Design And Control Of Workflow Processes

The motivation behind the conception of this monograph was to advance scientific knowledge about the design and control of workflow processes. A workflow pr- ess (or workflow for short) is a specific type of business process, a way of or- nizing work and resources. Workflows are commonly found within large admin- trative organizations such as banks, insurance companies, and governmental agencies. Carrying out the tasks of a workflow in a particular order is required to handle one type of case. Examples of cases are mortgage applications, customer complaints, and claims for unemployment benefits. A workflow used in handling mortgage applications may contain tasks for recording the application, specifying a mortgage proposal, and approving the final policy. The monograph concentrates on four workflow-related issues within the area of Business Process Management; the field of designing and controlling business processes. The first issue is how workflows can be adequately modeled. Workflow mod- ing is an indispensable activity to support any reasoning about workflows. Diff- ent purposes of workflow modeling can be distinguished, such as system ena- ment by Workflow Management Systems, knowledge management, costing, and budgeting. The focus of workflow modeling in this monograph is (a) to support simulation and analysis of workflows and (b) to specify a new workflow design. The main formalism used for the modeling of workflows is the Petri net. Many - isting notions to define several relevant properties have been adopted, such as the workflow net and the soundness notion.

The motivation behind the conception of this monograph was to advance scientific knowledge about the design and control of workflow processes. A workflow pr- ess (or workflow for short) is a specific type of business process, a way of or- nizing work and resources. Workflows are commonly found within large admin- trative organizations such as banks, insurance companies, and governmental agencies. Carrying out the tasks of a workflow in a particular order is required to handle one type of case. Examples of cases are mortgage applications, customer complaints, and claims for unemployment benefits. A workflow used in handling mortgage applications may contain tasks for recording the application, specifying a mortgage proposal, and approving the final policy. The monograph concentrates on four workflow-related issues within the area of Business Process Management; the field of designing and controlling business processes. The first issue is how workflows can be adequately modeled. Workflow mod- ing is an indispensable activity to support any reasoning about workflows. Diff- ent purposes of workflow modeling can be distinguished, such as system ena- ment by Workflow Management Systems, knowledge management, costing, and budgeting. The focus of workflow modeling in this monograph is (a) to support simulation and analysis of workflows and (b) to specify a new workflow design. The main formalism used for the modeling of workflows is the Petri net. Many - isting notions to define several relevant properties have been adopted, such as the workflow net and the soundness notion.

The motivation behind the conception of this monograph was to advance scientific knowledge about the design and control of workflow processes. A workflow pr- ess (or workflow for short) is a specific type of business process, a way of or- nizing work and resources. Workflows are commonly found within large admin- trative organizations such as banks, insurance companies, and governmental agencies. Carrying out the tasks of a workflow in a particular order is required to handle one type of case. Examples of cases are mortgage applications, customer complaints, and claims for unemployment benefits. A workflow used in handling mortgage applications may contain tasks for recording the application, specifying a mortgage proposal, and approving the final policy. The monograph concentrates on four workflow-related issues within the area of Business Process Management; the field of designing and controlling business processes. The first issue is how workflows can be adequately modeled. Workflow mod- ing is an indispensable activity to support any reasoning about workflows. Diff- ent purposes of workflow modeling can be distinguished, such as system ena- ment by Workflow Management Systems, knowledge management, costing, and budgeting. The focus of workflow modeling in this monograph is (a) to support simulation and analysis of workflows and (b) to specify a new workflow design. The main formalism used for the modeling of workflows is the Petri net. Many - isting notions to define several relevant properties have been adopted, such as the workflow net and the soundness notion.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Business Process Management, BPM 2006. The book presents 20 revised full papers, 5 industrial papers, and 15 short papers together with an invited paper and the abstract of an invited talk. The papers are organized in topical sections on monitoring and mining, service composition, process models and languages, dynamic process management, Web service composition, and applied business process management.

Workflow-based Process Controlling Systems provide companies with the ability to measure the operational performance of their business processes in a timely and accurate fashion. The combination of workflow audit trails with data warehouse technology and operational business data allows for complex analyses that can support managers in their assessment of an organization's performance. The increasing maturity of business process management and data warehouse systems enables the design and development of advanced process-oriented management information systems. Michael zur Muehlen discusses the integration of workflow audit trail data with existing data warehouse structures and develops a reference architecture for process-oriented management information systems. Starting with an organizational and technical analysis of process organizations, this book provides a comprehensive documentation of business process management, workflow technology, and existing standardization efforts. The proposed reference architecture is validated in an industry context. A prototypical implementation of the reference architecture and its integration with a commercial business process management system are demonstrated as well. This book is directed at both practitioners and academics in the fields of business process management, management accounting, and information systems research.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-workshop proceedings of 6 internationl workshops held in Brisbane, Australia, in conjunction with the 5th International Conference on Business Process Management, BPM 2007, in September 2007. The 45 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from more than 80 submissions to the following 6 international workshops: Business Process Intelligence (BPI 2007), Business Process Design (BPD 2007), Collaborative Business Processes (CBP 2007), Process-oriented Information Systems in Healthcare (ProHealth 2007), Reference Modeling (RefMod 2007), and Advances in Semantics for Web Services (semantics4ws 2007).

A unifying foundation to design and implement process-aware information systems This publication takes on the formidable task of establishing a unifying foundation and set of common underlying principles to effectively model, design, and implement process-aware information systems. Authored by leading authorities and pioneers in the field, Process-Aware Information Systems helps readers gain a thorough understanding of major concepts, languages, and techniques for building process-aware applications, including: * UML and EPCs: two of the most widely used notations for business process modeling * Concrete techniques for process design and analysis * Process execution standards: WfMC and BPEL * Representative commercial tools: ARIS, TIBCO Staffware, and FLOWer Each chapter begins with a description of the problem domain and then progressively unveils relevant concepts and techniques. Examples and illustrations are used extensively to clarify and simplify complex material. Each chapter ends with a set of exercises, ranging from simple questions to thought-provoking assignments. Sample solutions for many of the exercises are available on the companion Web site. Armed with a new and deeper understanding, readers are better positioned to make their own contributions to the field and evaluate various approaches to a particular task or problem. This publication is recommended as a textbook for graduate and advanced undergraduate students in computer science and information systems, as well as for professionals involved in workflow and business process management, groupware and teamwork, enterprise application integration, and business-to-business integration. A Solution's Manual is available online. An Instructor Support FTP site is also available.