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Reducing Exception Handling Complexity in Business Process Modeling and Implementation: The WED-Flow Approach

  • Conference paper
On the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems: OTM 2010 (OTM 2010)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 6426))

Abstract

Today’s enterprises reevaluate and adjust their business processes at a very high frequency, which presents a non-trivial challenge to classic BPM methodology. In particular, the dynamic nature of exception handling may generate highly significant costs when business processes are modeled and implemented statically based on formal frameworks (e.g., process algebra and Petri nets). In this work we introduce the WED-flow (Workflow, Event processing, and Data-flow) approach, a novel concept for modeling and implementation of business processes that significantly reduces the complexity of exception handling—quantitatively, as compared to current approaches. WED-flows explicitly integrate events, data, conditions, and transitions by capturing data instances (future, current, and historical) as data states, which enables incremental business process development. More generally, this paper provides a conceptual basis and guidelines for capturing, processing, and storing event-handling environments. Consequently, information systems that implement business processes as WED-flows are truly dynamic and no longer time-invariant by design.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Mathematics and Statistics, University of São Paulo, Brazil

    João E. Ferreira & Osvaldo K. Takai

  2. Center for Experimental Research in Computer Systems, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA

    Simon Malkowski & Calton Pu

Authors
  1. João E. Ferreira
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  2. Osvaldo K. Takai
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  3. Simon Malkowski
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  4. Calton Pu
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. STAR Lab, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Bldg G/10, Pleinlaan 2, 1050, Brussels, Belgium

    Robert Meersman

  2. Curtin University of Technology, DEBII - CBS, De Laeter Way, Bentley, 6102, WA, Australia

    Tharam Dillon

  3. Facultad de Informática, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Campus de Montegancedo S/N, 28660, Boadilla del Monte, Madrid, Spain

    Pilar Herrero

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Ferreira, J.E., Takai, O.K., Malkowski, S., Pu, C. (2010). Reducing Exception Handling Complexity in Business Process Modeling and Implementation: The WED-Flow Approach. In: Meersman, R., Dillon, T., Herrero, P. (eds) On the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems: OTM 2010. OTM 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6426. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-16934-2_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-16934-2_13

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-16933-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-16934-2

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