Context-Aware Business Processes Modelling: Concepts, Issues and Framework

Abstract

Recent research activities on the design of business processes were driven by flexibility. Process flexibility can be achieved through the ability to trigger dynamic changes in the core of business process components in a timely manner and in response to business environment evolution. The drivers for business process flexibility can be found in the "Context" of a process which may include among others time, location, weather, legislation, and culture. Context-Aware Business Process Modelling extends traditional business process models with contextual variables that trigger a dynamic behavior under continuous change. However, as yet, most of the research work in this area has focused on some specific contextual information to model some varying parts such as business rules and goals. Little attention has given to the design and development of a general framework for context-aware business process modelling. In this paper, major business process components were extracted from the main existent business process design formalisms, amplified by contextual information, and integrated into a more a general framework. A case study of a well known European Logistics Enterprise is used to illustrate how contextual information should be integrated within existent business process modeling approaches.

Csma

“…A business process is a set of activities that are initiated by an event, transform data, and produce outputs. In a previous work (Boukadi, Chaabane, & Vincent, 2009), we enhanced each business process model with situational circumstances that may impact the design and execution of this process. We refer to these circumstances as business process context.…”

“…Environmental context specifies the environment in which a business process is expected to run. Further details on this specific context are given in Boukadi, Chaabane, et al (2009). The modeling notation supported by CSMA is the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) (OMG, 2006b), which we enhance with contextual information.…”