DSV Blog

Last Friday, 16 of March 2007, Patrik Astervall and Johan Dahlin from Pointer Ltd visited DSV and gave a guest lecture for the students joining the Data Warehousing unit. Patrik and Johan introduced briefly Pointer Ltd, presented a case from the industry, shared some of their experiences as developers of data warehousing solutions, and gave their view on the current and future development in the area.

Thanks Patrik and Johan for an interesting and inspiring lecture!

Trivia: Pointer Ltd (www.pointer.se) is one of the largest consultant companies in Data Warehousing in Sweden. It was started in 2000 by Hellen Wohlin and Anna Strid and has today more than 80 employees.

Today Meir Levi from Interfacing visited SYSLAB. Meir introduced the framework EPC (Enterprise Process Center) developed by Interfacing. EPC offers efficient design, quality documentation and effective change management that are the foundation of any BPM initiative. EPC is “A repository based business process modeling tool ideal for large scale
deployment. The EPC also includes a built-in document management
system, real-time web publisher, automatic e-mail notifications, full
security and resource management.” Paul Johannesson introduced the IT University and I gava a brief introduction to the Workflow Patterns Initiative and YAWL (Yet Another Workflow Language). YAWL is implented in the YAWL system, which is based on SOA. (A vew of its architecture can be found here.)

Today Meir Levi from Interfacing visited SYSLAB. Meir introduced the framework EPC (Enterprise Process Center) developed by Interfacing. EPC offers efficient design, quality documentation and effective change management that are the foundation of any BPM initiative. EPC is “A repository based business process modeling tool ideal for large scale
deployment. The EPC also includes a built-in document management
system, real-time web publisher, automatic e-mail notifications, full
security and resource management.” Paul Johannesson introduced the IT University and I gava a brief introduction to the Workflow Patterns Initiative and YAWL (Yet Another Workflow Language). YAWL is implented in the YAWL system, which is based on SOA. (A vew of its architecture can be found here.)

Today Paul, Jelena and myself submitted a project proposal to the Swedish Research Council.

Title: A Universal Repository of Process Models

Abstract: The rapid development of Internet during the last decade has
supported enterprises in building novel infrastructures, setting up
virtual organisations, and operating in larger geographical spaces.
To manage this new environment, enterprises need to align their IT
infrastructures to the business processes. Therefore, the interest
in business process management using Process Aware Information
Systems (PAIS) has been rapidly increasing. Solutions implemented in
PAISs are often complex and time-consuming to develop. One way to
address this problem is to utilize repositories of reusable process
models. However, while repositories have proved to be successful
within object-oriented and component-based development, similar
success has not yet been achieved in the area of PAIS. This is
because we still lack the critical mass of process models within a
single repository and we lack transparency between different
repositories. The main goal of the project is, therefore, to design
the architecture of a universal process repository, i.e. a
repository that is independent of process modelling languages,
comprises a large number of existing process repositories, and is
open for change and growth by any potential user. The long term goal
of the project is to lay the foundations for a Business Process
Management Wikipedia, which will become a universal knowledge
resource on process models that can be used by researchers for
empirical investigations in the business process management area.

Project Description
Popular Description (in Swedish)

Today Paul, Jelena and myself submitted a project proposal to the Swedish Research Council.

Title: A Universal Repository of Process Models

Abstract: The rapid development of Internet during the last decade has
supported enterprises in building novel infrastructures, setting up
virtual organisations, and operating in larger geographical spaces.
To manage this new environment, enterprises need to align their IT
infrastructures to the business processes. Therefore, the interest
in business process management using Process Aware Information
Systems (PAIS) has been rapidly increasing. Solutions implemented in
PAISs are often complex and time-consuming to develop. One way to
address this problem is to utilize repositories of reusable process
models. However, while repositories have proved to be successful
within object-oriented and component-based development, similar
success has not yet been achieved in the area of PAIS. This is
because we still lack the critical mass of process models within a
single repository and we lack transparency between different
repositories. The main goal of the project is, therefore, to design
the architecture of a universal process repository, i.e. a
repository that is independent of process modelling languages,
comprises a large number of existing process repositories, and is
open for change and growth by any potential user. The long term goal
of the project is to lay the foundations for a Business Process
Management Wikipedia, which will become a universal knowledge
resource on process models that can be used by researchers for
empirical investigations in the business process management area.

Project Description
Popular Description (in Swedish)

Today 23 May 2007, I am flying back to Stockholm after a four weeks trip to Brisbane, Australia and
an informal visit to the BPM group at QUT. During my stay in Brisbane I cooperated with A/Prof. Arthur ter
Hofstede and Nick Russell on a deep analysis of OpenWFE, which is one of the
mainstream open-source workflow management systems (WFMSs). We also briefly discussed
an initial analysis of jBPM which is another open-source WFMS.

I used the opportunity to consult Lachlan Aldred, who is the main developer of the YAWL Engine, about custom YAWL services and the development of a database YAWL service.

During these weeks, I also had the opportunity to attend the final PhD seminars of Nick Russell and Michael Adams. Nick presented and defended his thesis on: (i) extensions to the Workflow Patterns framework with
Data, Resource and Exception handling patterns as well as a revision and
formalisation of the original Control-flow patterns; and (ii) a further
development of the language YAWL, which was developed based on the Workflow
Patterns, into newYAWL – a version capturing the extensions introduced into the
patterns framework.

Michael presented his work on exception handling and dynamic workflow. In his thesis he proposes a framework enabling the on-the-fly change of executing business processes. The framework takes some ideas from Activity
Theory, which is a theory about work organisation developed in the USSR during the
1920s, and uses them to develop guiding principles for workflow management
systems. It uses the concept of Worklet, which is a small independent (sub)
process. During execution of a task, the appropriate worklet is selected based
on context information organised in the form of so-called Ripple Down Rules. As
time goes by, these rules may be extended and also new worklets may be added.
In addition, the same framework is used for exception handling where Exlets
form exception handling processes using concepts developed by Nick Russell that
may be invoked depending on the type of exception occurring. The whole
framework has been implemented in YAWL but is general enough so that it could
be transferred to any workflow management system offering the required
interfaces.

Today 23 May 2007, I am flying back to Stockholm after a four weeks trip to Brisbane, Australia and
an informal visit to the BPM group at QUT. During my stay in Brisbane I cooperated with A/Prof. Arthur ter
Hofstede and Nick Russell on a deep analysis of OpenWFE, which is one of the
mainstream open-source workflow management systems (WFMSs). We also briefly discussed
an initial analysis of jBPM which is another open-source WFMS.

I used the opportunity to consult Lachlan Aldred, who is the main developer of the YAWL Engine, about custom YAWL services and the development of a database YAWL service.

During these weeks, I also had the opportunity to attend the final PhD seminars of Nick Russell and Michael Adams. Nick presented and defended his thesis on: (i) extensions to the Workflow Patterns framework with
Data, Resource and Exception handling patterns as well as a revision and
formalisation of the original Control-flow patterns; and (ii) a further
development of the language YAWL, which was developed based on the Workflow
Patterns, into newYAWL – a version capturing the extensions introduced into the
patterns framework.

Michael presented his work on exception handling and dynamic workflow. In his thesis he proposes a framework enabling the on-the-fly change of executing business processes. The framework takes some ideas from Activity
Theory, which is a theory about work organisation developed in the USSR during the
1920s, and uses them to develop guiding principles for workflow management
systems. It uses the concept of Worklet, which is a small independent (sub)
process. During execution of a task, the appropriate worklet is selected based
on context information organised in the form of so-called Ripple Down Rules. As
time goes by, these rules may be extended and also new worklets may be added.
In addition, the same framework is used for exception handling where Exlets
form exception handling processes using concepts developed by Nick Russell that
may be invoked depending on the type of exception occurring. The whole
framework has been implemented in YAWL but is general enough so that it could
be transferred to any workflow management system offering the required
interfaces.