How Context-aware Technologies Influence Business Process Management

Xiaohui Zhao, University of Canberra

Dr. Xiaohui Zhao

University of Canberra, Australia Worked in New Zealand, the Netherlands, and Japan TechNZ Grant from New Zealand Ministry of Science

and Innovation

Business Process Modelling Integration of BPM into RFID-enabled Applications Flexible Service Delivery

Business Process Management

1 of Gartner’s top 3 strategic technologies (2008)

Standardise and automate business process operations

1920s 1990s 2000

Document flow (OA)

ERP

CBP (B2B, B2C)

Implicit process

EAI

SCMVOA

Intra-organisation

Inter-organisation

Static

Dynamic

hardcoded business

logic

isolated functional

units

model driven

process design

Service oriented architecture, rule driven process

automation

U$ 1.065B, 2005

U$ 5.3B, 2017

By Global Industry Analysts

Xiaohui Zhao, Uni .of Canberra

Context-awareness Technology

Building Automation

Traffic Control

Smart Appliances

Sensor-enabled awareness to the contextual information, such as time, temperature, humidity, consumption

of food, vehicle locations, etc., subject to application domains.

Intelligent Wheeled Chair

Real-Time Supply Chain

Management

Self-Switch on/off ATM

What if context-aware BPM?

Business logic and control pre-fixed at build time

Reactive execution under BP engine

Business intelligence stays at decision making level

BPM presentAdaptable and evolving

process definition

Active execution according to perceived changes

Application of business intelligence at operation level

Context-aware BPM

Energy, material-efficient

operations (production,

etc.)

Highly personalised

service(eLearning, tourism, etc.)

Reliable planning, business

continuity (SCM)

Xiaohui Zhao, Uni .of Canberra

Challenges / Research Topics

Define the context for business processes

Definition of evolving business processes and business process evolution

Innovative business rule definition

Management over evolving business process

Execution of such flexible business processes

Xiaohui Zhao, Uni .of Canberra

How and Where to Start

Define context information for BPs

Perception and reaction mechanisms

Instance level process tracking and revision

Version control over evolving BPs

Extensions to BP modelling languages

Ontology, SBVR, conversion of context events into business

events [4, 5, 6]

ECA Rules, Artifact-centric [8, 9]

Process change operations according to change patterns [2, 3, 7]

Version preserving graph, Version

tree/page/space [1]

Context awareness extensions to BPMN

and BPEL

Xiaohui Zhao, Uni .of Canberra

Reference List [1] X. Zhao and C. Liu, Version Management for Business Process Schema Evolution. Information Systems,

38(8). pp.1046-1069. Elsevier. 2013. [2] J. Xu, C. Liu, X. Zhao, and Z. Ding, Incorporating Structural Improvement into Resource Allocation for

Business Process Execution Planning, Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience, 25(3), pp.427-442, 2013. Wiley.

[3] X. Zhao, C. Liu, Y. Yang, and W. Sadiq, CorPN: Managing Instance Correspondence in Collaborative Business Processes, Distributed and Parallel Database. 29(4), pp.309-332. 2011. Springer Publisher.

[4] X. Zhao, C. Liu, and T. Lin, Incorporating Business Logics into RFID-enabled Applications, Information Processing & Management. 48(1), pp.47-62. 2012. Elsevier Publisher.

[5] X. Zhao, C. Liu, and T. Lin, Incorporating Business Process Management into RFID-enabled Application Systems, Business Process Management Journal. Vol 16(6), pp.932-953. 2010. Emerald Publisher.

[6] X. Zhao, and C. Liu, Steering Dynamic Collaborations between Business Processes, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, Vol 40 (4), pp.743-757. 2010.

[7] X. Zhao and J. Campbell, Towards Connecting Online Interfacing and Core Business Processes, Australasian Conference on Information Systems(ACIS 2013). Melbourne, Australia.

[8] S. Yongchareon, C. Liu, and X. Zhao,A Framework for Behavior-Consistent Specialization of Artifact-Centric Business Processes, International Conference on Business Process Management (BPM 2012). pp.285-301. Tallinn, Estonia.

[9] S. Yongchareon, C. Liu, and X. Zhao, An Artifact-centric View-based Approach to Modeling Inter-organizational Business Processes, International Conference on Web Information System Engineering (WISE 2011). pp.273-281. Sydney, Australia.

Xiaohui Zhao, Uni .of Canberra

Xiaohui Zhao, Uni .of Canberra