Towards Business Process Modeling for Knowledge Management

Mariam Ben Hassen, Mohamed Turki and Faïez Gargouri

University of Sfax, ISIMS, MIRACL Laboratory - B.P. 242, 3021 Sfax, Tunisia

{mariembenhassen, mohamed_turki}@yahoo.fr, faiez.gargouri@isims.rnu.tn

Keywords: Knowledge Management, Knowledge Identification, Sensitive Process, Core ontology of organization’s

processes Business Process Modeling.

Abstract: In an organizational context, the characterization and modeling of the business processes are necessary to

localize knowledge that need to be capitalized. In this paper, we propose a new multi-dimensional meta-

model of business processes modeling for knowledge management, entitled BPM4KI (Business Process

Meta-Model for Knowledge Identification). This meta-model aims to enrich graphical representation of

business process by integrating all aspects of process modeling: the knowledge, informational, functional,

behavioral, organizational and intentional perspectives. It helps to identify and localize the crucial

knowledge that is mobilized and created by these processes. Moreover, it has been illustrated through a

medical process in the context of the organization of protection of the motor disabled people of Tunisia.

1 INTRODUCTION

More and more organizations are becoming aware of

the importance of tacit and explicit knowledge

owned by their members which corresponds to their

experience and accumulated knowledge about the

firm activities. Thus, in order to improve their

performance, such organizations become conscious

of the necessity to effectively identify, preserve,

share and use the organizational knowledge

mobilized and created by their business processes

(BPs). This knowledge represents a competitive,

decisive and lasting advantage and a source of

wealth to be valorized.

According to the literature review, in term of the

process view several researchers and practitioners

have been focusing on the management of the BPs.

Particularly in the information systems engineering,

many works have been developed ((Curtis et al.,

1992) (Melao and Pidd, 2000) (Nurcan et al., 2005)

(Mili et al., 2010)) and aim at modeling, improving

and optimizing the BPs. In accordance with the

knowledge management view, few methods

focusing on process analysis for knowledge

identification have been proposed by researchers on

KM ((Grundstein, 2000) (Tseng and Huang, 2005)

(Saad et al., 2009) (Turki et al., 2014a; 2014b)).

There have been several attempts to integrate the

domain of KM and BPM. We quote process oriented

Knowledge Management approaches ((Suyeon et al.,

2003) (Gronau et al., 2005) (Heisig, 2006) (Zhaoli et

al., 2008)) and knowledge oriented BPM approaches

((Zhang and Li, 2005) (Woitsch and Karagiannis

2005) (Weidong and Weihui, 2008) (Supulniece et

al., 2010) (Bušinska and Kirikova, 2011) (Bušinska

et al., 2011) (Sultanow et al., 2012) (Liu et al., 2012)

(Netto et al., 2013)).

However, the integration of BPM and KM has

not yet received sufficient attention. In fact, the

knowledge dimension (i.e. the knowledge used or

generated by activities, the sources of knowledge,

explicit knowledge, tacit knowledge, individual and

collective dimension of knowledge/activities, etc.)

needed for BPM is not explicitly represented,

integrated and implemented in BP meta-models.

The current paper proposes a new multi-

perspective meta-model of the BPs for KM, entitled

BPM4KI (Business Process Meta-Model for

Knowledge Identification). This meta-model aims to

enrich the graphical representation of BPs and

improve the localization of crucial knowledge (i.e.

knowledge on which it is necessary to capitalize)

mobilized and created by these processes. In fact,

Ben Hassen M., Turki M. and Gargouri F.

Towards Business Process Modeling for Knowledge Management.

DOI: 10.5220/0005885200260036

In Proceedings of the Fifth International Symposium on Business Modeling and Software Design (BMSD 2015), pages 26-36

ISBN: 978-989-758-111-3

more the organization’s processes are sensitive,

more they can mobilize crucial knowledge.

BPM4KI covers all aspects of BPM and KM. It

consists of six perspectives: the functional,

organizational, behavioral, informational, intentional

and knowledge perspectives. The first five

perspectives are inherited from (Nurcan, 2008) as

typically oriented towards business modeling and

enriched by some new concepts defined by the core

ontology of organization’s processes (COOP)

proposed by Turki et al. (2014b). We extend the

above-mentioned perspectives with the « knowledge

perspective » in order to address all relevant issues

related to KM.

Furthermore, we intend to integrate and

implement the proposed BPM4KI meta-model in the

Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN 2.0).

In practice, the result of the BPMN 2.0 extension

will be used to well modeling the sensitive business

processes (SBPs) which are likely to mobilize

crucial knowledge.

The remainder of this paper is organized as

follows: Section 2 presents related work to analyze

existing work on BPM for KM. Section 3 describes

the proposed BPM4KI meta-model. Section 4

illustrates the application of BPM4KI based on a

real case study. Section 5 concludes the paper and

underlines some future research.

2 RELATED WORK

In this section, we present main methodologies

focused on BPM for knowledge identification which

have been proposed by researchers on KM. We

consider the Global Analysis METHodology

(Grundstein, 2000), the identifying crucial

knowledge methodology (Saad et al., 2009), the

Sensitive Organization's Process Identification

Methodology (Turki et al., 2014a), as relevant to the

BPM-KM area. We have selected to discuss them in

this section, following a literature survey.

The Global Analysis Methodology (GAMETH)

proposed by Grundstein (2000) comprises three

main phases gathering the following steps: (i)

«Identifying the sensitive processes» specifies the

project context, defines the domain and limits of the

intervention and determines the processes targeted to

be deeply analyzed. According to this author, “A

sensitive process is a process, which represents the

important issues which are collectively

acknowledged: weakness of the process which risks

not attaining its objectives, obstacles to overcome;

(iii) difficult challenge to take in charge; (iv)

produced goods or services which are strategic in

regard to the organization’s orientations”. (ii) «

Identifying the determining problems» aims at

distinguishing the problems which weaken the

critical activities, (i.e. the activities that could

endanger the sensitive processes due to dysfunctions

and constraints which affect it and generate

determining problems). (iii) «Identifying the Crucial

Knowledge» is intended to define, localize and

characterize the knowledge to be capitalized.

The methodology for identifying the crucial

knowledge proposed by Saad et al. (2009) is based

on the GAMETH framework. It aims at capitalizing

the knowledge mobilized and created in the course

of a project. It is composed of three phases: (i)

Determining «Reference Knowledge»; (ii)

Constructing Preference model; (iii) Classifying

«Potential Crucial Knowledge».

Turki et al. (2014a) and Turki et al. (2014b) have

in depth dealt with the issue of identifying «

Sensitive organization's processes ». They have

proposed a new multi-criteria methodology entitled

SOPIM (Sensitive Organization's Process

Identification Methodology) and a Core Ontology of

Organization's Processes (COOP) to help the

assessment and identification of SBPs. SOPIM is

composed of two main phases: (i) Construction of

the preference model, and (ii) Exploitation of the

preference model (decision rules) to classify the

«Potential Sensitive organization’s processes».

Each approach mentioned above, defines a set of

phases for modeling and identifying the SBPs.

However, we note that the BPM step has not been

studied in depth. In particular, we have noted the

lack of expressiveness BPM formalisms that

explicitly integrate all relevant aspects related to

knowledge dimension and other aspects which cover

the BPM. In order to remedy for this lack, this paper

aims to extend and consolidate previous work made

by Saad et al. (2009) and Turki et al. (2014a) in

order to cover the gap between BPM and KM and

address an important problem that is not often dealt

with KM methodologies. Exactly, our mission aims

to enrich and optimize the operation of “modeling

and representation of identified SBPs” in order to

increase the probability of localizing and identifying

the crucial knowledge. This reduces the cost of the

operation of capitalizing on knowledge.

The first step to address existing limitations and

achieve this objective is the specification of a

precise conceptualization, together with a subjacent

representation notation, that precisely describes all

SBP essential characteristics as well as the dynamics

with which knowledge is mobilized and created

Towards Business Process Modeling for Knowledge Management

during a SBP, is still an open issue. In fact, this is

not a trivial task, since SBP involve many subjective

and complex concepts that are subject to different

interpretations. We briefly describe in the following

the most important specific particularities for SBPs

modeling, highlighting its key features.

An SBP is a particular type of BP. It has its own

characteristics that distinguish it from BPs processes

(see (Turki et al., 2014b). we deduce and adopt for

our notion of SBP the following characterization. A

business process is described as « sensitive », if at

least one of the following requirements is fulfilled:

(i) It mobilizes crucial knowledge (which is

considered as immaterial resource). It contains

activities based on acquisition, sharing,

dissemination, storage, creation, (re)use of

organizational knowledge, and collaboration among

participants. (ii) It is very dependent on the tacit and

explicit knowledge (individual and collective)

embedded in the stakeholders’ minds (experts,

specialists, etc.), and in the actions. (iii) It is very

complex, with a high number of (individual and

collective) actions which are flexibles, high number

of critical activities (which mobilizes very important

organizational tacit knowledge, high degree of tacit

knowledge held by a very small number of experts

or individual /collective knowledge poorly mastered

to solve critical problems, diversity of information

and knowledge sources as well as large flow of

knowledge, etc.). (iv) It mobilizes a large number of

business domains / skills (in terms of internal and

external organization unit involved in the process).

Its execution involves many participants and the

assistance of many experts, with different experience

and expertise levels. (v) It has a high number of

collaborative activities that mobilize, share and

generate new, very important organizational

knowledge (tacit and / or explicit) created at the time

of interaction among agents. So that, it focus on the

dynamic conversion of knowledge (Nonaka &

Takeuchi, 1995). (vi) It possesses a high degree of

dynamism in the objectives’ change associated to it.

The influence of intentions and experiences of the

agents in decision making is very important. (vii) Its

contribution to reach the organization’s strategic

objectives is very important. In short, we can

conclude that flexibility, efficient collaboration and

effective knowledge management are the key

requirements for specifying SBPs. Due to those

characteristics, organizing the knowledge in SBPs

and building a SBP model are not an easy task. The

selection and adoption of a suitable BPM formalism

for SBPs modeling is critical, although challenging.

In this context, several BPM approaches have been

proposed in information system engineering

(particularly in BPs engineering). Some traditional

BPM formalisms that are largely used in current

research and practice scenarios in organizations like

Event Driven Process Chain (EPC) (Korherr and

List, 2006), UML 2.0 Activity Diagrams (AD)

(OMG, 2011a), Process Specification Language

(PSL) (Schlenoff et al., 2000) and Business Process

Modeling Notation (BPMN 2.0) (OMG, 2011b)

have been adapted to allow the explicit

representation of the intrinsic elements of

knowledge within BPs, but they do not include all

the required features necessary to describe a SBP. It

is obvious that these formalisms are suitable for

process perspective representation, but poorly

present data, information and knowledge (flows)

which are not be represented separately and clearly

in the process models. However, this distinction is

useful and essential for our modeling context.

Besides, the literature shows a set of formalisms

dedicated to knowledge- intensive processes

representation (Gronau et al., 2005) (called also

Process-oriented knowledge modeling approaches)

that focus on storing and sharing knowledge,

including Business Process Knowledge Method

(BPKM) (Papavassiliou et al., 2002), Knowledge

Modeling Description Language (KMDL 2.2)

(Gronau et al., 2005), Oliveira’s methodology

(Oliveira, 2009), Notation for Knowledge-Intensive

Processes (NKIP) (Netto et al., 2013), etc. Some

major limitations can be emphasized in this

category. One the one hand, these approaches did

not experience a wide adoption among organizations

and are very incipient. On the other hand, they lack

the ability in an adequate manner to model the

process perspective (the structural, organizational

and informational dimensions). Moreover, some

proposals do not explicitly differentiate tacit

knowledge from explicit knowledge. In addition,

there are deficits in the conversion of the knowledge

types (such as internalization, externalization,

socialization and combination) (Nonaka &

Takeuchi, 1995) and the person-related knowledge

modeling that are relevant in SBPs due to, for

instance the high degree of tacit knowledge

developed and exchanged among agents through

inter-organizational collaboration.

Furthermore, following the study of BPs meta-

models and ontologies associated with the main

BPM formalisms, we notice that the defined

concepts -actions specification (Process, Activity,

Sub-process, Task) do not take into account the

individual / collective dimension of the actions.

However, taking into consideration such a

Fifth International Symposium on Business Modeling and Software Design

dimension is very important in our context given

that we are interested in the localization of

knowledge mobilized to achieve the process. This

knowledge taken in the action may be either

individual (tacit or explicit) or collective and

organizational (tacit or explicit). Despite it mobilizes

crucial knowledge within an organization and their

key role for organizational KM, existing BPM

formalisms have shortcomings in their ability to

represent SBPs. None of those proposals include or

address conveniently all or at least most of the SBPs

particularities and characteristics as well as the

essential issues of KM. This leads to ambiguity and

misunderstanding of the developed SBPs models.

Based on the results discussed in this section, the

SBPs representation is a lot more difficult. So, such

formalism should take into account all semantic

dimensions and criteria enabling to characterize in

depth the notion of process. Therefore, there is a

need to precisely define the specification of a SBP,

including the concepts and relationships between

them that adequately address the knowledge within

their actions and all SBP essential aspects. 

In order to propose a solution that is capable of

explaining a SBP, considering both the knowledge

within their actions and other relevant aspects aimed

to meet the new requirements of BPM, we propose a

meta-model of the BPs for knowledge identification,

called BPM4KI, to characterize the concepts useful

for the modeling and analysis of SBPs, in order to

locate the knowledge mobilized and created by these

processes, which may be crucial.

3 BPM4KI: A META-MODEL OF

THE BUSINESS PROCESS

MODELING FOR

KNOWLEDGE

IDENTIFICATION

In order to localize and identify in depth the crucial

knowledge, we propose a new Business Process

Meta-model for Knowledge Identification

(BPM4KI). We have summarized and structured the

main concepts (of the field of BP and KM) that we

judge essential and relevant for the characterization

and modeling of the SBP in a meta-model for

synthesis, represented as a UML class diagram.

The generic meta-model we have developed is

based on the core ontology COOP proposed by

Turki et al. (2014b) and categorized according to the

framework of Nurcan (2008). COOP provides

taxonomy of concepts which are defined in a

rigorous and consensual way, we quote: Action,

Action of Organization, Individual Action, Action of

Collective, Collective, Organization, Distal

Intention, Deliberate Action, Sensitive Process,

Critical Activity, etc. While the Nurcan’s framework

consists of five perspectives, each one of them

focuses on a process aspect: functional,

organizational, behavioral, informational and

intentional. As these perspectives do not capture all

relevant aspects related to knowledge dimension, we

have extended the abovementioned framework with

a further perspective, namely the knowledge

perspective. It should be noted that Knowledge

might be considered as one of the business process

dimensions, because knowledge is related to action,

it is implemented in the action, and is essential to its

development (Grundstein, 2000). It is created as a

result of process execution, knowledge is used to

perform a process, and it is distributed among

process participants (Heisig, 2006).

Figure 1 presents BPM4KI in terms of classes

and relationships between classes. The defined

concepts that make up the COOP ontology are

marked in gray in the meta-model. In the following,

we describe the six perspectives contained in the

BPM4KI meta-model.

The Functional Perspective represents the BP

elements which are being performed (i.e. activity,

sub-process and tasks). Hence, as illustrated in

Figure 1, the BPM4KI meta-model part that can be

used to model this perspective is inspired by Turki et

al. (2014b). It regroups generic classes related to

(inheriting from) the

Action meta-class (With

respect to our notation, the informal labels on BPM4KI

concepts appear in the text in the Courrier new

font with First Capital Letters).

An Action can be

individual or collective. An Individual

Action is carried out by (hasForAgent) a Human.

While a Collective Action is carried out by a

Collective, is controlledBy a Collective

Intention and hasForProperPart at least two

Individual Action contributing to it. A

Business Process is an Action of

Organization (which in turn a specialization of

Collective Action)carried out by a group of

individuals affiliated with the organization. Any

Business Process hasForproperPart a set of

Organizational Activities coordinated

and

undertaken according to an intentionally defined

objective.

An Organizational Activity can

be either an Organizational Unit Action

or an Organizational Individual

Action according to whether their agent is

Towards Business Process Modeling for Knowledge Management

Figure 1: A multi-dimensional meta-model of the business processes for knowledge identification “BPM4KI”

(categorized according to six perspectives).

Knowledge Perspective

Informational Perspective

Intentional Perspective

Action

CollectiveAction IndividualA ction

{disjoint, incomplete}

2..*

ActionOfOrganization

BusinessProcess

Int erOrganizat ionalA ct ion

{incomplete}

OrganizationalActivity

CriticalOrganizationalActivity

1..*

has for proper part

AgentiveEntity

is carry out by

Collective

Organization

OrganizationU nit

OrganizationalUnitAction

OrganizationalIndividualAc tion

OrganizationalSubProcess

Task

{disjoint, incomplet}

Int ent ion

is controlled by

DistalIntention

Objective

has for content

IndividualObject ive

Co llect iveObject ive

CollectiveDistalIntention

OrganizationalObject i ve

OperationalObjectiveStrategicObjective

{disjoint, complete}

OrganizationalDistalIntention

1..*

Sensit iveBusinessProcess

KnowledgeInt ensiveProcess

Collaborat iveOrganizationalActivityKnowledgeIntensiveActivity

Expert

1..*

{overlapping,complete}

0..1

1..*

consists of

CollaborationProt ocol

is gouverned by

{overlapping,incomplete}

Human

{disjoint, incomplete}

2..*

Out put Object

Inpu t Ob ject

Reso urce

Cont rolObject

Event

mobilizes

1..*

Knowledge

is influenced by

triggers

generates

provides

consumes

produces

result

int ernalEv ent

becomes

0..1

result

imput

becomes

0..1

becomes

resource

MaterialResource

Immat erialResource

TacitKnowledge

PhysicalKn o wledgeS upp o rt

Explicit Kno wledge

Collect iveExp licit Knowled g e

IndividualExplicit Knowledge

{disjoint, complete}

IndividualTacit Knowledge CollectiveTacitKnowledge

{disjoint, complet e}

{disjoint, complete}

2..*

1..*

has for proper part

is held by

1..*

is held by

1..*

consigned in

is internalized in

is externalized in

explicitable tacit knowledge

is combined in

is socialized in

is created in

* *

is interiorized in

is transmitted in

1..*

1..*1..*

1..*

is achieved by

has for proper part

result

has

me as ur e

cont ingency

1..*

is borne by

is valid for

1..*

Client

ExternalCli ent

InternalActor

ExternalA ctor

Int ernalClient

1..*

result

Behavioral

Perspective

Organizational Perspective

Functional Perspective

Fifth International Symposium on Business Modeling and Software Design

performed by an Organization Unit or a

Human affiliated to the Organization).

An

Organizational Sub-Process is an

Organizational Unit Action which is a

proper part of a Business Process. Furthermore,

an Organizational Activity can either be

qualified as a Critical Organizational

Activity, or as a Knowledge Intensive

Activity or Collaborative Activity. They

can also be described as critical.

The Organizational Perspective represents the

different participants (agents) invoked in the

execution of process elements as well as their

affiliation. The basic element of this perspective is

Agentive Entity. An Agentive Entity is

an entity which has a capacity to carry out (and

therefore to repeat) Actions (in particular

deliberate actions). It can be specified in the form of

a Human, an Informal Group, or an

Organization, internal or external to an

Organization. Any Collective Action

hasForAgent a Collective.An Organization

is a Collective (structured and formal) which

can carry out an Action of Organization.

The Behavioural Perspective basically describes

the control flow and the logical sequence of

elements to be executed in a process. It includes

synchronization, decision- making conditions, entry

and exit criteria, sequence, iteration, etc. The basic

element of this perspective is Control Object

(such as pre-conditions, post-conditions, triggers,

performance indicators, etc.).

The Informational Perspective describes the

informational entities which are generated,

consumed, or exchanged within a process or an

activity as well as their structure and the

relationships among them. This perspective contains

mainly the generic classes Resource with its

derived class Material Resource (and the

specialization class Physical Knowledge

Support), InputObject, OutputObject,

Event, and Collaboration Protocol. In

fact, for its accomplishment, an Organizational

Activity uses Input Objects (materials,

data or information), mobilizes Material

Resources and/or Immaterial resources

to produce Output Objects (data, information,

services, results, outputs) and under the influence of

Control Objects. It can be triggered by

Events, which can in turn produce Events. A

Contingency

is an external and unpredictable

event that influences the process execution (the

elements produced or handled and decisions made)

(França et al., 2012). It should be emphasized that

data object and information object (which is stored

by electronic media or written down in documents)

form the basis for knowledge sharing and the

creation of new knowledge objects.

The Intentional Perspective describes major BP

characteristics and captures important BP context

information (such as goals and their measures,

strategies, the deliverables, the process type and the

customer), in order to ensure the BP flexibility

(Nurcan, 2008) (List and Korherr, 2006). The meta-

model elements of this perspective are inspired by

the COOP ontology (Turki et al., 2014b). It

comprises mainly the central concepts Distal

Intention, Objective, Organizational

Objective, Sensitive Business

Process, Output Object (deliverables),

Control Object (performance measures) and

Client.Each Business Process meets an

Organizational Objective (which is an

Objective) intentionally defined. A Distal

Intention hasForContent an Objective. So,

this process isControlledBy a Distal

Intention, in particular an Organizational

Distal Intention (which is a Collective

Distal Intention). Then the Business

Process is a Deliberate Action (Turki et al.,

2014b). Every OrganizationalDistal

Intention hasForContent an

Organizational Objective. Depending on

whether the content of a Collective Distal

Intention or an

 Individual Distal

Intention, an Objective can be either an

Individual Objective or a Collective

Objective. A Collective Objective

isValidFor an Organization, then it is an

Organizational Objective which can be

either a Strategic Objective or an

Operational Objective. Each Business

Process must provide a result which has a value

to the organization's Clients. (It is therefore a

Culminated Process (Turki et al., 2014b).

Then, Output Object (i.e. deliverables which

are either services or products) can be located in the

behavioral perspective as well as in intentional

perspective. A Business Process satisfies one

or more Clients, which are either internal or

external to the Organization. A Business

Process has a certain process type. In COOP, the

authors (Turki et al., 2014b) distinguish different

categories of BPs classified according to several

Towards Business Process Modeling for Knowledge Management

dimensions: granularity, value, affiliation, repetition

and piloting. For instance, according to the level of

process granularity, we distinguish between First

Level Process and Organizational Sub

Process. Depending on the affiliation dimension

of the agents operating in the process, we specify

three process classes: Internal Process, External

Process and Partial External Process. Additionally,

we propose to distinguish two other categories of BP

according to the complexity dimension:

Sensitive Business Process and

Knowledge Intensive Process. Their

objectives are frequently changed.

Last but not least, the Knowledge perspective

provides an overview perspective of the

organizational and individual knowledge mobilized

by an organization as well as the knowledge flow

proceeding within and between organizations. It

describes all relevant aspects related to KM. Then, it

emphasizes knowledge collection, organization,

storage, transfer, sharing, creation and reuse among

process participants. Therefore, it specifies the

different opportunities of knowledge conversion.

This perspective distinguishes also between

knowledge used to perform (BP) and knowledge

created as a result of BP activities. It identifies the

different types of knowledge (tacit/explicit

dimension) mobilized and created by each type of

activity, the different sources of knowledge, their

localization (where they are created or stored and

where they are used), tacit and non-explicitable

knowledge, persons holding them, their nature and

their organizational coverage (individual/collective

dimension).The basic elements of this perspective

(Figure 1) are Immaterial Resource,

Knowledge, Tacit Knowledge, Explicit

Knowledge, Physical KnowledgeSupport

and Expert. An Organizational

Activity mobilizes and produces different types

of Knowledge (which is an Immaterial

Resource of an organization). Knowledge

comes in two dimensions explicit and tacit. Each

kind of Knowledge can be held individually or

collectively and is localized in different knowledge

sources. Tacit knowledge originates and is

applied in the minds of the owners of knowledge and

hence it is almost impossible to put into a document

or a database, as well as difficult to communicate

and share. Explicit knowledge is typically

structured and retrievable and often becomes

embedded in documents, repositories, organizational

routines, practices, norms, etc. Organizational

collective knowledge integrates a company’s

experiences, company-specific knowledge, culture,

decision-making procedures, the detail of BPs, etc.

An Individual Tacit Knowledge is held by

one Expert (a Human who carries out Actions

with high levels of expertise, creativity and). A

Collective Tacit Knowledge is held by at

least two Experts (which constitute a

Collective). An Individual Explicit

Knowledge is born by a Human. A Collective

Explicit Knowledge is born by a

Collective (i.e. an Organization).

Explicit Knowledge is often stored in one or

more Physical Knowledge Support (i.e.

media, as documents, computer system, etc.)

enabling their dissemination, sharing and use. A

Physical Knowledge Support is a

Material Resource (informational resource),

having source of knowledge information interpreted

and mobilized by the actors during the execution of

their activities. Then, this concept can be located

both in the knowledge and Informational

perspectives. A Collaborative

Organizational Activity mobilizes and

produces new Collective Knowledge by a set

of interactions (between individuals). A Critical

Activity mobilizes different types of

knowledge: (i) imperfect individual and collective

knowledge (tacit or explicit) (i.e. missing, poorly

mastered, uncertain, etc.) which are necessary for

solving critical determining problems; (ii) important,

diverse and heterogeneous knowledge recorded on

multiple sources of knowledge (dispersed and

sometimes lacking accessibility); (iii) expertise

and/or rare knowledge held by a very small number

of experts (which have high levels of expertise,

creativity and innovation); (iv) very important tacit

organizational knowledge, often linked to

competences, abilities and practical experiences of

their holders. This activity is based on several

experiments. Besides, it may threaten Sensitive

Business Processes. It should be noted that

some concepts are shared by different perspectives.

For instance, the Collaborative Activity

concept belongs to all perspectives.

Once modeled, the BPs can be graphically

represented, using BPM formalism in order to

localize the knowledge that is mobilized and created

by these processes. For this reason, we have selected

the most popular standard for BPM, namely, the

Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN 2.0).

However, despite its strength representation, this

notation does not support the key concepts of

BPM4KI (Sensitive Business Process,

Fifth International Symposium on Business Modeling and Software Design

Collective Action, Tacit Knowledge,

Critical Organizational Activity,

Expert, etc.). To remedy at this lack, it should be

necessary to extend the BPMN 2.0 notation with

several additional concepts. To achieve this goal, we

start by defining some specific graphical icons

relating to each new proposed concept (see Table 1).

Then, in future work, we plan to integrate and

implement the extension that we brought to the

BPMN specification. In this paper we use these new

icons in section 4 to highlight this extension.

4 CASE STUDY

We aim to validate the proposed meta-model

through its application in the context of the

Association of Protection of the Motor-disabled of

Sfax-Tunisia (ASHMS). This organization is

characterized by highly dynamic, unpredictable,

complex and highly intensive knowledge actions.

We are particularly interested in the early care of the

disabled children with cerebral palsy (CP). An in

depth analysis of this care has been made by Turki et

al. (2011). In fact, the knowledge used and produced

during the treatment of children with CP is very

important, heterogeneous and recorded on various

scattered sources. One part of this knowledge is

embodied in the mind of health professionals.

Another part, is preserved in the organizational

memory as reports, medical records, data bases, or

therapeutic protocols). The created knowledge stems

from the interaction of a large number of healthcare

professionals from several specialties (such as

neonatology, neuro-pediatrics, physical therapy,

orthopedics, psychiatry, physiotherapy, speech

therapy, and occupational therapy) and located on

geographically remote sites. The raised problem

concerns on the one hand, the insufficiency and the

localization of medical knowledge necessary for

decision-making, and on the other hand, the loss of

knowledge held by these experts during their

scattering or their departure at the end of the

treatment. Thus, the ASHMS risks losing the

acquired know-how for good and transferring this

knowledge to new novices if ever no capitalization

action is considered. This organization should focus

on only the so called crucial knowledge, that is the

most valuable/important knowledge.

Our main objective consists in providing better

localization and identification of different types and

modalities of pragmatic medical knowledge

necessary to the conduct of the medical care process

for children with CP. As a matter of fact, this SBP is

made up of several sub-processes. It consists of a

succession of many actions in the form of medical

and paramedical examinations and evaluations. As

an example, we mention: Process related to

neonatology care, process related to neuro-pediatric

care, process related to physiotherapy, etc. These

processes require taking into consideration certain

medical information contained in the medical

records as well as certain medical knowledge

(results of para-clinical exams, hospitalization

reports, medical records, practice guidelines, etc.).

An enriched graphical representation of the

medical care process for children with CP modelled

according to BPM4KI meta-model improve the

localization of the crucial knowledge mobilized and

produced by the critical activities. Moreover, it

allows the various stakeholders involved in the

medical processes to preserve, share and transfer the

tacit knowledge as well as to evaluate the amount of

lost knowledge if a person -owner of knowledge-

leaves the organization (in order to identify which

tacit knowledge in this case should be transformed

into explicit knowledge).

In this study, we take into consideration the

results of experimentation of the methodology

SOPIM proposed by Turki et al. (2014a) for the

early care of children with CP. We recall that the

proposed multi-criteria methodology was conducted

and validated in the ASHMS organization. It aims at

evaluating and identifying SBPs (i.e. the processes

which can mobilize knowledge on which it is

necessary to capitalize) for knowledge localization.

Furthermore, the BPM4KI meta-model is based on

the core ontology COOP (Turki et al., 2014b)

comprising the key concepts inherent to the BP

Table 1: Graphical representation of the different extended elements.

Towards Business Process Modeling for Knowledge Management

domain which are useful for the characterization and

conceptualization of SBPs.

We have opted for the « Process related to the

neuropediatric care of a child with CP » to illustrate

the contributions of our enriched meta-model.

Indeed, this process is very complex in terms of the

large number of critical and collaborative activities

that make it up, the neuropediatric fields, the large

amount of knowledge mobilized, the multitude of

knowledge sources, etc. Some of its activities are

very dependent on the participants experience,

expertise and creativity. We have used the BPMN

2.0 specification (OMG, 2011) in order to enrich the

graphical representation of neuro-pediatric care

process (modeled according to BPM4KI).

Thus, we have opted for the use of an open

source modeling tool namely Aris Express 2.4 (IDS

Scheer, 2013). The obtained model is the result of

many individual meetings for review and validation

with the Neuro-Pediatrician. Figure 2 illustrates an

excerpt from the BPMN model of the process related

to the neuropediatric care of a child with CP

enriched with knowledge dimension.

During our experimentation, we have identified

different types of medical knowledge mobilized for

each type of activity related to this process. We have

distinguished missing or poorly mastered knowledge

necessary to resolve critical problems, expertise,

unexplainable tacit knowledge and mastered

knowledge necessary and relevant to the proper

functioning and development of the activity or

produced by the activity. We have also identified the

different sources of knowledge, their

localization, actors who hold the knowledge, the

places where they are usable or used, their nature

(like experience, basic knowledge, general

knowledge), their degree of formalization, their

organizational coverage, as well as their quality

(perfect or imperfect).

For instance, the knowledge A

related to «

Synthesis assessment of neuro- and psycho-

cognitive, neurosensory and praxo-gnosic

development of young children at risk and its

disorders» is produced by the critical activity A

Qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the

intellectual functioning » .This knowledge can be

stored in the following physical media: the

neurological assessment sheet, neuropsychological

assessment, the sensitive assessment sheet and the

neuro-motor assessment. These assessments are

recorded in the personal medical records and in the

overall clinical picture of the child. This knowledge

is located internally within the Neonatology

department in the University Hospital Hedi Chaker.

It is captured in the various archives drawers or

patients’ directories. A

is of a scientific,

technical and measure nature which is related to

patients. It represents a collective explicit

knowledge, part of which can be represented in the

form of an individual explicit knowledge recorded

on the care data collection sheet of the Neuro-

pediatrician. This knowledge is imperfect (general,

incomplete and uncertain). A

is mobilized by the

activity A

« Establishing an investigation plan ».

Figure 2: An extract of the graphical representation model of the process of neuropediatric care of a child with CP

carried out with ARIS Express 2.4 tool.

Fifth International Symposium on Business Modeling and Software Design

The proposed BPM4KI meta-model highlight the

following contributions: (i) its suitability for a full

and enriched graphical representation of actual

SBPs, (ii) validation of its comprehensibility as well

as the choice and suitability of the type of modeling

by the actors involved in the medical care process

for children with CP (who lack experience in BPM),

(iii) a better knowledge localization, and (iv) a

deeply characterizing of the identified knowledge in

order to determine which ones are more crucial.

Furthermore, extending BP models with the

knowledge dimension would provide the following

benefits: (i) illustrating the knowledge and

knowledge sources involved (used, generated,

created and/or modified) in the processes and

activities, (ii) illustrating the way in which specific

knowledge flows among the activities, or how a

specific source is used and modified through the

activities, and (iii)illustrating transfers of knowledge

between sources, and among activities as well as the

different opportunities of knowledge conversion.

5 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE

WORK

In this paper, we have focused on the problem of

BPs modeling to improve the localization and the

identification of crucial knowledge. Therefore, we

have proposed a new BPs meta-model, called

«BPM4KI», which highlights the key concepts and

relationships characterizing SBPs, relying on the

core ontology COOP. The aim of this meta-model is

to develop a comprehensive and enriched graphical

representation of BPs, which integrates all the

dimensions of processes modeling: the knowledge,

functional, organizational, behavioral, informational

and intentional dimension. It has been illustrated by

a model of neuropediatric care process of a child

with CP through, using the BPMN 2.0 standard.

Various research lines will be performed to

complete and deepen the so-called problematic of

knowledge identification mobilized by SBPs. Firstly,

we consider evaluating the expressiveness of BPM

formalisms and their suitability for the

representation of SBPs while taking the

conceptualization defined by BPM4KI as an

evaluation framework. In this context, our objective

consists in guiding and justifying the choice of the

most suitable formalism to characterize and improve

the knowledge localization. Secondly, in order to

justify the choice of BPMN 2.0 for SBPs modeling,

we intent to adopt the multi-criteria decision making

approach (Roy and Bouyssou, 1993). In fact, the

proposed BPM4KI should help to construct a

coherent family of criteria for the evaluation of the

different PBM formalisms. Thirdly, we consider an

extension of the BPMN 2.0 for KM. This extension

must take into consideration, on the one hand, the

knowledge dimension, and on the other hand,

integrate the new concepts of BPM4KI (and

represents issues relevant at the intersection of KM

and BPM). A full and rich representation of BPs

(modeled according to BPM4KI) shall allow a better

localization and identification of crucial knowledge

on which we must capitalize. This extension of

BPMN 2.0 will be integrated into a more general

framework supporting the SBPs modeling. This

framework advocates a MDE approach considering

(i) at the CIM level, a specific meta-model, the

BPM4KI meta-model for modeling SBPs (ii) at the

PIM level, an extension of the BPMN meta-model

for visualizing and user validating the modeled

SBPs, and finally, (iii) at the PSM level, several

meta-models for implementing the different

extensions (e.g. XPDL and BPEL meta-models).

REFERENCES

Bušinska, L. and Kirikova, M. (2011). Knowledge

Dimension in Business Process Modeling. In IS

Olympics: Information Systems in a Diverse World:

Selected Extended Papers at CAiSE Forum. United

Kingdom, London: Springer, 186-201.

Bušinska, L., Supulniece, I. and Kirikova, M. On data,

information, and knowledge representation in business

process models. In: The 20th International Conference

on Information Systems Development (ISD 2011),

Edinburgh, Scotland. Springer, 24-26.

Curtis, B., Kellner, M.I. and Over, J., (1992).Process

modelling. Communications of the ACM, 35(9) 75-90.

França, J.B.S., Netto, J.M., Carvalho, J.E.S., Barradas,

R.G., Santoro, F.M. and Baião, F.A. (2012). Towards

Knowledge-Intensive Processes Representation.

Business Process Management Workshops (BPM

2012), 126-136.

Gronau, N., Korf, R. and Müller, C. (2005). KMDL-

Capturing, Analysing and Improving Knowledge-

Intensive Business Processes. Journal of Universal

Computer Science, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 452-472.

Grundstein, M., (2000). From capitalizing on Company

Knowledge to Knowledge Management. In

Knowledge Management, Classic and Contemporary

Works by Daryl Morey, Mark Maybury, Bhavani

Thuraisingham, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The MIT

Press, Chapter 12, 261-287.

Heisig, P. (2006). The GPO-WM® Method for the

Integration of Knowledge Management into Business

Processes. In 6th International Conference on

Towards Business Process Modeling for Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management (I-KNOW 2006). Graz,

Austria, 331-337.

List, B., Korherr, B., (2006). An evaluation of conceptual

business process modelling languages. Proceedings of

the 2006 ACM symposium on Applied computing

(SAC’06), Dijon, France. ACM Press.

Liu, D.R., Lai D. R., Liu C.H. and Chih-Wei, L. (2012).

Modeling the knowledge-flow view for collaborative

knowledge support. Journal of Knowledge-Based

Systems 31, 41-54.

Melao, N. and Pidd, M. (2000). A conceptual framework

for understanding business processes and business

process modelling. Infomation Systems Journal, 10,

105-129.

Mili, H., Tremblay, G., Boujaoude, G., Lefebvre, E.,

Elabed L. and Boussaidi, G. El. (2010). Business

Process Modeling Languages: Sorting Through the

Alphabet Soup, ACM Comput: Surv, 43(1).

Netto, J.M, Franca, J. B. S., Baião, F.A. and Santoro, F.

M. (2013). A notation for Knowledge-Intensive

Processes. Proceeding of the 2013 IEEE 17th

International Conference on Computer Supported

Cooperative Work in Design (CSCWD), 190-195.

Nurcan, S., Etien, A., Kaabi, R., Zoukar, I., and Rolland,

C. (2005). A strategy driven business process

modelling approach. Business Process Management

Journal, 11(6), 628-649.

Nurcan, S., (2008). A Survey on the Flexibility

Requirements Related to Business Processes and

Modeling Artifact. Proceedings of the 41st Hawaii

International Conference on System Sciences. IEE,

Hawaii, USA, 7-10, 378.

OMG (2011a). Unified Modeling Language (UML).

Version 2.0. from http://www.uml.org/

OMG (2011b). Business Process Modeling and Notation

(BPMN). Version 2.0. from http://www.bpmn.org/

Nonaka, I., Takeuchi, H. (1995). Knowledge-Creating

Company: How Japanese Companies Create the

Dynamics of Innovation. Oxford University Press.

Oliveira, F.F. (2009). Ontology Collaboration and its

Applications. MSc Dissertation. Programa de Pós-

Graduação em Informática, Universidade Federal do

Espírito Santo, Vitória, Brazil.

Papavassiliou, G., Ntioudis, S., Abecker, A., Mentzas, G.

(2002). Business Process Knowledge Modeling:

method tool. Database and Expert Systems

Applications. Greece. p.138-142.

Saad, I., Grundstein, M., Sabroux, C., (2009). Une

méthode d’aide à l’identification des connaissances

cruciales pour l’entreprise. Revue SIM, Vol 14, n° 3.

Schlenoff, C., Gruninger, M., Tissot, F., Valois, J., Lubell,

J., Lee and J. (2000).The Process Specification

Language (PSL) Version 1.0 Specification, from

http://www.mel.nist.gov/psl/

Sultanow, E., Zhou, X., Gronau, N., and Cox, S. (2012).

Modeling of Processes, Systems and Knowledge: a

Multi-Dimensional Comparison of 13 Chosen

Methods. International Review on Computers and

Software, 7(6), 3309-3319.

Supulniece, I., Businska, L. and Kirikova, M. (2010).

Towards Extending BPMN with the Knowledge

Dimension. In BPMDS and EMMSAD 2010, Tunisa.

LNBIP: Springer, Heidelberg, vol. 50, 69- 81.

Suyeon, K., Hyunseok, H. and Euiho S. (2003). A process-

based approach to knowledge flow analysis: a case

study of a manufacturing firm. Knowledge and

Process Management, vol 0 (4), 260-276.

The IDS-Scheer (2013). http:// www.ids-scheer.com/

Tseng, B. and Huang, C. (2005).Capitalizing on

Knowledge: A Novel Approach to Crucial Knowledge

Determination. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man,

and Cybernetics: Systems and Humans, 35, 919-931.

Turki, M., Saad, I., Gargouri, F. and Kassel, G. (2011).

Towards Identifying Sensitive Processes for

Knowledge Localization. International Workshop on

Knowledge Management and Collaboration

(KMC’2011), Proc. of the 2011 International

Conference on Collaboration Technologies and

Systems (CTS’2011), 224-232.

Turki, M., Saad, I., Gargouri, F. and Kassel, G. (2014a). A

Business Process Evaluation Methodology for

Knowledge Management based on multi-criteria

decision making approach. Information systems for

knowledge management. ISBN:978-1-84821-664-

8,Wiley-ISTE.

Turki, M., Kassel, G., Saad, I. and Gargouri, F. (2014b).

COOP: A Core Ontology of Organization’s Processes

for group decision making. Journal of Decision

Systems, 23(1), 55-68.

Roy, B. and Bouyssou D. (1993). Aide multicritère à la

décision: méthodes et cas, Economica Paris.

Weidong, Z. and Weihui, D. (2008). Integrated Modeling

of Business Processes and Knowledge Flow Based on

RAD. In IEEE International Symposium on

Knowledge Acquisition and Modeling, China, 49-53.

Woitsch, R. and Karagiannis, D. (2005). Process Oriented

Knowledge Management: A Service Based Approach.

Journal of universal computer science 11(4), 565-588.

Zhang, X. and Li, M. (2005) Workflow-based knowledge

flow modeling and control. Chinese Journal of

Software, vol16 (2), 184-193.

Zhaoli, Z., Zongkai, Y. and Qingtang, L. (2008). Modeling

Knowledge Flow using Petri net. In IEEE

International Symposium on Knowledge Acquisition

and Modeling Workshop, Wuhan, China, 142-146.

Fifth International Symposium on Business Modeling and Software Design