Workflow/Business Process Management Introduction business process management and workflow management

Business Process Management Overview Business Process Management process mining Relation with BPR (Re)design of workflows Resource management Logistical aspects Analysis of workflows Staffware Patterns Protos Concepts Guidelines FLOWer Workflow management systems Simulation Techniques for business process modelling Interorganizational workflow Adaptive workflow With or without WFMS Workflow management

Focus on models

Some trends in Information Systems From programming to assembling From data orientation to process orientation From design to redesign and organic growth operating system generic applications domain specific applications tailor-made applications

Before BPM: WFM - workflow management - Goal To manage the flow of work such that the work is done at the right time by the proper person. Definitions A workflow management system (WFMS) is a software package that can be used to support the definition, management and execution of workflow processes. A workflow system (WFS) is a system based on a WFMS that supports a specific set of business processes through the execution of computerized process definitions

Relevance of workflow management systems Trend: OS DBMS appl. WFMS UIMS 1965-1975 1975-1985 1985-1995 1995-2005 Processes: are becoming more important (BPR) are subject to frequent changes are becoming more complex are increasing in number Þ Workflow Management System

The basic idea: separation of processes, resources and applications WFMS separation of processes, resources and applications focus on the logistics of work processes, not on the contents of individual tasks

BPM: The next step - business process management - True Business Process Management is an amalgam of traditional workflow and the 'new' BPM technology. It then follows that as BPM is a natural extension of – and not a separate technology to – Workflow, BPM is in fact the merging of process technology covering 3 process categories: interactions between (i) people-to-people; (ii) systems-to-systems and (iii) systems-to-people – all from a process-centric perspective. This is what true BPM is all about.” Jon Pyke, CTO Staffware. “…a blending of process management/workflow with application integration.” David McCoy, Gartner Group

BPR, CPI, Office logistics - relationships to other domains - Business Process Reengineering (BPR) (Business Process Redesign) Hammer and Champy: "Reengineering the corporation" (1993) Keywords: fundamental radical dramatic process The "organize before automate"-principle is replaced by "process thinking".

Processes and the organization

Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) Instead of of seeking a radical breakthrough, optimizing the process by continuous, incremental improvements. Part of the Total Quality Management (TQM) approach ("doing it right the first time", "eliminate waste", ...) high low impact frequency BPR CPI chaos stagnation change time BPR and CPI are both process centric and can be supported by a WFMS.

History and CSCW - the WFM/BPM market -

Historical overview of systems (Zur Muehlen, 2003)

(Zur Muehlen, 2003) Workflow management is already 25 years old (cf. OfficeTalk, Skip Ellis/Xerox)! The WFM hype is over …, but there are more and more applications, and WFM is adopted by many other technologies (ERP, Web Services, etc.).

CSCW spectrum

Refined view (without datbase applications)

Trade-offs

P2P = Person To A2P = Application To Person A2A = Application To human oriented system groupware workflow transaction processing P2P = Person To A2P = Application To Person A2A = Application To

Focus on "classical" workflow management systems, but ... Four types of "workflow-like" systems: Information systems with hard-coded workflows (process& organization specific). Custom-made information systems with generic workflow support (organization specific). Generic software with embedded workflow functionality (e.g., the workflow components of ERP, CRM, PDM, etc. systems). Generic software focusing on workflow functionality (e.g., Staffware, MQSeries Workflow, FLOWer, COSA, Oracle BPEL, Filenet, etc.).

WFM architecture - reference model and example -

Reference model of the Workflow Management Coalition What? When? Who?

Workflow perspectives - processes dominate! -

Workflow perspectives Process perspective (tasks and the routing of cases) Resource perspective (workers, roles, 4-eyes principle, etc.) Case/data perspective (process instances and their attributes) Operation/application perspective (forms, application integration, etc.) ...

Process perspective: Protos (extended Petri nets)

Process perspective: Staffware

Process perspective: COSA (Petri nets)

Process perspective: Baan DEM

Process perspective: Event driven process chains (ARIS/SAP)

Petri nets as a basis The process perspective is the most dominant one. There are many modeling techniques and tools BPEL, BPMN, DFD, ISAC, SADT, PN, HLPN, PA, FC, UML, ... Simulation tools, design tools, CASE tools, WFMS, ... Focus on the essential concepts rather than (system-)specific languages. Approach in this course (1) first master workflow modeling in terms of workflow nets (a subset of Petri nets), and (2) only then look into mappings to and from (system-)specific languages.

Example of a process model: A Petri net modeling order processing

Play the token game …

Test Exercise: Dining philosophers 5 philosophers sharing 5 chopsticks: chopsticks are located in-between philosophers A philosopher is either in state eating or thinking and needs two chopsticks to eat. Model as a Petri net.