Abstract. Business processes provide a means of coordinating interactions between workers and organisations in a structured way. However the dynamic nature of the modern business environment means these processes are subject to a increasingly wide range of variations and must demonstrate flexible approaches to dealing with these variations if they are to remain viable. The challenge is to provide flexibility and offer process support at the same time. Many approaches have been proposed in literature and some of these approaches have been implemented in flexible workflow management systems. However, a comprehensive overview of the various approaches has been missing. In this paper, we take a deeper look into the various ways in which flexibility can be achieved and we propose an extensive taxonomy of flexibility. This taxonomy is subsequently used to evaluate a selection of systems and to discuss how the various forms of flexibility fit together.

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Process-aware information system development for the healthcare domain : consistency, reliability and effectiveness Mans, R.S.; van der Aalst, W.M.P.; Russell, N.C.; Bakker, P.J.M.; Moleman, A.J. Document VersionPublisher's PDF, also known as Version of Record (includes final page, issue and volume numbers)Please check the document version of this publication:• A submitted manuscript is the author's version of the article upon submission and before peer-review. There can be important differences between the submitted version and the official published version of record. People interested in the research are advised to contact the author for the final version of the publication, or visit the DOI to the publisher's website.• The final author version and the galley proof are versions of the publication after peer review.• The final published version features the final layout of the paper including the volume, issue and page numbers. Link to publication General rightsCopyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.• Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research.• You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policyIf you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. {p.j.bakker,a.j.moleman}@amc.uva.nl Abstract. Optimal support for complex healthcare processes cannot be provided by a single out-of-the-box Process-Aware Information System and necessitates the construction of customized applications based on these systems. In order to allow for the seamless integration of the new technology into the existing operational processes of a healthcare organization, ensuring the correct operation and reliability of the developed system are of the utmost importance. This paper proposes an approach in which the same model is used for specifying, developing, testing and validating the operational performance of a new system. The benefits of using the same model for different purposes are decreased potential for loss of user requirements and increased confidence in reliability and correct operation of the resultant system before its deployment. This approach has been applied to a schedule-based workflow system developed for the AMC hospital in Amsterdam.

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The field of Business Process Management (BPM) has evolved considerably over the past decade. Many proposals for business process modelling and/or execution have emerged and some of these have faded into oblivion again. The Workflow Patterns Initiative aimed at achieving a more structured approach to language comparison and development. The patterns that were distilled served as the basis for YAWL (Yet Another Workflow Language). In this paper YAWL is positioned with respect to historical developments in BPM and current challenges in the field.