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Towards a Decision-Support System for Selecting the Appropriate Business Process Modeling Formalism: A Context-Aware Roadmap

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Enterprise, Business-Process and Information Systems Modeling (BPMDS 2017, EMMSAD 2017)

Abstract

Business Process Modeling (BPM) is the cornerstone of the Business Process Management field, which has become a crucial topic in the competitiveness of enterprise information systems. The importance of BPM to Business Process Management can be justified by the serious problems, which may arise in the latter, if the former is not conducted correctly. This can take place, inter alia, when an inappropriate choice of a BPM formalism for a given BPM context has been made. Such an improper choice is due not only to the availability of a huge number of BPM formalisms but also to the lack of guidelines assisting in the selection process. Our aim in this paper, is to propose a context-aware roadmap with associated methodological guidelines underpinning the selection of the appropriate BPM formalism. To this end, a systematic literature review (SLR) of studies on BPM formalisms quality has been undertaken. The contribution of this paper is threefold viz. the SLR itself, a context-aware roadmap, along with a context model inspired by the Zachman framework, and is a first step towards a decision support system for selecting the appropriate BPM formalism.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Acronyms used in Table 1: Specific Modeling Purpose (SMP) (focus on a single specific modeling purpose), Generic Modeling Purpose (GMP) (emphasis on a collection of modeling purposes), Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN), Unified Modeling Language- Activity Diagram (UML-AD), UML-State Diagram (UML-SD), Event-driven Process Chain (EPC), Workflow-net (WF-net), Yet Another Workflow Language (YAWL), Extended Enterprise Modeling Language (EEML), Data Flow Diagram (DFD), Integration Definition for Function Modeling (IDEF), extended Event-Process Chain (eEPC), Role Activity Diagram (RAD), Business Use Case (BUC), Business Object Interaction Diagram (BOID), Coordination, Cooperation and Communication (C3) method, Architecture of Integrated Information Systems (ARIS), Business Modeling Language (BML), XML Process Definition Language (XPDL), Business Process Execution Language (BPEL), Business Process Modeling Language (BPML), Web Service Choreography Interface (WSCI), Web Services Choreography Description Language (WS-CDL), Actor Role (AR) diagram, Enterprise Knowledge Development –Change Management Method (EKD-CMM), BPEL for Web Services (BPEL4WS), Entity Relationship (ER) diagram, Business Process Specification Shema (BPSS), Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Rules (SBVR), Production Rule Representation (PRR), Simulation Reference Markup Language (SRML), and Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL).

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Awadid, A., Nurcan, S., Ghannouchi, S.A. (2017). Towards a Decision-Support System for Selecting the Appropriate Business Process Modeling Formalism: A Context-Aware Roadmap. In: Reinhartz-Berger, I., Gulden, J., Nurcan, S., Guédria, W., Bera, P. (eds) Enterprise, Business-Process and Information Systems Modeling. BPMDS EMMSAD 2017 2017. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 287. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59466-8_15

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