Diagnosing Behavioral Differences between Business Process Models
Date
2015-07-02
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Abstract
Äriprotsessid on kaasaegsete ettevõtete jaoks olulise tähtsusega, määratledes nende töökorralduse. Suurtes organisatsioonides on tavaline, et äriprotsesse kujutatakse protsessimudelitena. Protsessimudel aitab ärianalüütikutel ja juhtidel ettevõtte äriprotsesse paremini mõista ja pidevalt parandada.
Väljaarenenud organisatsioonides on tihtipeale kujunenud suur hulk protsessimudeleid. Mõnikord eksisteerib samast äriprotsessist mitu eri varianti. Näiteks võib müügiprotsessi üks variant kirjeldada toodete müüki koduturul ning teine toodete müüki erinevatel välisturgudel. Selliseid variante võib olla vajalik võrrelda ja standardiseerida, et vähendada kulusid või luua sünergiaid erinevate töörühmade või äriüksuste vahel.
Äriprotsessi variantide standardiseerimiseks peab analüütik võrdlema protsessimudeleid, eesmärgiga teha kindlaks, kuidas neid omavahel kooskõlla viia. Olemasolevaid lähenemisi protsessimudelite võrdlemiseks saab jaotada struktuursel ja käitumuslikul sarnasusel põhinevateks. Mõningatel juhtudel on struktuurne võrdlus piisav, mõistmaks erinevusi kahe protsessivariandi vahel. Samas võivad kaks varianti küll olla struktuurselt erinevad, kuid käitumuslikult ekvivalentsed või vastupidi --- struktuurselt väga sarnased, kuid käitumuslikult üsna erinevad, kuna muutused protsessimudeli üksikutes tippudes või servades võivad kaasa tuua olulisi käitumuslikke erinevusi.
See väitekiri käsitleb äriprotsessimudelite paaride vaheliste käitumuslike erinevuste võrdlemist. Väitekirja peamine panus on uudne meetod võrdlemaks äriprotsessi mudeleid, et teha kindlaks, kas nad on käitumuslikult ekvivalentsed. Juhul kui kaks protsessimudelit ei ole käitumuslikult ekvivalentsed, moodustab pakutud meetod loomulikus keeles laused, mis kirjeldavad täpselt mudelite käitumuslikke erinevusi.
Pakutud võrdlustehnika on implementeeritud prototüüptööriistana BP-Diff. See tööriist võtab sisendina protsessimudelite paarid, kirjeldatuna standardses protsessimudeli noteeringus BPMN, ning kirjeldab erinevusi nii loomulikus keeles kui ka visuaalselt. Tööriist on kõigile kättesaadav: http://diffbp-BP-Diff.rhcloud.com/.
Business processes are the arteries of modern organizations. They determine how work is done in an organization. In large organizations, it is common practice that business processes are described in details in the form of business process models. Business process model helps business analysts and managers in an organization to better understand and to continuously improve the business processes of an organization. A mature organization will typically have accumulated a large collection of business process models. Sometimes, the same business process is described in the form of multiple variants. For example there may be one variant of sales process for selling products in the domestic market, and a different variant for selling products in different international markets. These multiple variants sometimes need to be compared and standardized in order to reduce costs or to create synergies between multiple teams and business units in an organization. The standardization of business process variants requires analysts to compare process models in order to determine how to reconcile them. Existing process model comparison techniques can be classified into those based on the structure of the models and those based on their behavior. In some cases, a structural comparison is sufficient to understand the differences between two process variants. However, two process models may be structurally different, yet behaviorally equivalent or they may be very similar structurally yet quite different behaviorally, as changes in a few nodes or edges in a business process model might imply major behavioral differences. In this context, this thesis approaches the problem of comparing pairs of business process models from a behavioral perspective. The main contribution of the thesis is a novel method to compare two business process models in order to determine if they are behaviorally equivalent. In case the two process models are not behaviorally equivalent, the proposed method produces sentences in natural language that describe accurately their behavioral differences. The proposed comparison technique was implemented as prototype tool called BP-Diff. The tool takes pairs of process models described in a standard process modeling notation called BPMN, and describes the differences both by means of natural language statements and also visually. The tool is publicly available at http://diffbp-BPDiff.rhcloud.com/
Business processes are the arteries of modern organizations. They determine how work is done in an organization. In large organizations, it is common practice that business processes are described in details in the form of business process models. Business process model helps business analysts and managers in an organization to better understand and to continuously improve the business processes of an organization. A mature organization will typically have accumulated a large collection of business process models. Sometimes, the same business process is described in the form of multiple variants. For example there may be one variant of sales process for selling products in the domestic market, and a different variant for selling products in different international markets. These multiple variants sometimes need to be compared and standardized in order to reduce costs or to create synergies between multiple teams and business units in an organization. The standardization of business process variants requires analysts to compare process models in order to determine how to reconcile them. Existing process model comparison techniques can be classified into those based on the structure of the models and those based on their behavior. In some cases, a structural comparison is sufficient to understand the differences between two process variants. However, two process models may be structurally different, yet behaviorally equivalent or they may be very similar structurally yet quite different behaviorally, as changes in a few nodes or edges in a business process model might imply major behavioral differences. In this context, this thesis approaches the problem of comparing pairs of business process models from a behavioral perspective. The main contribution of the thesis is a novel method to compare two business process models in order to determine if they are behaviorally equivalent. In case the two process models are not behaviorally equivalent, the proposed method produces sentences in natural language that describe accurately their behavioral differences. The proposed comparison technique was implemented as prototype tool called BP-Diff. The tool takes pairs of process models described in a standard process modeling notation called BPMN, and describes the differences both by means of natural language statements and also visually. The tool is publicly available at http://diffbp-BPDiff.rhcloud.com/
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Keywords
äriprotsesside modelleerimine, tarkvaraarendus, business process modeling, software development