Automatic control of workflow processes using ECA rules (original) (raw)
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Realizing business processes with ECA rules: Benefits, challenges, limits
2006
Event-Condition-Action (ECA) rules offer a flexible, adaptive, and modular approach to realizing business processes. This article discusses the use of ECA rules for describing business processes in an executable manner. It investigates the benefits one hopes to derive from using ECA rules and presents the challenges in realizing business processes.
Business Process Management Journal, 2017
Abstract Purpose – Changing scattered and dynamic business rules in business workflow systems has become a growing problem that hinders the use and configuration of workflow-based applications. There is a gap in the existing research studies which currently focus on solutions that are application specific, without accounting for the universal logical dependencies between the business rules and, as a result, do not support adaptation of the business rules in real time. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach – To tackle the above problems, this paper adopts a bottom-up approach, which puts forward a component model of the business process workflows and then adds business rules which have clear logical semantics. This allows incremental development of the workflows and semantic indexing of the rules which govern them during the initial acquisition. Findings – The paper introduces an event-driven model for development of business workflows which is purely logic-based and can be easily implemented using an object-oriented technology, together with a model of the business rules dependencies which supports incremental semantic indexing. It also proposes a two-level inference mechanism as a vehicle for controlling the business process execution and the process of adaptation of the business rules at real time based on propagating the dependencies. Research limitations/implications – The framework is strictly logical and completely domain-independent. It allows to account both synchronous and asynchronous triggering events as well as both qualitative and quantitative description of the conditions of the rules. Although our primary interest is to apply the framework to the business processes typical in the construction industry we believe our approach has much wider potential due to its strictly logical formalization and domain independence. In fact it can be used to control any business processes where the execution is governed by rules. Practical implications – The framework could be applied to both large business process modelling tasks and small but very dynamic business processes like the typical digital business processes found in online banking or e-Commerce. For example, it can be used for adjusting security policies by adding the capability to adapt automatically the access rights to account for additional resources and new channels of operation which can be very interesting ion both B2C and B2B applications. Social implications – The potential scope of the impact of the research reported here is linked to the wide applicability of rule-based systems in business. Our approach makes it possible not only to control the execution of the processes, but also to identify problems in the control policies themselves from the point of view of their logical properties – consistency, redundancies and potential gaps in the logics. In addition to this, our approach not only increases the efficiency, but also provides flexibility for adaptation of the policies in real time and increases the security of the overall control which improves the overall quality of the automation. Originality/value – The major achievement reported in this paper is the construction of a universal, strictly logic-based event-driven framework for business process modelling and control, which allows purely logical analysis and adaptation of the business rules governing the business workflows through accounting their dependencies. An added value is the support for object-oriented implementation and the incremental indexing which has been possible thanks to the bottom-up approach adopted in the construction of the framework.
Formalizing the specification and execution of workflows using the event calculus
Information Sciences, 2006
The event calculus is a logic programming formalism for representing events and their effects especially in database applications. This paper proposes the event calculus as a logic-based methodology for the specification and execution of workflows. It is shown that the control flow graph of a workflow specification can be expressed as a set of logical formulas and the event calculus can be used to specify the role of a workflow manager through a set of rules for the execution dependencies of activities. The proposed framework for a workflow manager maintains a history of events to control the execution of activities. The events are instructions to the workflow manager to coordinate the execution of activities. Based on the already occurred events, the workflow manager triggers new events to schedule new activities in accordance with the control flow graph of the workflow. The net effect is an alternative approach for defining a workflow engine whose operational semantics is naturally integrated with the operational semantics of a deductive database. Within this framework it is possible to model sequential and concurrent activities with or without synchronization. It is also possible to model agent assignment and execution of concurrent workflow instances. The paper, thus, contributes a logical perspective to the task of developing formalization for the workflow management systems.
Modeling workflow patterns from first principles
2007
We propose a small set of parameterized abstract models for workflow patterns, starting from first principles for sequential and distributed control. Appropriate instantiations yield the 43 workflow patterns that have been listed recently by the Business Process Modeling Center. The resulting structural classification of those patterns into eight basic categories, four for sequential and four for parallel workflows, provides a semantical foundation for a rational evaluation of workflow patterns.
Adaptive business rules framework for workflow management
Business Process Management Journal
Purpose Changing scattered and dynamic business rules in business workflow systems has become a growing problem that hinders the use and configuration of workflow-based applications. There is a gap in the existing research studies which currently focus on solutions that are application specific, without accounting for the universal logical dependencies between the business rules and, as a result, do not support adaptation of the business rules in real time. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach To tackle the above problems, this paper adopts a bottom-up approach, which puts forward a component model of the business process workflows and then adds business rules which have clear logical semantics. This allows incremental development of the workflows and semantic indexing of the rules which govern them during the initial acquisition. Findings The paper introduces an event-driven model for development of business workflows which is purely logic-based and can...
AUTOMATION IN BUSINESS PROCESSES
With the rise of the Web as the major platform for making data and services available for both, humans and applications, a new challenge has become prevalent requiring the support of workflows management. This is a mature technology for automating and controlling business processes. A general task of the development of the workflow system in the current business activities is the implementation of principles of the automatic control for business systems. These systems do not consist of pure technical components, but they integrate both human and human-computer activities and non-automatic interactions. Thus, the implementation of the principles of the automation will benefit the exploitation behaviour of the business systems. This paper presents an implementation of a workflow system applied for the academic practice of a research organization. Illustrations with application of workflow design tools for modeling and execution are given.
Business process modeling for administrative activities; Analyzing dynamic behavior
2013 IEEE 8th International Symposium on Applied Computational Intelligence and Informatics (SACI), 2013
ABSTRACT Out of the workflow representations that are excellent to model business processes this paper examines the possibilities of the p-graph-based workflow modeling for administrative activities. Taking the special requirements of document management into account it gives a possible solution for document processing, the more reality like modeling of activities and resources. This paper introduces special descriptors for the various document types, activities and resources. Thus making the p-graph based workflow modeling more applicable for the modeling of administrative processes. Beyond the static examinations the extension of the p-graph-based model enables the analysis of dynamic behavior and the analysis of process executions.
ECA rule-based support for workflows
Artificial Intelligence in Engineering, 2001
The use of event±condition±action (ECA) rules has transformed database systems from passive query-based data repositories to active sources of information delivery. In a similar fashion, ECA rules can be used to bene®t work¯ow systems. In this paper, a software framework known as STEP work¯ow management facility is proposed in order to manage collaborative and distributed work¯ows and to provide interfaces to object management group-compliant product data management systems. Issues related to implementation using open standards such as CORBA are discussed. A key point underlying the framework is the¯exibility it affords to users to re-con®gure the system according to evolving needs in collaborative product development.
Contents Logic Based Approaches to Workflow Modeling and Verification 1
A workflow is a collection of coordinated activities designed to carry out a well-defined complex process, such as trip planning, student registration, or a business process in a large enterprise. An activity in a workflow might be performed by a human, a device, or a program. Workflow management systems (or WfMS ) provide a framework for capturing the interaction among the activities in a workflow and are recognized as a new paradigm for integrating disparate systems, including legacy systems. A large workflow system might involve many disparate activities that are coordinated in complex ways and are subject to many constraints. Thus, modeling such systems and ensuring that they perform according to the specifications is not an easy task. To be able to analyze the properties of workflows, the latter must be specified using a formalism with well-defined semantics. The popular formalisms in this area are the various logics, Petri Nets [1,35], Event-Condition-Action rules , and State Charts . In this chapter we survey and compare a number of logic-based formalisms that were proposed in the literature.