Business Process Modeling Using an Interactive

Framework for Immersive Research, Support and

Training (I-FIRST)

Wade M. Poole

1, 2

and S. Ramaswamy

Applied Science Department

University of Arkansas at Little Rock, 2801 University Ave, Little Rock, AR 72204

Computer Science Department

University of Arkansas at Little Rock, 2801 University Ave, Little Rock, AR 72204

Abstract. Business Process Management (BPM) has emerged as a leading

technology for business process solutions in current day enterprise systems.

However, business processes do dynamically change as companies constantly

evolve to meet their core business needs. Business processes involves a more

complex socio-technical phenomenon where processes and people are the main

components. In this paper, we propose an Interactive Framework for Immersive

Research, Support and Training (I-FIRST) to assist Disadvantaged Business

Enterprises’ (DBEs) with an integrated business decision-support system. I-

FIRST which uses a dynamic approach to model the planning and integration

of business processes facilitates the alignment of DBEs’ business processes to

help them compete successfully. While the framework on one hand allows the

ability to model the business processes to leverage expert domain knowledge,

on the other hand, it immerses a decision-maker with selective modifications of

some business processes using a dynamic feedback mechanism. The

methodology proposed utilizes a complete end-to-end systems-based approach

to leverage appropriate feedback and a computer-based learning environment

called Teachable Agents (TAs) which focuses on the learning by teaching

paradigm.

1 Introduction

Since the advent of affordable personal computers in the 1980's, the World Wide

Web has become the most important driving force of today's businesses and the

economy, in general. Companies have started to find a new business opportunity in a

web-based environment. For example, companies such as Dell Computer Systems

have revolutionized the PC market with their direct-to-customer approach to

consumer marketing. Many companies have begun to realize that this approach

allows them to achieve two of their most important, but often, contradictory goals,

namely, maximizing profits and reducing retail costs, effectively and efficiently. In a

traditional environment, these goals were very difficult for companies to achieve.

M. Poole W. and Ramaswamy S. (2007).

Business Process Modeling Using an Interactive Framework for Immersive Research, Support and Training (I-FIRST).

In Proceedings of the 5th International Workshop on Modelling, Simulation, Veriﬁcation and Validation of Enterprise Information Systems, pages 21-30

DOI: 10.5220/0002433300210030

 SciTePress

However, by conducting their business through the web, more and more companies

are beginning to stake out a claim in this market, with large conglomerates quickly

adapting their business strategies to include the web as an enabling technology to

conduct a low-cost business. This ability of transforming key business processes

enabled by Internet technologies is termed as E-Commerce. The Internet has thus

provided a greater access to useful information allowing customers to make informed

choices. The removal of geographical trading barriers means that success will follow

organizations that (i) offer the best deal, (ii) make it easy for other businesses and

customers to trade with them, and, (iii) manage and leverage the advantages provided

by E-commerce, while still adhering to their core business goals. Thus, to be

effective, E-Commerce must be totally integrated into every business area of the

organization that has a service, management or quality focus. Early pioneers have

already been in the limelight for the past few years, and examples of new entrants into

markets making tremendous inroads into well established competition galore.

Moreover, those traditional companies without a stake in this market are struggling to

keep up with the newcomers.

Therefore, the rise of E-Commerce has been the greatest threat from the Internet

to most traditional companies. These companies are so tightly focused on their core

business segments that they neither have the resources to develop business strategies

for the new Internet environment, or they do not understand the implications of this

emerging business environment. Many analysts have predicted that those

organizations, which do not fully embrace a web-based business plan using E-

commerce as an enabling and driving force, stand to lose enormously in the next

decade when the Internet is still expected to grow at a rapid pace.

It is our perspective that with the rapid growth of consumer and business

software applications, customers will require software systems to be distributed,

interactive and intelligent (in a domain-specific sense), with ubiquitous human

interfaces, and the ability to exhibit intelligent cooperative behaviors. According to

Winograd, he states that “In the next fifty years, the increasing importance of

designing spaces for human communication and interaction will lead to expansion in

those aspects of computing that are focused on people, rather than machinery” [14].

We believe that E-Commerce software applications are not alien to such requirements

and will need to adhere to similar objectives. While business to business (B2B)

transactions will represent the largest revenue sector, revenue from customer-to-

business (C2B) and business-to-customer (B2C) applications will also gain further

attention. The PI believes that manufacturing companies that embrace the E-

commerce strategy will be able to reduce inventories, increase productivity and

profitability, cut costs and improve supplier relationships. Manufacturers will be able

to procure products for the lowest costs from suppliers, thereby reducing the costs of

procurement as well as growing their business without being dependent on specific

suppliers. By incorporating a smart analysis module, one may even be able to

optimize inventories by procuring supplies at an optimal price and time. Greater

independence from suppliers may help boost the overall operating efficiency and

productivity of manufacturing industries. E-commerce technologies can also replace

traditional paper-based workflow in a manufacturing environment with faster, more

efficient and reliable communication mechanisms, thereby reducing redundancy and

wastage of resources in various management activities such as report generation and

information system integration.

Currently a vast equity divide exists between Prime Contractors and

Disadvantaged Business Enterprises (DBEs) in several business enterprises, including

within the domain of our interest, the highway and construction industry. Due to this

equity divide, DBEs are falling well behind Prime Contractors in adequately

competing and obtaining successful contracting opportunities. DBEs have become

deficient in the knowledge and the leveraging of technology to map and implement

appropriate business models and strategies in a timely manner to compete in an

electronic marketplace that is being adopted by all organizations, including

governmental organizations, such as the DOT. Through the use of emerging

technologies for training and support, DBEs could be afforded the same technological

advantages as Prime Contractors who utilize the appropriate business strategies to

provide products and/or services to the highway construction marketplace in a timely

manner. Without such timely utilization of emerging technologies to develop training

and support mechanisms through the appropriate use of models for learning and

teaching, DBEs will continue to be deficient in developing a profound understanding

to compete successfully on highway projects. For example, a lack of the utilization of

emerging technologies for training and support forces DBEs to interpret the business

process model based only on his/her particular perspective and to make untimely, and

often incongruous, decisions during the planning and construction stages of a project.

In the case of the highway industry, DBEs should have the flexibility to design a plan

that best suits the USDOT’s requests. The knowledge that guides such a design of

inquiry response is implicit and often in the mind of a domain expert, e.g., project

consultant; and some such decisions are context based and cannot be anticipated at

design time. The increasing interest in business process modeling as a tool for

capturing requirements and graphically documenting the processes of an organization

to be supported by the enterprise information systems are widely evident from the

mainstream literature [6]. However, this complex social phenomenon is more

complicated than the scope and features of the traditional methods used. There is

significant evidence in literature on the difficulties in mapping process logic to

process models [12].

Consequently, DBEs may not fully understand how to automate the coordination

of business processes in a timely manner. Such technology specifications would

appear ambiguous and would result in a combination of issues that lead to eventual

failure as the project evolves and progress through the various construction stages.

Industry studies have shown that 53% of the BPM efforts go into defining the process

requirements, and the process modelers are typically business owners rather than

domain experts [5]. We believe that without the support of an immersive

environment, the complexity of mapping business processes and providing

appropriate support and training can negatively impact DBEs. As a result, the equity

divide will only widen between Prime Contractors and DBEs due to such

“disconnects”. Hence we propose this interactive framework to better integrate the

use of appropriate learning and training methods, and to support effective business

process realignment.

The goal of this paper then, is to provide a simple framework through the use of

a domain expert (project consultant) for business process remodeling with appropriate

immersive support for decision-makers to address “difficult” business processes

through a continuous feedback mechanism. This framework is a direct attempt to

design and implement a useful tool for capturing successful business processes and

subsequently providing targeted training and support to guide the refinement of

business processes to positively impact the success of the business. The rest of the

paper is structured as follows: Section 2 briefly describes the goals of the US DOT’s

DBE program. Section 3 provides business processes characteristics and Section 4

outlines the methodology for the business process modeling. Section 5 presents the

complete Interactive Framework for Immersive Research, Support and Training (I-

FIRST) and the integration best practices from equity theory, teaching and learning

theories to support DBEs.

2 US DOT Goals for DBEs

The US Department of Transportation's Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) is

a federal program that is intended to ensure non-discrimination in the award and

administration of US DOT-assisted contracts in the Department's highway, transit,

airport, and highway safety financial assistance programs. The goals of the program

are to remedy past and current discrimination against disadvantaged business

enterprises, to ensure a "level playing field" in which DBEs can compete fairly for

DOT-assisted contracts, improve the flexibility and efficiency of the DBE program,

and reduce burdens on small businesses. DOT's Operating Administrations distribute

substantial funds each year to finance construction projects initiated by state and local

governments, and public transit and airport agencies [9]. This research attempts to

support DBEs in being successful in the pursuit of these opportunities.

3 Business Processes Characteristics

In traditional enterprise information systems, workflow technology has been widely

used to automate the synchronization of business processes. However, the study of

enterprise information systems would reveal that the system cannot be performed

completely and adequately unless conducted in the organizational and social context

in which the envisioned system will have to operate and support business processes.

Workflows represent the organizational flow of control and information from one

processing entity to another [14], [16]. A business process (e.g., budget decision

making or procurement) consists of a number of tasks, such as collecting and

analyzing financial data [11], requesting an item from a procurement catalog,

approving a request, and compiling a purchase order [8]. The individual tasks

possess characteristics, such as being well thought-out, multiplicity, expectation, and

exigency, that impact the type and level of flexibility required to provide sufficient

business support. Providing a workable balance between flexibility and control is

indeed a challenge, especially if generic solutions are to be offered. Clearly, there are

parts of the process which need to be strictly controlled through fully predefined

models. Over the past few decades, businesses were misguided by the belief that IT

alone will solve all their corporate woes, and consequently businesses

overemphasized the role of IT while underestimating the importance of a clear

understanding and critical analysis of their business processes [4].

Business processes are a sequence of activities with circumstances that regulates

when these activities will be performed, and the amount of resources required to

perform the activities. Also, the processes require data to flow between activities and

have interaction with those services. Simply put, a process is a specific ordering of

activities with clearly identified inputs and outputs that create business value.

Whereas a system is a combination of interrelated elements, parts, methods, or

procedures forming a complex unitary whole working together toward a common

objective as shown in Figure 1 [1].

3.1 System Diagram

In Figure 1 [1], the system receives input variables such materials, information,

energy, and/or organizational structure which are then control by a controller. The

controller which could be technical, political, economical and/or environmental

triggers that monitors and affects the operational conditions of the system. Both

human-made and natural systems exhibit collective behaviors amongst individuals in

which the controller seek some form of equilibrium. The mechanisms which are

called actuators are agents such as human resources, computer resources,

facilities/utilities and maintenance that act upon an environment. Subsequently, the

system produces output variables such as products, information, resources and/or

waste.

System

Environment

Mechanisms

Human Resources

Computer Resources

Facilities/Utilities

Maintenance/Support

Controls

Technical

Political

Economic

Environmental

Outputs

Product

Information

Resources

Waste

Inputs

Material

Information

Energy

Organizational

Structure

Fig. 1. System Diagram.

4 Proposed Methodology

Modeling any dynamic process still presents many significant challenges for DBEs.

Modeling needs to be consistent and thorough in capturing relevant information so

that DBEs and their employees can understand the business requirements that are

captured in the model. During modeling, alternatives and exceptions to standard

procedures must be captured, in addition to normal operations. Many professionals

with differing interests and expertise have built process models to meet a wide range

of business objectives. For example, a DBE may require a high-level view of a

process to drive strategic decisions and to do process analysis upon receiving

feedback, then implement the appropriate training needed for success. Lastly,

utilizing feedbacks, DBEs would use the process model as the input to implement a

solution. If we look at the control systems (or cybernetic) theory, it provides an

explanation for our behaviors that can be described as goal-directed, or purposeful, as

shown in Figure 2. At this high level of abstraction, it is applicable to business

processes because it is guided by specific designs, tasks and business goals. One

would find that the control system theory has been applied to the explanation of

phenomena in a variety of fields, such as Physiology [2, 3], Engineering [14], and

Psychology [10]. The basic idea behind the theory is that the behavior of a self-

regulating system is effective and efficient only to the extent to which it successfully

controls the end results of the behavior. In other words, it is important not only to

produce a certain output in reaction to events in the environment, but also to monitor

continuously the effects of that output and to adjust and subsequent behavior

accordingly [14].

Business Environment

Input

Business

Information

Controller

Measured

Output

Measurements

ctuators-

Process

Triggers

Business

Process

(Workflow)

Sensor-

Business

Analyzer (Event

Ordering)

Immersive

Support &

Training

Business

Simulation

Assessment

Fig. 2. The I-FIRST Model for Dynamic Business Support.

5 Modeling Framework

The following are the major steps in the I-FIRST framework, as captured in Figure 3:

1. The Project Analyst (e.g. Domain Expert) works with the DBEs (e.g. Project

Team) to get all of the information required to design the business model such as

roles, tasks, sequence information, resources, data, narratives, requirements and

so on using appropriate tools as input to construct the business process model.

2. The process model is defined by the Project Analyst (e.g. Domain Expert)

working with the DBEs (e.g. Project Team) including the specifications for the

modeling.

3. Next, the Project Analyst designs the feedback mechanisms required.

4. Both the specifications and the feedback are verified and checked for

consistency.

5. Different simulation scenarios based upon historical event logs captured in a

previous project of a similar nature, which in this research represent business

strategies, are designed by a set of parameter values integrated into an extended

Program Evaluation Review Technique (PERT) chart. This extended PERT chart

not only captures the processes and their timelines, but also the resources

(including human personnel) involved in the processes. Hence the traditional

PERT representation is extended to include 3-part process representation such as

{<resources involved >, <process or activity>, <time estimates>}. The following

three time estimates are considered for each activity duration, ranging from an

optimistic time to a pessimistic time, and a weighted average that is computed for

each activity. Knowing the weighted average and variance for each activity

allows the Project Analyst and the DBE to compute the probability of meeting

different project durations dependent upon the availability of personnel and

resources. The weighted average activity time is computed by the following

formula: t

= (a + 4m + b)/6, where t

= weight average activity time, a =

optimistic activity time, b = pessimistic activity time and m = most likely activity

time

6. During the assessment stage, the results are analyzed using a total ordering of

events scheme for the event logs, because it is possible that two events a and b

that are not related by the happened-before relation (either directly or indirectly)

may have the same timestamps associated with them. For instance, if event a and

b happen respectively in processes P

and P

, both events will have the same

timestamp. Therefore, for total ordering on the set of all system events, an

additional requirement is desirable: No two events ever occur at exactly the same

time. Using this method, we will have a way to assign a unique timestamp to

each event in the system to provide a total ordering for all events in the system.

7. Additionally, Key Performance Indicators (KPI) derived from the various

process representations will be used as measures designed to track the critical

success factors of a business. This monitoring capability allows the DBE to

effectively monitor its KPIs. It also helps the Project Analyst (Domain Expert)

identify the problems and bottlenecks in the existing processes, thereby closing

the development loops within schedule. If the simulation results are not

satisfactory, one would proceed to the stage which calls for reassessing the

design and specifications.

8. Upon unsatisfactory simulation or assessment results, the assessment, design,

model and specifications are re-evaluated.

9. If the simulations results are satisfactory, the process calls for the stopping of

iteration.

10. Same as 8.

11. Upon re-evaluation the process is adapted to provide a refinement to address the

drawbacks – This can be adding additional resources, reordering the occurrence

of events so as to lead to better chance for success in completing the process,

identifying appropriate training for some personnel, etc.

12. Critical information will be identified and appropriate sessions developed for

employee training and support.

13. Selected employees will be reintegrated into the project team after successful

completion of the training activities.

14. Project event logs from business process models are fed into controller where

they will be engaged using a Teachable Agent. The computer-based learning

environment called Teachable Agents (TAs) that focuses on the learning by

teaching paradigm.

15. Upon the successful completion of the business process (workflow) and

satisfactory assessment results which will lead to the next step (16) for the

stoppage of iteration.

5.1 Evaluation

Upon utilizing this methodology and artifacts, it would require an appropriate

evaluation of the soundness and rigorousness. According to Hevner et al. they suggest

that graphical representation should be very simple, intuitive and easily

understandable, at the same time, the accuracy and adequacy of such a representation

should not be compromised [7]. Furthermore, Hevner et al. suggest that methods

deploying artifacts should be evaluated using observational (e.g., case study) and

experimental (e.g., simulation) methods. Observational (case study) approach reveals

the applicability potential of a method and its artifacts in a given environment and

category that are targeted by the method. For example, case studies on different size

organizations, different levels of complexity, different levels of abstraction, but all

within the same category, e.g., highway and construction oriented firms (architects,

engineers, construction firms). Experimental (simulation) approach reveals if models

can be checked, analyzed and verified. This approach which provides a business

simulation assessment, not only allows models to be checked for reliability, but it

eliminates syntactic errors, illustrates dynamic behavior of models, and lends to

formal analysis. The business simulation assessments are team-based approach

activities designed to provide change in the business management of the firm. The

simulation assessments are used to enhance the project team understanding based on

the various cultural styles and their personal impact on the business environment. The

simulation prepares decision-makers for their role in aligning the business

specifications and strategies with the technical framework that small businesses need

to be successful. By enabling the decision-maker to immediately experience and

participate in the simulated business process, they will continuously help keep the

business and strategic views of the process aligned or “synchronized”. The

simulations are designed to offer the following (TIPS): (i) Teach project teams about

the overall required business environment; (ii) Improve project teams problem-

solving skills and decision-making effectiveness; (iii) Promote each project team

member’s acceptance, and the readiness for change; (iv) Strengthen cooperation and

communication in implementing change concepts.

Fig. 3. Framework of I-FIRST Logic Approach.

6 Conclusion and Future Work

This paper provides a brief overview on the I-FIRST framework being developed for

business process modeling to support DBEs. Since people learn in many ways such as

seeing and hearing; reflecting and acting; reasoning logically and intuitively;

memorizing and visualizing and drawing analogies and building mathematical

models, this research is designed to support different dimensions of learning and

training styles to provide businesses, specifically DBEs, a enhanced opportunity to be

successful in the pursuit of external funding. Past research on the timing and content

of feedback on individual immersive learning in computer-based learning

environments has shown that directed or corrective feedback helps with immediate

learning, whereas guided and metacognitive feedback help in gaining a profound

understanding of the domain and developing the ability to transfer this knowledge.

As this work evolves in the immediate future, we plan to support the use of

multiple learning models integrated with appropriate visualization to support the

faster aggregation of context-dependent information such as important concepts and

specifications so that employees of a DBE can learn faster and compete with Prime

contractors in the highway and construction industry. Key insights gained to help

people in DBE enterprises include supporting discovery and self-explanation of

important concepts through immersive training so that the decision-making skills of

employees are appropriately augmented.

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