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Information Systems Development pp 167–178Cite as

Human Resource Behaviour Simulation in Business Processes

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Abstract

The structure and dynamics of a modern business environment are very hard to model using traditional methods. Such complexity raises challenges to effective business analysis and improvement. The importance of applying business process simulation to analyse and improve business activities has been widely recognised. However, one remaining challenge is the development of approaches to human resource behaviour simulation. To address this problem, we describe a novel simulation approach where intelligent agents are used to simulate human resources by performing allocated work from a workflow management system. The behaviour of the intelligent agents is driven a by state transition mechanism called a hierarchical task network (HTN). We demonstrate and validate our simulator via a medical treatment process case study. Analysis of the simulation results shows that the behaviour driven by the HTN is consistent with design of the workflow model. We believe these preliminary results support the development of more sophisticated agent-based human resource simulation systems.

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Acknowledgments

This research has been supported by Smart Service CRC in Australia.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mathematical, Information and Physical Sciences (MIPS) Faculty of Science and Technology, Queensland University of Technology, GPO Box 2434, Brisbane, QLD, 4000, Australia

    Hanwen Guo, Ross Brown & Rune Rasmussen

Authors
  1. Hanwen Guo
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  2. Ross Brown
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  3. Rune Rasmussen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hanwen Guo .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh Dept. Computer Science, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

    Rob Pooley

  2. Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh Dept. Computer Science, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

    Jennifer Coady

  3. City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR

    Christoph Schneider

  4. Monash University Fac. Information Technology, Clayton, Victoria, Australia

    Henry Linger

  5. National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland

    Chris Barry

  6. National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland

    Michael Lang

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© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Guo, H., Brown, R., Rasmussen, R. (2013). Human Resource Behaviour Simulation in Business Processes. In: Pooley, R., Coady, J., Schneider, C., Linger, H., Barry, C., Lang, M. (eds) Information Systems Development. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4951-5_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4951-5_14

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-4950-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-4951-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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