A Framework for Business Process Simulation: The Grab and Glue Approach (original) (raw)

Business Process Simulation: An Overview

Recent times have seen an increasing use of discrete simulation to model and analyse business processes under the banner of Business Process Simulation. However, most of the literature merely justifies the use of simulation or describes case studies. This paper provides an overview of Business Process Simulation. It outlines the differences between the modelling of business processes and manufacturing processes, and discusses the issues arising when developing a business process simulation model. Different approaches that can be adopted when simulating business processes are presented. It then concludes by suggesting a number of requirements for business process simulators as well as avenues for further research.

SIMULATION MODELLING OF BUSINESS PROCESSES

2000

Increasingly, organisations need to adapt to new conditions and competitive pressures. Various change management approaches such as business process re- engineering have been developed to meet this perceived need. This paper investigates the potential of simulation modelling for modelling business processes. After a discussion on business processes related issues, an overview of business process modelling methods is presented. The usability

Business Process Simulation Revisited

Computer simulation attempts to "mimic" real-life or hypothetical behavior on a computer to see how processes or systems can be improved and to predict their performance under different circumstances. Simulation has been successfully applied in many disciplines and is considered to be a relevant and highly applicable tool in Business Process Management (BPM). Unfortunately, in reality the use of simulation is limited. Few organizations actively use simulation. Even organizations that purchase simulation software (stand-alone or embedded in some BPM suite), typically fail to use it continuously over an extended period. This keynote paper highlights some of the problems causing the limited adoption of simulation. For example, simulation models tend to oversimplify the modeling of people working part-time on a process. Also simulation studies typically focus on the steady-state behavior of business processes while managers are more interested in short-term results (a "fast forward button" into the future) for operational decision making. This paper will point out innovative simulation approaches leveraging on recent breakthroughs in process mining.

Simulation and Information Systems Modelling: A Framework for Business Process Change

Many different methods and techniques can be used for modelling business processes in order to give an understanding of possible scenarios for improvement. The simulation modelling shows the process as a whole, drawbacks of the existing process, bottlenecks in the process execution and provides critical insight into process execution. The results of the simulation modelling represent a good foundation for a business process reengineering as a next step towards e-business introduction. The main goal of the paper is to present and discuss the level of information system modelling and simulation modelling methods and tools integration in the conditions of dynamic e-business environment. The paper also stressed the necessity for integrating simulation modelling and information system modelling. The examples of business process modelling and simulation tools are also presented.

Survey of business process simulation tools: a comparative approach

Proceedings of SPIE, 2011

Simulation in general is the operation of imitating a real thing such as a process. Simulation is known for its importance in the fields of research and operation management. It is used in many fields such as engineering, training etc. This survey is interested in the field of scientific simulation of business systems. Business process simulation is used to give the business owners a real view of their systems in certain aspects such as system's behavior, cost of resources, return on investment, and the time each process will take. By trying different input alternatives, business process simulation is usually used to save the costs of having a real system with potential problems. This paper emphasizes on business process simulation tools, comparing them according to certain evaluation criteria and presenting the recommended applications for each tool.

Business Process Simulation

International Journal of Enterprise Information Systems, 2000

This paper discusses the idea that even though information systems development (ISD) approaches have long advocated the use of integrated organisational views, the modelling techniques used have not been adapted accordingly and remain focused on the automated information system (IS) solution. Existing research provides evidence that business process simulation (BPS) can be used at different points in the ISD process to provide better integrated organisational views that aid the design of appropriate IS solutions. Despite this fact, research in this area is not extensive;

Simulating Business Processes – A Review of Tools and Techniques

International Journal of Modeling and Optimization, 2012

There is a great need for simulation of dynamic/temporal aspects of business processes. The current standard for modeling business processes is BPMN and in this review, the various techniques and tools that use BPMN for simulation are studied. The review also points to shortcomings in BPMN support for simulation and in the BPM tools claim to support simulation of business processes. We also present a case for general purpose DES tools to widen their scope and create components/plugins to convert BPMN output to DES input.

Business process modeling — Simulation of administrative activities

The p-graph-based workflow has been introduced for modeling administrative processes in earlier papers then it was completed with necessary descriptors to conceptualise the dynamic model and we determined the initial model as well as the operational algorithm of the activities. Starting from model this this paper examines the simulation possibilities of workflows modeling administrative processes. The main goal of the simulation is the dynamic analysis of the workflow model, filtering of bottlenecks and the optimization of resources. Considering that we talk about the simulation of administrative processes we look thoroughly into the precise representation of the flow of documents and the simulation of the operation of activities.

Comparative Analysis of Different Tools Business Process Simulation

Business process modelling is an increasingly popular research area for both organisations and enterprises due to its usefulness in facilitating better planning of resources, business reengineering and optimized business performance. The modelling and simulation of Business Processes has been able to show Business Analysts, and Managers where bottleneck exists in the system, how to optimize the Business Process to reduce cost of running the Organization, and the required resources needed for an Organization An important part of the evaluation of designed and redesigned business processes is Business Process Simulation (BPS). Although an abundance of simulation tools exist, the applicability of these tools is diverse. In this paper we thrash out a number of simulation tools that are applicable for the BPM field, we estimate their applicability for BPS and formulate recommendations for further research. This paper is limited to analysis three tools that is IBM WebSphere, FLOWer and FileNet (process management); and Arena and CPN Tools (discrete event simulation)) are compared based on the capabilities of modelling, support of simulation and output analysis.

Hybrid Business Process Simulation: Updating Detailed Process Simulation Models Using High-level Simulations

Process mining techniques transfer historical data of organizations into knowledge for the purpose of process improvement. Most of the existing process mining techniques are "backward-looking" and provide insights w.r.t. historical event data. Foreseeing the future of processes and capturing the effect of changes without applying them to the real processes are of high importance. Current simulation techniques that benefit from process mining insights are either at detailed levels, e.g., Discrete Event Simulation (DES), or at aggregated levels, e.g., System Dynamics (SD). System dynamics represents processes at a higher degree of aggregation and account for the influence of external factors on the process. In this paper, we propose an approach for simulating business processes that combines both types of data-driven simulation techniques to generate holistic simulation models of processes. These techniques replicate processes at various levels and for different purposes, yet they both present the same process. SD models are used for strategical what-if analysis, whereas DES models are used for operational what-if analysis. It is critical to consider the effect of strategical decisions on detailed processes. We introduce a framework integrating these two simulation models, as well as a proof of concept to demonstrate the approach in practice.