@phdthesis{Pufahl2018,
  author    = {Pufahl, Luise},
  title     = {Modeling and executing batch activities in business processes},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-408013},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {xix, 163},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {Business process automation improves organizations' efficiency to perform work. Therefore, a business process is first documented as a process model which then serves as blueprint for a number of process instances representing the execution of specific business cases. In existing business process management systems, process instances run independently from each other. However, in practice, instances are also collected in groups at certain process activities for a combined execution to improve the process performance. Currently, this so-called batch processing is executed manually or supported by external software. Only few research proposals exist to explicitly represent and execute batch processing needs in business process models. These works also lack a comprehensive understanding of requirements. This thesis addresses the described issues by providing a basic concept, called batch activity. It allows an explicit representation of batch processing configurations in process models and provides a corresponding execution semantics, thereby easing automation. The batch activity groups different process instances based on their data context and can synchronize their execution over one or as well multiple process activities. The concept is conceived based on a requirements analysis considering existing literature on batch processing from different domains and industry examples. Further, this thesis provides two extensions: First, a flexible batch configuration concept, based on event processing techniques, is introduced to allow run time adaptations of batch configurations. Second, a concept for collecting and batching activity instances of multiple different process models is given. Thereby, the batch configuration is centrally defined, independently of the process models, which is especially beneficial for organizations with large process model collections. This thesis provides a technical evaluation as well as a validation of the presented concepts. A prototypical implementation in an existing open-source BPMS shows that with a few extensions, batch processing is enabled. Further, it demonstrates that the consolidated view of several work items in one user form can improve work efficiency. The validation, in which the batch activity concept is applied to different use cases in a simulated environment, implies cost-savings for business processes when a suitable batch configuration is used. For the validation, an extensible business process simulator was developed. It enables process designers to study the influence of a batch activity in a process with regards to its performance.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{PolyvyanyyGarciaBanuelosFahlandetal.2014,
  author    = {Polyvyanyy, Artem and Garcia-Banuelos, Luciano and Fahland, Dirk and Weske, Mathias},
  title     = {Maximal structuring of acyclic process models},
  series = {The computer journal : a publication of the British Computer Society},
  volume    = {57},
  journal   = {The computer journal : a publication of the British Computer Society},
  number    = {1},
  publisher = {Oxford Univ. Press},
  address   = {Oxford},
  issn      = {0010-4620},
  doi       = {10.1093/comjnl/bxs126},
  pages     = {12 -- 35},
  year      = {2014},
  abstract  = {This article addresses the transformation of a process model with an arbitrary topology into an equivalent structured process model. In particular, this article studies the subclass of process models that have no equivalent well-structured representation but which, nevertheless, can be partially structured into their maximally-structured representation. The transformations are performed under a behavioral equivalence notion that preserves the observed concurrency of tasks in equivalent process models. The article gives a full characterization of the subclass of acyclic process models that have no equivalent well-structured representation, but do have an equivalent maximally-structured one, as well as proposes a complete structuring method. Together with our previous results, this article completes the solution of the process model structuring problem for the class of acyclic process models.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{NaujokatNeubauerLamprechtetal.2014,
  author    = {Naujokat, Stefan and Neubauer, Johannes and Lamprecht, Anna-Lena and Steffen, Bernhard and Joerges, Sven and Margaria, Tiziana},
  title     = {Simplicity-first model-based plug-in development},
  series = {Software : practice \& experience},
  volume    = {44},
  journal   = {Software : practice \& experience},
  number    = {3},
  publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell},
  address   = {Hoboken},
  issn      = {0038-0644},
  doi       = {10.1002/spe.2243},
  pages     = {277 -- 297},
  year      = {2014},
  abstract  = {In this article, we present our experience with over a decade of strict simplicity orientation in the development and evolution of plug-ins. The point of our approach is to enable our graphical modeling framework jABC to capture plug-in development in a domain-specific setting. The typically quite tedious and technical plug-in development is shifted this way from a programming task to the modeling level, where it can be mastered also by application experts without programming expertise. We show how the classical plug-in development profits from a systematic domain-specific API design and how the level of abstraction achieved this way can be further enhanced by defining adequate building blocks for high-level plug-in modeling. As the resulting plug-in models can be compiled and deployed automatically, our approach decomposes plug-in development into three phases where only the realization phase requires plug-in-specific effort. By using our modeling framework jABC, this effort boils down to graphical, tool-supported process modeling. Furthermore, we support the automatic completion of process sketches for executability. All this will be illustrated along the most recent plug-in-based evolution of the jABC framework, which witnessed quite some bootstrapping effects.},
  language  = {en}
}