Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Hypergraph-Based Modeling of Ad-Hoc Business Processes

  • Conference paper
Business Process Management Workshops (BPM 2008)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 17))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

Process models are usually depicted as directed graphs, with nodes representing activities and directed edges control flow. While structured processes with pre-defined control flow have been studied in detail, flexible processes including ad-hoc activities need further investigation. This paper presents flexible process graph, a novel approach to model processes in the context of dynamic environment and adaptive process participants’ behavior. The approach allows defining execution constraints, which are more restrictive than traditional ad-hoc processes and less restrictive than traditional control flow, thereby balancing structured control flow with unstructured ad-hoc activities. Flexible process graph focuses on what can be done to perform a process. Process participants’ routing decisions are based on the current process state. As a formal grounding, the approach uses hypergraphs, where each edge can associate any number of nodes. Hypergraphs are used to define execution semantics of processes formally. We provide a process scenario to motivate and illustrate the approach.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Weske, M.: Business Process Management: Concepts, Languages, Architectures. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  2. OMG: Business Process Modeling Notation Specification. 1.0 edn. (February 2006)

    Google Scholar 

  3. OMG: Business Process Modeling Notation Specification. 1.1 edn. (January 2008)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Berge, C.: Graphs and Hypergraphs. Elsevier Science Ltd., Amsterdam (1985)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Berge, C.: Hypergraphs: The Theory of Finite Sets. North-Holland, Amsterdam (1989)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Petri, C.: Kommunikation mit Automaten. PhD thesis, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany (1962) (in German)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Sadiq, S.W., Sadiq, W., Orlowska, M.E.: Pockets of Flexibility in Workflow Specification. In: Kunii, H.S., Jajodia, S., Sølvberg, A. (eds.) ER 2001. LNCS, vol. 2224, pp. 513–526. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  8. Reichert, M., Dadam, P.: ADEPT flex—Supporting Dynamic Changes of Workflows Without Losing Control. Journal of Intelligent Information Systems 10(2), 93–129 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Weske, M.: Formal Foundation and Conceptual Design of Dynamic Adaptations in a Workflow Management System. In: HICSS 2001: Proceedings of the 34th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Washington, DC, USA, vol. 7, p. 7051. IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Adams, M., ter Hofstede, A., Edmond, D., van der Aalst, W.: Implementing Dynamic Flexibility in Workflows using Worklets (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Adams, M., ter Hofstede, A., Edmond, D., van der Aalst, W.: Worklets: A Service-Oriented Implementation of Dynamic Flexibility in Workflows. In: Meersman, R., Tari, Z. (eds.) OTM 2006. LNCS, vol. 4275, pp. 291–308. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  12. Basu, A., Blanning, R.: Metagraphs and Their Applications (Integrated Series in Information Systems). Springer, New York (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Basu, A., Blanning, R.: Metagraphs: A Tool for Modeling Decision Support Systems. Manage. Sci. 40(12), 1579–1600 (1994)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Basu, A., Blanning, R.: Metagraphs in Workflow Support Systems. Decis. Support Syst. 25(3), 199–208 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Basu, A., Blanning, R.: A Formal Approach to Workflow Analysis. Info. Sys. Research 11(1), 17–36 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Basu, A., Blanning, R.: Workflow Analysis using Attributed Metagraphs. In: HICSS 2001: Proceedings of the 34th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-34), Washington, DC, USA, vol. 9, p. 9040. IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  17. van der Aalst, W., Berens, P.: Beyond Workflow Management: Product-Driven Case Handling (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  18. van der Aalst, W., Weske, M., Grunbauer, D.: Case Handling: A New Paradigm for Business Process Support (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Günther, C., van der Aalst, W.: Modeling the Case Handling Principles with Colored Petri Nets

    Google Scholar 

  20. Reijers, H., Rigter, J., van der Aalst, W.: The Case Handling Case (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Russell, N., ter Hofstede, A., van der Aalst, W., Mulyar, N.: Workflow Control-Flow Patterns: A Revised View. Technical report, BPMcenter.org (2006)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Business Process Technology Group, Hasso Plattner Institute at the University of Potsdam, D-14482, Potsdam, Germany

    Artem Polyvyanyy & Mathias Weske

Authors
  1. Artem Polyvyanyy
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Mathias Weske
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Elettronica e Informazione, Politecnico di Milano, Via Golgi 40, 20133, Milano, Italy

    Danilo Ardagna

  2. Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica, Università di Roma “La Sapienza”, Via Salaria 113,, 00198, Roma, Italy

    Massimo Mecella

  3. Department of Computing, Macquarie University, 2109, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Jian Yang

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Polyvyanyy, A., Weske, M. (2009). Hypergraph-Based Modeling of Ad-Hoc Business Processes. In: Ardagna, D., Mecella, M., Yang, J. (eds) Business Process Management Workshops. BPM 2008. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 17. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-00328-8_27

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-00328-8_27

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-00327-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-00328-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation