Empirical Modelling of Business Process Patterns with Ontologies

A fundamental problem in the way business process modelling (BPM) is carried out today is the lack of explicit and systematic reuse of previously developed models. Although all business processes possess unique characteristics, they also do share many common properties making it possible to classify business processes into generally recognised patterns of organisational behaviour. Patterns, or general solutions to recurring problems, have become a widely accepted architectural technique in software engineering, however their use in business process modelling is quite limited. Given the documented benefits that patterns have produced in software engineering (for example, increased productivity and acceleration of the learning curve), it can be assumed that their adoption in BPM could yield similar advantages.

However, the systematic adoption of patterns in BPM cannot be a simple transposition of the experience acquired by the design patterns community in software engineering. This is due to some essential differences between business modelling and software design. While the latter involves the representation of an engineered artefact (i.e., software), the former concerns the representation of behaviour of a real world system (i.e., the business organisation) that grows in an emergent manner. Therefore, while software design patterns are normally based on engineering experience, the discovery of generalised business behaviour should be preferably conducted in a more empirical manner via the analysis of organisational process data in all its forms. Empiricism is currently not the basis for the discovery of patterns for BPM and no systematic methodology for collecting and analysing process models of business organisations currently exists. This project aims at developing such a methodology. Moreover, given the real world nature of organisations, ontology is adopted as the principal driver of the methodology so as to interpret business process data, discover recurrent behaviour and model the generalised patterns found.

This project is called Empirical Modelling of Business Process Patterns with Ontologies (EMBO). The assumption underpinning the project is that business organisations will be capable of more flexibly adapting themselves to changing operational practices thanks to the generalised nature and semantic expressiveness of ontology-based business process patterns.

Business processes are the manifestation of organisational behaviour. It is via business processes that all organisations interact with external parties (e.g., clients, suppliers, government agencies, etc.) and generate the necessary flow of information, materials and services among parts of the organisation. As a consequence any form of corporate modernisation and re-engineering entails the modelling of business processes especially when it comes to detecting inefficiencies and rendering a company more competitive on the market. In the design of new products and services organisations not only need to engineer the object of the new offering to potential customers but they must also develop processes that are capable of producing products and services in flexible and agile ways. EMBO, with its approach based on generalised patterns and reusability, will help organisations to conceptualise value-generating processes in a more efficient and effective manner so as to experiment with different and alternative process designs in a timelier manner.

In this context the potential long-term impact for the national economy derives from two factors. First, the reduction in the time required to implement the production/delivery processes of new products and services will enable enterprises to minimise the cost and effort of business process design, enabling them to funnel greater resources on the more creative activity of designing innovative value-intensive products/services for the national and international markets. Second, the easier and more flexible approach that EMBO will provide in designing new processes will also render the integration of inter-organisational processes (or supply chains) much more efficient and robust.

The importance of both factors is especially visible in organisations characterised by complex internal manufacturing, provision or commercial processes or by companies (even small and medium enterprises) who interact via a set of intricate value-adding networks with other companies. Our partner company, with its corporate client base, provides the research project with both types of scenarios. In both cases similar types of processes are reconfigured time and time again in order to specialise them to specific organisational contexts and/or domains in which inter-organisational behaviour and communication requires precise and clear semantics. Both aspects are catered for by EMBO's generalised business patterns and ontologies respectively.