu Sonderpreisen. Der Shop führt mehr als 8 Millionen Produkte.
Contents Part I Basic Concepts and Flexibility Issues 1 Introduction... 3 1.1 Motivation... 3 1.2 Goal and Intended Audience... 5 1.3 Learning Objectives... 6 1.4 Outline and Organization of the Chapters... 6 2 Process-Aware Information Systems... 9 2.1 Introduction... 9 2.2 Prespecified and Repetitive Processes... 10 2.2.1 Motivation... 11 2.2.2 Examples of Prespecified Processes... 12 2.2.3 Discussion... 14 2.3 Knowledge-Intensive Processes... 15 2.3.1 Motivation... 15 2.3.2 Examples of Knowledge-Intensive Processes... 16 2.3.3 Discussion... 20 2.4 Perspectives on a PAIS... 20 2.4.1 Function Perspective... 21 2.4.2 Behavior Perspective... 22 2.4.3 Information Perspective... 25 2.4.4 Organization Perspective... 26 2.4.5 Operation Perspective... 27 2.4.6 Time Perspective... 29 2.5 Components of a PAIS... 30 2.5.1 Overview... 30 2.5.2 Build-Time Environment... 30 2.5.3 Run-Time Environment... 33 2.6 Summary... 40 Exercises... 41 ix
x Contents 3 Flexibility Issues in Process-Aware Information Systems... 43 3.1 Motivation... 43 3.2 A Taxonomy of Flexibility Needs in Process-Aware Information Systems... 44 3.2.1 Variability... 45 3.2.2 Looseness... 46 3.2.3 Adaptation... 46 3.2.4 Evolution... 47 3.3 Requirements for a Flexible PAIS... 50 3.4 Summary... 52 3.5 Book Structure... 53 Exercises... 54 Part II Flexibility Support for Prespecified Processes 4 Process Modeling and Flexibility-by-Design... 59 4.1 Motivation... 59 4.2 Modeling Prespecified Processes... 60 4.2.1 Basic Concepts... 60 4.2.2 Control Flow Patterns... 63 4.2.3 Flexibility-by-Design Through Control Flow Patterns... 69 4.2.4 Granularity of Process Models and Its Relation to Flexibility... 72 4.3 Executing Prespecified Processes... 72 4.3.1 Process Instance and Execution Trace... 73 4.3.2 Enabled Activities and Instance Completion... 75 4.4 Verifying Prespecified Process Models... 76 4.4.1 Process Model Soundness... 77 4.4.2 Correctness of Data Flow... 80 4.4.3 Well-Structured Versus Unstructured Process Models... 84 4.5 Summary... 85 Exercises... 85 5 Process Configuration Support... 89 5.1 Motivation... 89 5.2 Behavior-Based Configuration Approaches... 92 5.2.1 Hiding and Blocking... 93 5.2.2 Configurable Nodes... 96 5.3 Structural Configuration Approaches... 103 5.3.1 Representing a Process Family Through a Base Process and Prespecified Changes... 104 5.3.2 Configuring a Process Variant Through Structural Changes... 110 5.4 End-User Support in Configuring Process Variants... 112 5.4.1 Questionnaire-Driven Process Configuration... 112
Contents xi 5.4.2 Feature-Driven Process Configuration... 119 5.4.3 Context-Driven Process Configuration... 120 5.5 Further Aspects... 120 5.5.1 Capturing Variability of Multiple Process Perspectives... 121 5.5.2 Ensuring Correctness of Configured Process Variants... 121 5.5.3 Merging Process Variants... 122 5.5.4 Adaptive Reference Process Modeling... 123 5.6 Summary... 123 Exercises... 124 6 Exception Handling... 127 6.1 Motivation... 127 6.2 Exception Sources and Their Detection... 129 6.2.1 Sources of Exceptions... 129 6.2.2 Detecting Exceptions... 131 6.3 Handling Exceptions... 131 6.3.1 Exception Handling Patterns... 134 6.4 Compensation Handling... 143 6.4.1 Semantic Rollback Through Compensation... 143 6.4.2 Compensation Spheres... 144 6.5 Exception Handling in Selected Approaches... 146 6.5.1 Compensation and Exception Handling in WS-BPEL... 147 6.5.2 Exception Handling in the Exlet Approach... 148 6.6 Summary... 150 Exercises... 150 7 Ad hoc Changes of Process Instances... 153 7.1 Motivation... 153 7.2 Changing the Behavior of a Running Process Instance... 156 7.2.1 Core Challenges... 156 7.2.2 A Basic Taxonomy for Ad hoc Changes... 161 7.3 Structurally Adapting Prespecified Process Models... 163 7.3.1 Basics... 163 7.3.2 Adaptation Patterns... 166 7.3.3 Defining Structural Changes with Adaptation Patterns... 167 7.3.4 Ensuring Correctness of Structural Changes... 172 7.4 Ensuring State Compliance with a Changed Process Model... 176 7.4.1 Ad hoc Changes and Process Instance States... 177 7.4.2 A Correctness Notion for Dynamic Instance Changes... 179 7.4.3 A Relaxed Correctness Notion for Coping with Loop Changes... 181 7.4.4 Efficient Realization of Ad hoc Changes... 185 7.5 Manual Definition of Ad hoc Changes... 189
xii Contents 7.6 Assisting End-Users Through the Reuse of Ad hoc Changes... 191 7.6.1 Reusing Knowledge About Similar Ad hoc Changes... 191 7.6.2 Memorizing Ad hoc Changes... 193 7.6.3 Retrieving and Adapting Similar Ad hoc Changes... 198 7.6.4 Concluding Remarks... 205 7.7 Automated Adaptation and Evolution of Process Instances... 206 7.8 Duration of Ad hoc Changes... 207 7.9 Change Scope... 209 7.10 Further Issues... 209 7.10.1 Controlling Access to Process Change Functions... 209 7.10.2 Controlling Concurrent Ad hoc Changes... 210 7.10.3 Ensuring Traceability of Ad hoc Changes... 211 7.10.4 Ensuring Business Process Compliance... 212 7.11 Discussion... 212 7.12 Summary... 214 Exercises... 214 8 Monitoring and Mining Flexible Processes... 219 8.1 Introduction... 219 8.2 Execution and Change Logs... 221 8.3 Mining Execution Logs... 223 8.3.1 Process Discovery... 225 8.3.2 Conformance Checking... 227 8.4 Mining Change Logs... 229 8.4.1 Anatomy of Process Changes... 230 8.4.2 Directly Applying Process Mining to Change Logs... 232 8.4.3 Understanding Change Dependencies... 234 8.4.4 Enhancing Multi-phase Mining with Commutativity... 236 8.4.5 Mining Change Processes with Regions... 239 8.5 Mining Process Variants in the Absence of a Change Log... 242 8.5.1 Closeness of a Reference Process Model and a Collection of Process Variants... 243 8.5.2 Scenarios for Mining Process Variants... 244 8.5.3 A Heuristic Approach for Process Variant Mining... 245 8.5.4 Other Approaches for Process Variant Mining... 248 8.6 Summary... 249 Exercises... 250 9 Process Evolution and Instance Migration... 253 9.1 Motivation... 253 9.2 Fundamentals of Process Model Evolution... 254 9.2.1 Evolving a Process Model at the Process Type Level... 254 9.2.2 Deferred Process Model Evolution... 256 9.2.3 Immediate Process Model Evolution and Instance Migration... 257 9.2.4 User Perspective... 261 9.2.5 Existing Approaches for Migrating Process Instances... 263
Contents xiii 9.3 Common Support of Type and Instance Changes... 266 9.3.1 Migrating Biased Process Instances... 266 9.3.2 Overlapping Changes at the Type and Instance Level... 270 9.3.3 Integrated Change Support in Existing Approaches... 274 9.4 Coping with Noncompliant Process Instances... 275 9.4.1 Example Scenario... 276 9.4.2 Bringing Noncompliant Instances into a Compliant State... 277 9.4.3 Advanced Strategies for Treating Noncompliant Instances... 278 9.5 Evolving Other PAIS Perspectives... 281 9.5.1 Changes of the Organization Perspective... 281 9.5.2 Changes of the Information Perspective... 282 9.5.3 Changes of Other Perspectives... 282 9.6 Process Model Refactoring... 283 9.6.1 Identifying Refactoring Opportunities... 283 9.6.2 Refactoring Techniques... 286 9.7 Summary... 291 Exercises... 291 10 Business Process Compliance... 297 10.1 Motivation... 297 10.2 Modeling Compliance Rules... 300 10.3 A Priori Compliance Checking... 307 10.4 Compliance Monitoring... 308 10.5 A-posteriori Compliance Checking... 311 10.6 Effects of Process Changes on Compliance... 312 10.7 User Perspective... 314 10.8 Existing Approaches... 316 10.9 Summary... 316 Exercises... 317 Part III Flexibility Support for Loosely Specified Processes 11 Concretizing Loosely Specified Processes... 323 11.1 Motivation... 323 11.2 Taxonomy of Decision Deferral... 324 11.2.1 Degree of Freedom... 324 11.2.2 Planning Approach... 326 11.2.3 Scope of Decision Deferral... 326 11.2.4 Process Perspective... 327 11.2.5 Degree of Automation... 327 11.2.6 Decision Making and Decision Support... 328 11.3 Decision Deferral Patterns... 328 11.4 Late Selection... 330
xiv Contents 11.5 Late Modeling and Composition... 333 11.6 Ad hoc Composition... 336 11.7 Iterative Refinement... 337 11.8 Summary... 339 Exercises... 340 12 Constraint-Based Process Models... 341 12.1 Motivation... 341 12.2 Modeling Constraint-Based Processes... 342 12.2.1 Constraint-Based Process Models... 343 12.2.2 Overview of Control Flow Constraints... 344 12.3 Executing Constraint-Based Processes... 351 12.3.1 Executing Constraint-Based Models Without Overlapping Activities... 353 12.3.2 Executing Constraint-Based Models with Overlapping Activities... 355 12.4 Verifying Constraint-Based Process Models... 357 12.5 Adapting and Evolving Constraint-Based Process Models... 359 12.6 Assistance for Modeling and Evolving Constraint- Based Processes... 364 12.6.1 Understandability and Maintainability Issues of Constraint-Based Process Models... 364 12.6.2 Test-Driven Modeling of Constraint-Based Process Models... 365 12.7 Assistance for Executing Constraint-Based Process Models... 367 12.8 Combining Constraint-Based and Prespecified Models... 369 12.9 Summary and Discussion... 370 Exercises... 371 Part IV User- and Data-Driven Processes 13 User- and Data-Driven Processes... 377 13.1 Introduction... 377 13.2 The Case Handling Paradigm... 379 13.2.1 Basic Concepts... 379 13.2.2 Strengths and Weaknesses... 381 13.2.3 Discussion... 383 13.3 Object-Aware Processes... 384 13.3.1 Object Behavior... 386 13.3.2 Object Interactions... 387 13.3.3 Data-Driven Execution... 388 13.3.4 Variable Activity Granularity... 389 13.3.5 Integrated Access to Business Processes and Objects... 390 13.4 Existing Approaches... 391 13.4.1 Case Handling... 392 13.4.2 Proclets... 393
Contents xv 13.4.3 Business Artifacts... 394 13.4.4 Data-Driven Process Coordination... 396 13.4.5 Product-Based Workflow Support... 397 13.4.6 Other Approaches... 399 13.4.7 Discussion... 399 13.5 Summary... 400 Exercises... 401 14 A Framework for Object-Aware Processes... 405 14.1 Introduction... 405 14.2 Overview of the Framework... 407 14.3 Data Model... 409 14.3.1 Object Relationships... 410 14.3.2 Integrating Users... 411 14.4 Micro Processes... 414 14.4.1 Micro Steps... 415 14.4.2 Process States... 416 14.4.3 Internal Micro Transitions... 417 14.4.4 External Micro Transitions... 419 14.4.5 Further Issues... 421 14.5 Process and Data Authorization... 422 14.5.1 Authorization Table... 422 14.5.2 Automatic Generation of Form-Based Activities... 424 14.6 Macro Processes... 426 14.6.1 Basic Elements... 427 14.6.2 Process Context Coordination Component... 428 14.6.3 Aggregation Coordination Component... 430 14.6.4 Transverse Coordination Component... 431 14.6.5 Integrating Black-Box Activities... 432 14.6.6 Further Aspects... 433 14.7 Discussion... 434 14.8 Summary... 437 Exercises... 437 Part V Technologies Enabling Flexibility Support in Process-Aware Information Systems 15 AristaFlow BPM Suite... 441 15.1 Introduction... 441 15.2 Handling Errors and Exceptions in AristaFlow... 442 15.2.1 Illustrating Application Scenario... 442 15.2.2 Perspectives on the Handling of Exceptions and Errors... 444 15.3 System Architecture... 454
xvi Contents 15.4 Using the AristaFlow BPM Suite in Actual Practice... 457 15.4.1 Case Study 1: Disaster Management... 457 15.4.2 Case Study 2: Health Care Process Management... 459 15.4.3 Case Study 3: Software Engineering Processes... 460 15.4.4 Other Case Studies... 461 15.5 Summary... 461 Exercises... 462 16 Alaska Simulator Toolset... 465 16.1 Motivation... 465 16.2 Alaska Simulator Toolset: Meta-Model... 466 16.3 Deciding at the Last Responsible Moment... 471 16.4 Architecture of Alaska Simulator Toolset... 471 16.5 Case Studies: Using Alaska Simulator Toolset in Practice... 473 16.6 Summary... 476 Exercises... 477 17 Existing Tool Support for Flexible Processes... 479 17.1 Selected Tools... 479 17.2 Further Tools... 480 Part VI Summary, References, and Appendices 18 Epilogue... 483 18.1 Enabling Flexibility in Process-Aware Information Systems... 484 18.2 Open Challenges... 485 A Overview of BPMN Elements... 489 References... 491 Index... 511