Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Understanding the Occurrence of Errors in Process Models Based on Metrics

  • Conference paper
On the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems 2007: CoopIS, DOA, ODBASE, GADA, and IS (OTM 2007)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 4803))

Abstract

Business process models play an important role for the management, design, and improvement of process organizations and process-aware information systems. Despite the extensive application of process modeling in practice, there are hardly empirical results available on quality aspects of process models. This paper aims to advance the understanding of this matter by analyzing the connection between formal errors (such as deadlocks) and a set of metrics that capture various structural and behavioral aspects of a process model. In particular, we discuss the theoretical connection between errors and metrics, and provide a comprehensive validation based on an extensive sample of EPC process models from practice. Furthermore, we investigate the capability of the metrics to predict errors in a second independent sample of models. The high explanatory power of the metrics has considerable consequences for the design of future modeling guidelines and modeling tools.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Lindland, O.I., Sindre, G., Sølvberg, A.: Understanding quality in conceptual modeling. IEEE Software 11, 42–49 (1994)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Becker, J., Rosemann, M., Uthmann, C.: Guidelines of Business Process Modeling. In: van der Aalst, W., Desel, J., Oberweis, A. (eds.) Business Process Management. Models, Techniques, and Empirical Studies, pp. 30–49. Springer, Berlin (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Hoppenbrouwers, S.S., Proper, H.E., van der Weide, T.: A Fundamental View on the Process of Conceptual Modeling. In: Delcambre, L.M.L., Kop, C., Mayr, H.C., Mylopoulos, J., Pastor, Ó. (eds.) ER 2005. LNCS, vol. 3716, pp. 128–143. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  4. Krogstie, J., Sindre, G., Jørgensen, H.: Process models representing knowledge for action: a revised quality framework. European Journal of Information Systems 15, 91–102 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Moody, D.: Theoretical and practical issues in evaluating the quality of conceptual models: current state and future directions. Data & Knowledge Engineering 55, 243–276 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Davies, I., Green, P., Rosemann, M., Indulska, M., Gallo, S.: How do practitioners use conceptual modeling in practice? Data & Knowledge Engineering 58, 358–380 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Mendling, J., Moser, M., Neumann, G., Verbeek, H., Dongen, B., van der Aalst, W.: Faulty EPCs in the SAP Reference Model. In: Dustdar, S., Fiadeiro, J.L., Sheth, A. (eds.) BPM 2006. LNCS, vol. 4102, pp. 451–457. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  8. Mendling, J., Moser, M., Neumann, G., Verbeek, H., Dongen, B., van der Aalst, W.: Detection and Prediction of Errors in EPCs of the SAP Reference Model. Data & Knowledge Engineering (accepted for publication)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Simon, H.: Sciences of the Artificial, 3rd edn. The MIT Press, Cambridge (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Mendling, J., Neumann, G.: Error metrics for business process models. Technical Report JM-2006-12-03, Vienna Univ. of Econ. and Business Administration (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Keller, G., Nüttgens, M., Scheer, A.W.: Semantische Prozessmodellierung auf der Grundlage “Ereignisgesteuerter Prozessketten (EPK)”. Heft 89, Institut für Wirtschaftsinformatik, Saarbrücken, Germany (1992)

    Google Scholar 

  12. OMG, (ed.): Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) Specification. Final Adopted Specification, dtc/06-02-01, Object Management Group (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  13. van der Aalst, W., ter Hofstede, A.: YAWL: Yet Another Workflow Language. Information Systems 30, 245–275 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Mendling, J., van der Aalst, W.: Formalization and Verification of EPCs with OR-Joins Based on State and Context. In: CAiSE 2007. Proceedings of the 19th Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  15. van Dongen, B., Medeiros, A., Verbeek, H., Weijters, A., van der Aalst, W.: The ProM framework: A New Era in Process Mining Tool Support. In: Ciardo, G., Darondeau, P. (eds.) ICATPN 2005. LNCS, vol. 3536, pp. 444–454. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Mendling, J.: Detection and Prediction of Errors in EPC Business Process Models. PhD thesis, Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Mendling, J., Nüttgens, M.: EPC Markup Language (EPML) - An XML-Based Interchange Format for Event-Driven Process Chains (EPC). Information Systems and e-Business Management 4, 245–263 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Nüttgens, M., Rump, F.J.: Syntax und Semantik Ereignisgesteuerter Prozessketten (EPK). In: Desel, J., Weske, M. (eds.) Proceedings of Promise 2002, Potsdam, Germany. Lecture Notes in Informatics, vol. 21, pp. 64–77 (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Keller, G., Teufel, T.: SAP(R) R/3 Process Oriented Implementation: Iterative Process Prototyping. Addison-Wesley, Reading (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Tukey, J.: Exploratory Data Analysis. Addison-Wesley, Reading (1977)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  21. Judge, G., Hill, R., Griffiths, W., Lütkepohl, H., Lee, T.C.: Introduction to the theory and practice of econometrics, 2nd edn. John Wiley & Sons, England (1988)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  22. Hosmer, D., Lemeshow, S.: Applied Logistic Regression. Wiley & Sons, England (2000)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  23. Marczyk, G., DeMatteo, D., Festinger, D.: Essentials of Research Design and Methodology. Wiley & Sons, Inc., England (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Becker, J., Schütte, R.: Handelsinformationssysteme. Moderne Industrie (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Scheer, A.-W.: Wirtschaftsinformatik: Referenzmodelle für industrielle Geschäfts-prozesse. Springer, Heidelberg (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Seidlmeier, H.: Prozessmodellierung mit ARIS. Vieweg Verlag (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  27. Staud, J.: Geschäftsprozessanalyse: Ereignisgesteuerte Prozessketten und Objektorientierte Geschäftsprozessmodellierung. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Reisig, W., Rozenberg, G. (eds.): Lectures on Petri Nets I: Basic Models. LNCS, vol. 1491. Springer, Heidelberg (1998)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  29. Moody, D., Sindre, G., Brasethvik, T., Sølvberg, A.: Evaluating the quality of process models: Empirical testing of a quality framework. In: Spaccapietra, S., March, S.T., Kambayashi, Y. (eds.) ER 2002. LNCS, vol. 2503, pp. 380–396. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  30. ISO: Information technology - software product evaluation - quality characteristics and guide lines for their use. Iso/iec is 9126 (1991)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Güceglioglu, A.S., Demirörs, O.: Using software quality characteristics to measure business process quality. In: van der Aalst, W.M.P., Benatallah, B., Casati, F., Curbera, F. (eds.) BPM 2005. LNCS, vol. 3649, pp. 374–379. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  32. Lee, G., Yoon, J.M.: An empirical study on the complexity metrics of petri nets. Microelectronics and Reliability 32, 323–329 (1992)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Nissen, M.: Redesigning reengineering through measurement-driven inference. MIS Quarterly 22, 509–534 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Morasca, S.: Measuring attributes of concurrent software specifications in petri nets. In: METRICS 1999. Proceedings of the 6th International Symposium on Software Metrics, pp. 100–110. IEEE Computer Society Press, Washington, DC, USA (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  35. Reijers, H., Vanderfeesten, I.: Cohesion and coupling metrics for workflow process design. In: Desel, J., Pernici, B., Weske, M. (eds.) BPM 2004. LNCS, vol. 3080, pp. 290–305. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  36. Cardoso, J.: Evaluating Workflows and Web Process Complexity. In: Workflow Handbook 2005, Future Strategies Inc., 284–290 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  37. Balasubramanian, S., Gupta, M.: Structural metrics for goal based business process design and evaluation. Business Process Management Journal 11, 680–694 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. Canfora, G., García, F., Piattini, M., Ruiz, F., Visaggio, C.: A family of experiments to validate metrics for software process models. Journal of Systems and Software 77, 113–129 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Aguilar, E.R., Ruiz, F., García, F., Piattini, M.: Towards a Suite of Metrics for Business Process Models in BPMN. In: Manolopoulos, Y., Filipe, J., Constantopoulos, P., Cordeiro, J. (eds.) ICEIS 2006. Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems: Databases and Information Systems Integration (III), Paphos, Cyprus, May 23-27, 2006, pp. 440–443 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  40. Laue, R., Gruhn, V.: Complexity metrics for business process models. In: Abramowicz, W., Mayr, H.C. (eds.) BIS 2006. 9th International Conference on Business Information Systems. Lecture Notes in Informatics, vol. 85, pp. 1–12 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  41. Cardoso, J.: Process control-flow complexity metric: An empirical validation. In: IEEE SCC 2006. Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Services Computing, Chicago, USA, September 18-22, pp. 167–173. IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  42. Rosemann, M., Recker, J., Indulska, M., Green, P.: A study of the evolution of the representational capabilities of process modeling grammars. In: Dubois, E., Pohl, K. (eds.) CAiSE 2006. LNCS, vol. 4001, pp. 447–461. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  43. Agarwal, R., Sinha, A.P.: Object-oriented modeling with UML: a study of developers’ perceptions. Commun. ACM 46, 248–256 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Sarshar, K., Loos, P.: Comparing the control-flow of epc and petri net from the end-user perspective. In: van der Aalst, W.M.P., Benatallah, B., Casati, F., Curbera, F. (eds.) BPM 2005. LNCS, vol. 3649, pp. 434–439. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. BPM Cluster, Faculty of Information Technology, Queensland University of Technology, Australia

    Jan Mendling

  2. Institute of Information Systems and New Media, Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, Austria

    Gustaf Neumann

  3. Department of Computer Science, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands

    Wil van der Aalst

Authors
  1. Jan Mendling
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Gustaf Neumann
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Wil van der Aalst
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Robert Meersman Zahir Tari

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Mendling, J., Neumann, G., van der Aalst, W. (2007). Understanding the Occurrence of Errors in Process Models Based on Metrics. In: Meersman, R., Tari, Z. (eds) On the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems 2007: CoopIS, DOA, ODBASE, GADA, and IS. OTM 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4803. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-76848-7_9

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-76848-7_9

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-76846-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-76848-7

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation