Draheim Business Process Technology

A Unified View on Business Processes, Workflows and Enterprise Applications
1. Auflage 2010
ISBN: 978-3-642-01588-5
Verlag: Springer
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 306 Seiten

Currently, we see a variety of tools and techniques for specifying and implementing business processes. The problem is that there are still gaps and tensions between the different disciplines needed to improve business process execution and improvement in enterprises. Business process modeling, workflow execution and application programming are examples of disciplines that are hosted by different communities and that emerged separately from each other. In particular, concepts have not yet been fully elaborated at the system analysis level. Therefore, practitioners are faced again and again with similar questions in concrete business process projects: Which decomposition mechanism to use? How to find the correct granularity for business process activities? Which implementing technology is the optimal one in a given situation? This work offers an approach to the systematization of the field. The methodology used is explicitly not a comparative analysis of existing tools and techniques - although a review of existing tools is an essential basis for the considerations in the book. Rather, the book tries to provide a landscape of rationales and concepts in business processes with a discussion of alternatives.

Dirk Draheim holds a Diploma in Computer Science from the Technische Universität Berlin since 1994 and a PhD in Computer Science from the Freie Universität Berlin since 2002. Since 1999 he gives lectures on Software Engineering at the Freie Universität Berlin. From 2004 to 2006 he was a research associate in the project 'Typed User Interfaces', which is granted by the German Research Foundation DFG. In summer 2006 he was lecturer in human-computer interaction at the University of Auckland. Since summer 2006 until autumn 2008 he was senior researcher at the SCCH (Software Competence Center Hagenberg) in the position of the Area Manager Database Technology. Furthermore, he was guest professor in software engineering at the University of Mannheim in winter 2006 and guest lecturer in applied computer science at the Johannes Kepler University Linz in summer 2007 and summer 2008. Since autumn 2008 he is head of the IT department of the University of Innsbruck. Dirk Draheim is interested in system modeling, semantic web, web applications, and databases.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Draheim, Dirk

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1;Foreword;6
2;Author’s Preface;8
3;Contents;12
4;List of Figures;14
5;Listings;18
6;1 Introduction;20
6.1;1.1 Relevance of Business Process Technology;21
6.1.1;On the Role of Business Processes in an Enterprise;22
6.1.2;Establishing Business Process Technology;23
6.1.3;Beyond Business Process Management and Technology;24
6.2;1.2 Need for Flexible Business Process Technology;25
6.3;1.3 Outline of the Book;26
7;2 Business Process Excellence;29
7.1;2.1 Business Process Reengineering;30
7.1.1;2.1.1 Strategic Nature of Business Process Reengineering;31
7.1.2;2.1.2 Power Shifts Triggered by Business Process Reengineering;32
7.2;2.2 Business Process Optimization;34
7.2.1;2.2.1 Combining Jobs and Naturally Hosting Work;35
7.2.2;2.2.2 Decision Making;37
7.2.3;2.2.3 Parallelism in Business Processes;37
7.2.4;2.2.4 Versions of Business Processes;39
7.2.5;2.2.5 Reducing Control;41
7.3;2.3 Business Process Benchmarking;42
7.3.1;2.3.1 Benchmarks in IT Governance;42
7.3.2;2.3.2 Organizational Learning;43
7.4;2.4 Business Process Management;44
7.4.1;2.4.1 On Business Process Management Lifecycle Models;45
7.4.2;2.4.2 Six Sigma;46
7.5;2.5 Business Continuity Management;48
7.5.1;2.5.1 Threats onto Business Processes;48
7.5.2;2.5.2 The British Business Continuity Management Standard;49
7.5.3;2.5.3 IT and Business Continuity Management;50
7.6;2.6 Information Technology as Mission-Critical Asset;52
7.6.1;2.6.1 Flexible and Adaptive Information Technology;53
7.6.2;2.6.2 Enterprise Application Integration;53
7.6.3;2.6.3 Total Cost of Ownership;55
7.6.4;2.6.4 Total Benefit of Ownership;56
7.6.5;2.6.5 On Client-Server Computing;59
7.7;2.7 Quality Management Systems;60
8;3 Research Opportunities in Business ProcessTechnology;62
8.1;3.1 Business Process Platforms;63
8.2;3.2 Executable Specification of Business Processes;65
8.2.1;3.2.1 Means of Business Process Automation;65
8.2.2;3.2.2 Inter-Organizational Business Process Automation;66
8.2.3;3.2.3 Executable Specification Communities;67
8.3;3.3 Component-Based Development;67
8.3.1;3.3.1 Sub Industry Aspect of Component Technology;68
8.3.2;3.3.2 Infrastructure Aspect of Component Technology;68
8.3.3;3.3.3 Large System Construction Aspect of ComponentTechnology;71
8.4;3.4 Exploiting Emerging Tools for BCM;72
8.5;3.5 Integration of Business and Production Processes;74
8.5.1;3.5.1 Automatic Shop Floor Control;75
8.5.2;3.5.2 Manufacturing Execution Systems;77
8.5.3;3.5.3 Current Automation and Business IT Initiatives;78
8.5.4;3.5.4 Industrial Information Integration Backbone;80
8.5.4.1;Arguments for Separation of Automation and Business Systems;80
8.5.4.2;Arguments for Integration of Automation and Business Systems;81
8.6;3.6 Integration of Business Processes and Business Intelligence;83
8.6.1;3.6.1 The Origin of Today’s Data Warehousing Architecture;84
8.6.2;3.6.2 Marrying Transactional and Analytical Schemas;86
8.6.2.1;Application Separability;87
8.6.2.2;Completely Crosscutting Information Backbone;88
8.6.2.3;Information Backbone Compared to Data Mart Architecture;89
9;4 Semantics of Business Process Models;92
9.1;4.1 Global and Local Views on Business Processes;94
9.1.1;4.1.1 Business Process Definition;96
9.1.2;4.1.2 Business Process Supervisory;97
9.1.3;4.1.3 Business Process Automation;99
9.1.4;4.1.4 Business Process Supervisory in the Presence of Business Process Automation;102
9.1.4.1;Dynamic Redefinition of Workflows;102
9.1.5;4.1.5 Business Process Instances;103
9.2;4.2 Transformation of Goods and Information;107
9.2.1;4.2.1 Specifying Item Flows;107
9.2.2;4.2.2 Global State Transformations;109
9.2.3;4.2.3 Things and Data in Structured Analysis;111
9.2.4;4.2.4 Specifying Physical Processes and Data Processing;111
9.2.5;4.2.5 On Real World Modeling;113
9.3;4.3 Exploiting a Business Process Definition;115
9.3.1;4.3.1 Business Process Definitions as Documentation;115
9.3.2;4.3.2 Business Process Definitions in Simulation;116
9.3.3;4.3.3 Business Process Definitions as High-Level Programs;116
9.4;4.4 Events in Business Process Modeling;117
9.4.1;4.4.1 Strictly Interchanging Functions and Events;118
9.4.2;4.4.2 Using Events for Expressing Decisions;120
9.5;4.5 Semantics of Events;121
9.5.1;4.5.1 Persistent and Ephemeral Event Effects;122
9.5.2;4.5.2 A Detour on Ordinary Language Specification;122
9.5.3;4.5.3 Managing Ephemeral Event Effects;124
9.5.3.1;Attempts to Grasp Ephemeral Event Effects;127
9.6;4.6 Synchronization in Business Process Models;129
10;5 Decomposing Business Processes;135
10.1;5.1 Motivation for Decomposing System Descriptions;135
10.1.1;5.1.1 Getting Complexity under Control;136
10.1.2;5.1.2 Atomic Activities;138
10.1.3;5.1.3 Leveled Data-Flow Diagrams;139
10.1.3.1;Example Decomposition with Single Entry and Exit Points;140
10.1.3.2;On the Notation of Business Process Abstraction;141
10.1.4;5.1.4 Process Hierarchies versus Process Abstraction;142
10.1.4.1;Strictly Stepped Hierarchies;142
10.1.4.2;Recursion in Business Process Decompositions;144
10.1.4.3;Expressive Power of Recursion for Business Domain-Oriented Modeling;147
10.1.4.4;Presentation Issues of Recursion in Business Process Hierarchies;149
10.1.4.5;Refinement Hierarchies;150
10.2;5.2 Unique versus Multiple Entry and Exit Points;150
10.2.1;5.2.1 Exploiting Multiple Entry and Exit Points;150
10.2.2;5.2.2 On the Semantics of Multiple Start and End Events;152
10.2.2.1;Building Hierarchies with Closed Semantics;153
10.2.2.2;Building Hierarchies with Open Semantics;155
10.2.2.3;Relevance of the Chosen Business Process Semantics;156
10.2.3;5.2.3 On Reasons for the Restriction to Unique Interface Points;156
10.2.4;5.2.4 Notational Issues of Unique Interface Points;157
10.2.5;5.2.5 Decomposition by Business Goal Orientation;158
10.2.6;5.2.6 Duplication of Modeling Elements and its Semantics;161
10.3;5.3 Parallel Abstraction of Activities and Transferred Data;163
10.3.1;A Detour on Completely Equal Decomposition of Nodes and Edges of a Graph;165
10.3.2;Typed Transitions;167
10.4;5.4 Towards Parallel Abstraction of Activities and Constraints;168
10.5;5.5 Seamless Business Process and Enterprise Application Modeling;170
10.6;5.6 Modeling Variants;173
10.6.1;5.6.1 Variants in Software Service Support Scenarios;174
10.6.2;5.6.2 Product Variants and Versions;175
11;6 Structured Business Process Specification;177
11.1;6.1 Basic Definitions;178
11.1.1;6.1.1 D-Charts;180
11.1.2;6.1.2 A Notion of Equivalence for Business Processes;182
11.2;6.2 The Pragmatics of Structuring Business Processes;183
11.2.1;6.2.1 Resolving Arbitrary Jump Structures;183
11.2.2;6.2.2 Immediate Arguments For and Against Structure;186
11.2.3;6.2.3 Structure for Text-based versus Graphical Specifications;190
11.2.4;6.2.4 Structure and Decomposition;192
11.2.5;6.2.5 Business Domain-Oriented versus Documentation-Oriented Modeling;195
11.3;6.3 Structured Programming;197
11.3.1;6.3.1 An Example Comparison of Program Texts;197
11.3.2;6.3.2 Readability of Program Texts;200
11.3.2.1;Further Attempts to Improve the Readability of a Program Text;201
11.3.3;6.3.3 Structured Programming and Denotational Semantics;202
11.4;6.4 Frontiers of Structured Business Process Modeling;207
12;7 Workflow Technology and Human-ComputerInteraction;211
12.1;7.1 Two HCI Styles of Workflow Systems;211
12.1.1;7.1.1 Degree of Parallelism Revealed to the User;212
12.1.2;7.1.2 Dialogues Realized by Single Form Screens;213
12.1.2.1;Terminal/Server-style Realization;214
12.1.2.2;Drawbacks of Terminal/Server-style Workflow Systems;215
12.1.2.3;Parallelism Revealed by Terminal/Server-style Workflow Systems;217
12.1.2.4;Allowing for More Parallelism;217
12.1.2.5;Exploiting Windowing in Allowing for More Parallelism;218
12.1.2.6;The Windows Metaphor;220
12.1.2.7;Root Pane Serving as Worklist;221
12.1.3;7.1.3 Dialogues Realized by Multiple Screens;222
12.1.4;7.1.4 Overall Workflow System Design;225
12.2;7.2 Actor Assignment in Workflow Automation;226
12.2.1;7.2.1 Interpretation of Actor Groups;227
12.2.1.1;Parallel Execution of Assigned Tasks;228
12.2.1.2;Preemptive Execution of Assigned Tasks;229
12.2.2;7.2.2 Selection of Actors;229
12.2.3;7.2.3 On General Actor Assignment in Workflow Automation;231
12.3;7.3 Form-Oriented Analysis;234
13;8 Service-Oriented Architecture;236
13.1;8.1 The Evolution of Service-Oriented Architecture;237
13.1.1;Services as Information Utility;239
13.1.2;Service-Component Architecture;239
13.2;8.2 Three-Tier Service-Oriented Architecture;239
13.3;8.3 Characteristics of Service-Oriented Architectures;243
13.3.1;Discoverability of Services;244
13.3.2;Research Potential in Service-Oriented Architecture Principles;244
13.4;8.4 Web Services based Service-Oriented Architecture;245
13.4.1;8.4.1 Web Services-based Business Process Execution;247
13.5;8.5 Service-Orientation as Development Paradigm;249
13.5.1;8.5.1 Designing Services for Reuse;249
13.5.2;8.5.2 Towards Massive Software Reuse;250
13.5.2.1;Iterative Projects;250
13.5.2.2;Mega Projects;252
13.5.2.3;SOA Governance for Ubiquitous Reuse;253
13.5.3;8.5.3 Software Use versus Software Reuse;255
14;9 Conclusion;257
14.1;9.1 Business Processes and Workflows;257
14.1.1;9.1.1 Usual Distinctions between Business Processes and Workflows;258
14.1.2;9.1.2 This Book’s Distinction between Business Processes and Workflows;259
14.1.3;9.1.3 Tool Support for Business Processes – Business Process Technologies;260
14.2;9.2 Integrating Workflow Definition and Dialogue Programming;262
14.2.1;9.2.1 An Introductory Example;262
14.2.2;9.2.2 Typed Workflow Charts;265
14.2.3;9.2.3 From Client Pages to Immediate Server Actions;266
14.2.4;9.2.4 From Immediate Server Actions to Deferred Server Actions;266
14.2.4.1;The Semantics of Activation Conditions;266
14.2.4.2;Worklist Implementation Issues;267
14.2.4.3;The Multiple Choice of Deferred Actions;268
14.2.5;9.2.5 From Deferred Server Actions to Client Pages;270
14.2.6;9.2.6 The Workflows given by a Workflow Chart;270
14.2.7;9.2.7 The Interplay of the Dialogue Client and the Worklist Client;272
14.2.8;9.2.8 Dynamic Detection of Dialogues;273
14.2.9;9.2.9 Explicit Specification of Dialogues;274
14.2.10;9.2.10 Synchronization Issues;275
14.2.11;9.2.11 Benefits of Integrating Workflow Definitions and Formcharts;277
14.2.11.1;Conceptual Specification versus Automatic Programming;278
14.2.11.2;Flexibility in Restructuring the Workflow and Dialogue Design;279
14.2.11.3;Visibility of Dialogue States to Workflow Technology;279
14.2.11.4;Flexibility Beyond the Limit of Client Page Interaction;281
14.3;9.3 Towards Integrating Human Activity and Workflow Definition;281
14.4;9.4 On Closing the Gaps in Business Process Technology;285
15;References;287
16;Index;307