Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Modeling Design-Time Variability in Business Processes: Existing Support and Deficiencies

  • Conference paper
Enterprise, Business-Process and Information Systems Modeling (BPMDS 2014, EMMSAD 2014)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 175))

Abstract

Recently the interest in managing families of business processes rather than individual processes has increased, mainly due to the need to maintain different variants of the same business process or similar business processes in the same organization. This led to the extension of different business process modeling languages (BPMLs) in order to support the representation of design-time variability, namely variability that is resolved when designing the particular business processes (the variants). However, the evaluation of these languages expressiveness is still in an inceptive stage. In particular, the abilities to express variable elements in different granularity levels and to guide variability in business process models have not been examined. To tackle this lack, we propose a two-dimensional framework which explicitly refers to granularity and guidance. We further examine how existing extensions of BPMLs support these dimensions, point on deficiencies in their expressiveness, and discuss the implications of those deficiencies through examples from a case study.

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 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
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. Andersson, B., Bider, I., Johannesson, P., Perjons, E.: Towards a formal definition of goal-oriented business process patterns. Business Process Management Journal 11(6), 650–662 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Ayora, C., Torres, V., Pelechano, V.: Variability management in business process models. Technical Report 17, PROS – UPV (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Bayer, J., Flege, O., Gacek, C.: Creating product line architectures. In: van der Linden, F.J. (ed.) IW-SAPF 2000. LNCS, vol. 1951, pp. 210–216. Springer, Heidelberg (2000)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  4. Becker, J., Rosemann, M., von Uthmann, C.: Guidelines of Business Process Modeling. In: van der Aalst, W.M.P., Desel, J., Oberweis, A. (eds.) Business Process Management. LNCS, vol. 1806, pp. 30–49. Springer, Heidelberg (2000)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  5. Brocke, J.: Design Principles for Reference Modelling: Reusing Information Models by Means of Aggregation, Specialisation, Instantiation, and Analogy. Reference Modeling for Business Systems Analysis, 47–75 (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Curtis, B., Kellner, M., Over, J.: Process Modeling. Communication of the ACM 35(9), 75–90 (1992)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Dijkman, R., La Rosa, M., Reijers, H.: Managing large collections of business process models — current techniques and challenges. Computers in Industry 63(2), 91–97 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Dumas, M., Van der Aalst, W.M.P., Ter Hofstede, A.H.M.: Process-Aware Information Systems: Bridging People and Software through Process Technology. Wiley & Sons (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Gottschalk, F., van der Aalst, W.M.P., Verbeek, H.M.W.: Protos2cpn: Using colored Petri Nets for configuring and testing business processes. International Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer 10(1), 95–110 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Gottschalk, F., van der Aalst, W.M.P., Jansen-Vullers, M.H.: SAP WebFlow Made Configurable: Unifying Workflow Templates into a Configurable Model. In: Alonso, G., Dadam, P., Rosemann, M. (eds.) BPM 2007. LNCS, vol. 4714, pp. 262–270. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  11. Gottschalk, F., Van Der Aalst, W.M.P., Jansen-Vullers, M.H., Rosa, M.L.: Configurable workflow models. International Journal on Cooperative Information Systems 17(2), 177–221 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Gottschalk, F., Wagemakers, T.A.C., Jansen-Vullers, M.H., van der Aalst, W.M.P., La Rosa, M.: Configurable process models: Experiences from a municipality case study. In: van Eck, P., Gordijn, J., Wieringa, R. (eds.) CAiSE 2009. LNCS, vol. 5565, pp. 486–500. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  13. Hallerbach, A., Bauer, T., Reichert, M.: Capturing variability in business process models: The Provop approach. Journal of Software Maintenance and Evolution: Research and Practice 22(6/7), 519–546 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Istoan, P., Klein, J., Perouin, G., Jézéquel., J.M.: A metamodel-based classification of variability modeling approaches. In: VARY International Workshop Affiliated with MODELS 2011, pp. 23–32 (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Korherr, B.: Business Process Modelling Languages, Goals, and Variabilities. PhD Thesis, Vienna University of Technology (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Korherr, B., List, B.: Extending the EPC and the BPMN with Business Process Goals and Performance Measures. In: The 9th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2007), pp. 287–294. ACM/SIGMIS and AAAI (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  17. La Rosa, M., Dumas, M., ter Hofstede, A.: Modelling Business Process Variability for Design-Time Configuration. In: Cardoso, J., van der Aalst, W.M.P. (eds.) Handbook of Research on Business Process Modeling. Information Science Reference, pp. 204–228 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  18. La Rosa, M., Dumas, M., ter Hofstede, A., Mendling, J.: Configurable Multi-Perspective Business Process Models. Information Systems 36(2), 313–340 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Lapouchnian, A., Yu, Y., Mylopoulos, J.: Requirements-driven design and configuration management of business processes. In: Alonso, G., Dadam, P., Rosemann, M. (eds.) BPM 2007. LNCS, vol. 4714, pp. 246–261. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  20. Liaskon, S., Lapouchnian, A., Yu, Y., Yu, E., Mylopoulos, J.: On Goal-based Variability Acquisition and Analysis. In: The 14th IEEE International Conference Requirements Engineering (RE 2006), pp. 92–96 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  21. List, B., Korherr, B.: An Evaluation of Conceptual Business Process Modelling Languages. In: The 21st ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC 2006), pp. 1532–1539 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Lu, R., Sadiq, W.: A survey of comparative business process modeling approaches. In: Abramowicz, W. (ed.) BIS 2007. LNCS, vol. 4439, pp. 82–94. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  23. Park, J.: A Modeling Approach for Business Processes Based on Variability. In: 9th International Conference on Software Engineering Research, Management and Applications (SERA), pp. 211–218 (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Patiniotakis, I., Papageorgiou, N., Verginadis, Y., Apostolou, D., Mentzas, G.: An Aspect Oriented Approach for Implementing Situational Driven Adaptation of BPMN2.0 Workflows. In: La Rosa, M., Soffer, P. (eds.) BPM Workshops 2012. LNBIP, vol. 132, pp. 414–425. Springer, Heidelberg (2013)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  25. Pichler, P., Weber, B., Zugal, S., Pinggera, J., Mendling, J., Reijers, H.A.: Imperative versus Declarative Process Modeling Languages: An Empirical Investigation. In: Daniel, F., Barkaoui, K., Dustdar, S. (eds.) BPM Workshops 2011, Part I. LNBIP, vol. 99, pp. 383–394. Springer, Heidelberg (2012)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  26. Puhlmann, F., Schnieders, A., Weiland, J., Weske, M.: Variability Mechanisms for Process Models. PESOA-Report TR 17/2005, Process Family Engineering in Service-Oriented Applications, PESOA (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  27. Razavian, M., Khosravi, R.: Modeling Variability in Business Process Models using UML. In: 5th International Conference on Information Technology: New Generations (ITNG 2008), pp. 82–87 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Recker, J., Rosemann, M., van der Aalst, W.M.P., Mendling, J.: On the Syntax of Reference Model Configuration. In: Bussler, C.J., Haller, A. (eds.) BPM 2005. LNCS, vol. 3812, pp. 497–511. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  29. Reinhartz-Berger, I., Soffer, P., Sturm, A.: Organizational reference models: Supporting an adequate design of local business processes. International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management 4(2), 134–149 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Reinhartz-Berger, I., Soffer, P., Sturm, A.: Extending the adaptability of reference models. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part A 40(5), 1045–1056 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Rosemann, M., van der Aalst, W.: A Configurable Reference Modelling Language. Information Systems 32(1), 1–23 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Russell, N., ter Hofstede, A.H.M., Edmond, D.: Workflow Data Patterns. QUT Technical report, FIT-TR-2004-01, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane (2004), http://is.tm.tue.nl/research/patterns/documentation.htm

  33. Rychkova, I., Nurcan, S.: Towards Adaptability and Control for Knowledge-Intensive Business Processes: Declarative Configurable Process Specifications. In: The 44th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, pp. 1–10 (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  34. Scheer, A.W.: ARIS – Business Process Modeling, 3rd edn. Springer (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  35. Schnieders, A., Puhlmann, F.: Variability Mechanisms in E-Business Process Families. In: The 9th International Conference on Business Information Systems (BIS 2006), pp. 583–601 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  36. Schunselaar, D.M.M., Verbeek, E., van der Aalst, W.M.P., Raijers, H.A.: Creating Sound and Reversible Configurable Process Models Using CoSeNets. In: Abramowicz, W., Kriksciuniene, D., Sakalauskas, V. (eds.) BIS 2012. LNBIP, vol. 117, pp. 24–35. Springer, Heidelberg (2012)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  37. Shahzad, K., Johannesson, P.: An Evaluation of Process Warehousing Approaches for Business Process Analysis. In: The 5th ACM-EOMAS in Conjunction with CAiSE 2009, pp. 1–14 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  38. Torres, V., Zugal, S., Weber, B., Reichert, M., Ayora, C., Pelechano, V.: A qualitative comparison of approaches supporting business process variability. In: La Rosa, M., Soffer, P. (eds.) BPM Workshops 2012. LNBIP, vol. 132, pp. 560–572. Springer, Heidelberg (2013)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  39. Van Gurp, J., Bosch, J., Svahnberg, M.: On the notion of variability in software product lines. In: Proceedings of the Working IEEE/IFIP Conference on Software Architecture (WICSA 2001), pp. 45–54 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  40. Vervuurt, M.: Modeling Business Process Variability. Master Thesis. University of Twent (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  41. Weidmann, M., Koetter, F., Kintz, M., Schleicher, D., Mietzner, R.: Adaptive Business Process Modeling in the Internet of Services (ABIS). In: ICIW 2011, pp. 29–34 (2011)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Information Systems Department, University of Haifa, Haifa, 31905, Israel

    Inbal Mechrez & Iris Reinhartz-Berger

Authors
  1. Inbal Mechrez
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Iris Reinhartz-Berger
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. DSV Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Ilia Bider

  2. Public Research Centre Henri Tudor, Luxembourg

    Khaled Gaaloul

  3. Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Sem Sælandsvei 7-9, N-7030, Trondheim, Norway

    John Krogstie

  4. Université de Paris 1 Panthéon - Sorbonne, Paris, France

    Selmin Nurcan

  5. Public Research Centre Henri Tudor, Luexemboug

    Henderik A. Proper

  6. Munich University of Applied Sciences, Munich, Germany

    Rainer Schmidt

  7. University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel

    Pnina Soffer

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Mechrez, I., Reinhartz-Berger, I. (2014). Modeling Design-Time Variability in Business Processes: Existing Support and Deficiencies. In: Bider, I., et al. Enterprise, Business-Process and Information Systems Modeling. BPMDS EMMSAD 2014 2014. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 175. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-43745-2_26

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-43745-2_26

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-662-43744-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-43745-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation