USING BPMN AND TRACING FOR RAPID BUSINESS PROCESS

PROTOTYPING ENVIRONMENTS

Alessandro Ciaramella

, Mario G. C. A. Cimino

, Beatrice Lazzerini

and Francesco Marcelloni

IMT Lucca Institute for Advanced Studies, Piazza San Ponziano 6, 55100 Lucca, Italy

Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione: Elettronica, Informatica, Telecomunicazioni

University of Pisa, Via Diotisalvi 2, 56122 Pisa, Italy

Keywords: Business Process Management, BPMN, Business Simulation, Traceability.

Abstract: Business Process (BP) analysis aims to investigate properties of BPs by performing simulation, diagnosis

and verification with the goal of supporting BP Management (BPM). In this paper, we propose a framework

for BPM that relies on the BP Modeling Notation (BPMN). More specifically, we first introduce a method

to deal with the BPM life cycle. Then, we discuss a platform to support this life cycle. The platform com-

prises three basic modules: a visual BPMN-based designer, a process tracing service, and a BP Manager for,

respectively, the design, configuration and execution phases of the BPM life cycle. The proposed frame-

work is particularly useful to perform business simulations such as what-if analysis, and to provide an effi-

cient integration support within the supply-chain. In this study, we also show some practical application of

this framework through a real-world experience on a leather firm, offering an environment for process

communication as well as for time and cost analysis.

1 INTRODUCTION

Business Process (BP) analysis aims to investigate

properties of BPs that are neither obvious nor trivial.

To this end, the term “analysis” is used with a rather

broad meaning, including simulation and diagnosis,

verification and performance analysis (Van der Aalst

et al., 2003). Process simulation facilitates process

diagnosis since, by simulating real-world cases, do-

main experts can verify whether process models

work properly and possibly propose modifications of

the original process models. Further, if BP models

are expressed in process languages with clear se-

mantics, their structural properties can be analyzed.

For example, we could verify whether certain activi-

ties of the processes can never be activated and fix

the modeling mistake. While basic structural proper-

ties of process models have been studied for some

time, very few software products actually support

them. Only recently, some tools for BP management

have been proposed with the aim of managing busi-

ness processes using methods, techniques, and soft-

ware to design, control, and analyze operational

processes (Van der Aalst et al., 2003).

As Smith and Fingar (2003) pointed out, the

enabler of a good BPM is an open process-modeling

language standard, which allows interoperability and

ease of use. Unfortunately, at present, there does not

exist a widely accepted and adopted standard (Wang

et al., 2006), but there are several language propos-

als to get an abstract representation of business

processes. For instance, UML 2.0 Activity Diagram

(Object Management Group, 2008, UML) allows a

high-level representation of dynamic system beha-

vior, which is well suitable for model business

processes under a control-flow perspective. This

kind of diagrams, however, is extremely limited in

capturing organizational aspects, or in managing

resource allocation and distribution (Russel et al.,

2006).

Petri net-based languages have interesting prop-

erties, such as the use of formal semantics, the pres-

ence of analysis techniques, and a state-based con-

trol flow. Some problems, however, arise in terms of

expressiveness, because these languages are unable

to represent patterns involving multiple partners,

coordination and cancellation (Van der Aalst and

Hofstede, 2002).

Event-Driven Process Chains (EPCs) (Scheer,

1999) are a method for representation of BP models

206

Ciaramella A., G. C. A. Cimino M., Lazzerini B. and Marcelloni F. (2009).

USING BPMN AND TRACING FOR RAPID BUSINESS PROCESS PROTOTYPING ENVIRONMENTS.

In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - Information Systems Analysis and Speciﬁcation, pages

206-212

DOI: 10.5220/0002005002060212

 SciTePress

focused on supporting data and model interchange.

They have been proposed for allowing business

managers to easily understand and use BPs. The

main drawback of the EPCs is the lack of a support

for information management and organizational as-

pects (List and Korheer, 2006).

Integrated DEFinition (IDEF) modeling languag-

es have been conceived for use in system engineer-

ing as a standard method to document and analyze

processes. IDEF adopts different methods which

have been introduced in subsequent phases in the

standard. Each method refers to specific modeling

aspects. In order to provide a complete description

of the behavior of a system, these different methods

should be integrated. The use and integration of

these methods require consistency between different

levels of modeling which could be difficult to main-

tain (Noran, 2005).

BP Modeling Notation (BPMN) (Object Man-

agement Group, 2008, BPMN) has been introduced

in 2004 by the BP Management Initiative

(BPMI.org) and has been adopted as a standard by

the Object Management Group (OMG) in 2005. The

primary goal of BPMN is to provide a notation that

is readily understandable by all business stakehold-

ers (White, 2004). BPMN is also supported with an

internal model that enables the generation of execut-

able programs in Web Service Business Process Ex-

ecution Language (WSBPEL) (OASIS, 2007), i.e., a

language for specifying BP behavior based on web

services. Thus, BPMN represents a standardized

bridge for the gap between the business process de-

sign and implementation. Furthermore, BPMN pro-

vides support to represent the most common control-

flow modeling requirements that occur when defin-

ing process models (Wohed et al., 2006). In this

study, BPMN is considered as a reference standard

in BPM.

In this paper, we introduce a framework based on

BPMN for managing business processes. The

framework proposes a method to deal with the BPM

life cycle and a platform to support the method along

the different phases of the life cycle. Finally, we

describe the application of the framework to a real-

case in the leather supply chain.

The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 illu-

strates the most important phases of the proposed

method. Section 3 is devoted to an introduction of

the BPMN standard as a visual language. Section 4

concerns the correspondence between BPMN and

WSBPEL. The proposed BPM platform is presented

in Section 5, whereas Section 6 describes the appli-

cation of the framework to two real example

processes in the leather supply chain.

2 BPM LIFE CYCLE

A BPM life cycle describes an approach that com-

prises various phases in support of operational busi-

ness processes (Van der Aalst et al., 2003). There is

a variety of BPM approaches in the literature

(Weske et al., 2004). In this context, BPMN is a core

enabler of an emerging approach aimed at unifying

previously distinct disciplines, such as process mod-

eling, simulation, workflow and enterprise integra-

tion, so as to propose a single standard paradigm. In

this paper, we consider the BPM life cycle proposed

by Van der Aalst et al. (2003) and Weske et al.

(2004). The cycle consists of four phases. In the first

phase, i.e., the design phase, processes are (re-

)designed. In the configuration phase, designs are

implemented by configuring a process-aware infor-

mation system (e.g., a workflow management sys-

tem). After configuration, the enactment phase starts

when the operational business processes are ex-

ecuted using the information system. In the diagno-

sis phase, the operational processes are analyzed to

identify problems and to find possible improve-

ments. In the following, the union of the enactment

and the diagnosis phases is called execution phase.

In this paper, we focus on a specific implementa-

tion of this life cycle, which relies on the BPMN

standard. Figure 1 describes this implementation.

First, we model the business processes by using a

BPMN designer tool which allows defining the

processes in a visual and understandable manner. In

this phase, called modeling, a set of parameters (e.g.,

duration time and/or quality features) is also asso-

ciated by the designer with each activity in the mod-

el. In the second phase, i.e., coding, the models con-

ceived by means of BPMN are translated into a

business execution language, i.e., WSBPEL 2.0, in

order to obtain an executable set of components

representing the modeled business processes. Third,

in the tuning

Figure 1: A BPM life cycle implementation.

phase, the business activities are configured by ex-

tracting a set of values for the previously selected

parameters from a process tracing service. Fourth, in

the deployment phase, the resulting components are

deployed in a BP server, which is based on web ser-

vices technology. Finally, in the last phase, i.e., si-

mulation, simulations are performed (e.g., what-if

USING BPMN AND TRACING FOR RAPID BUSINESS PROCESS PROTOTYPING ENVIRONMENTS

207

analysis for detailed cost and time estimations). In

this phase, thanks to the use of web services-based

components, a communication infrastructure be-

tween supply-chain actors can be also automatically

derived. As shown in Figure 1, the overall method

can be executed iteratively, in order to achieve a

continuous improvement of the BP analysis.

3 BPMN AS A VISUAL

LANGUAGE FOR PROCESSES

The importance of conceptual modeling is largely

recognized in the literature (Wand and Weber,

2002). Modeling is a learning process, where busi-

ness analysts can make clear requirements, boost the

domain knowledge and express rough solutions.

Visual models act as communication channels be-

tween business managers and technicians, and pro-

vide the necessary documentation to manage post-

project activities. BPMN is an OMG effort to pro-

vide businesses with an operational standard to vi-

sually model business processes and their relation-

ships.

To describe business processes, BPMN offers the

Business Process Diagram (BPD), which is very

similar to the UML Activity Diagram. A BPD con-

sists of four basic categories of elements (Object

Management Group, 2008, BPMN): Flow Objects,

Connecting Objects, Swimlanes, and Artifacts as

shown in Figure 2. Key concepts are briefly defined

in the following. Events are representations of some-

thing that can happen during the BP; business flow is

activated by a start event and terminated by an end

event, while intermediate events can occur anywhere

within the flow. Business activities can be atomic

(tasks) or compound (processes, as connection of

tasks); gateways represent decision points to control

the business flow. Data objects model any informa-

Figure 2: Basic elements in BPMN: (a) flow objects, (b)

artifacts, (c) connecting objects, and (d) swimlanes.

tion required or provided by activities, whereas

groups allow logical clustering of activities. Annota-

tions are exploited to add comments or text informa-

tion to diagrams. Connecting objects connect flow

objects together: sequence flows show the order of

execution of activities in the BP, message flows

represent messages exchanged between business

entities, and associations highlight inputs and out-

puts of activities. A pool represents a participant in a

BP and lanes allow detailed categorization of activi-

ties within a pool. A process can be depicted by

means of another BPD. This allows to represent

more exhaustive business descriptions, maintaining

the overall view of the process flow.

Figure 3 shows the process for manufacturing a

bag in a real leather firm. Figure 3.a outlines the

macro processes, from the bag design to its ship-

ment. Figure 3.b represents a drill down through the

“check and ship out” sub-process, where semi-

finished products originated from the “assemble”

sub-process are checked against quality. The arrow

within a circle (Off-Page connector) denotes a link

between pieces of the diagram. If the products are

good, they are packed and shipped out; otherwise

proper corrective actions are triggered to handle the

error (the error event is represented by a flash of

lighting). Finally, Figure 3.c shows the expansion of

the “check product” sub-process: in the first gate-

way, features of the product are compared with spe-

cifications and quality plan. If the product is com-

pliant, it can be packed and shipped out. Otherwise,

the product is analyzed so as to determine the causes

of the fail and examine the possibility to remove the

error. If the error is judged removable, then the “re-

working” sub-process is fired, otherwise the product

is dispatched to the “reject” sub-process.

4 FROM BPMN TO BPEL

Similar to the abstraction and automation goals of

UML 2.0, the strength of BPMN resides in two im-

portant aspects. First, its simplicity, which is due to

the abstraction level provided by the standard.

Second, the possibility of being translated (in an

automatic manner) into a business execution lan-

guage, and then to generate a machine-readable pro-

totype of business processes. BPMN was developed

with a solid mathematical foundation provided by

exploiting process calculus theory (White, 2004).

This theory is an essential requirement for a good

business process modeling language, in order to au-

tomate execution and to easily provide proofs of

general consistency properties, as it is widely recog-

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Figure 3: Excerpt of the business process flow representation in BPMN, for the production of a bag. (a) Overall process

flow; (b) Drill down through the “check and ship out” process; (c) Drill down through the “check product” process.

nized in the literature (Puhlumann, 2007, and

Förster, 2003). Smith and Fingar (2003) highlighted

that BPMN is the equivalent graphical visual nota-

tion of BPML, the BP Modeling Language devel-

oped by BPMI. BPML provides “the reliability, co-

herence and simplicity needed for users to be able to

manipulate processes with great confidence” (Smith

and Fingar, 2003). Hence, BPMN was conceived

with the specific intention of creating a bridge from

the business perspective to the technical perspective

about processes (White, 2004).

The use of BPML has been deprecated in favor of

WSBPEL, the OASIS standard to specify business

process behavior orchestrating web services. How-

ever, regardless of BPMN developers declarations

(White, 2004), the BPMN-to-WSBPEL mapping is

not seamless, as some researchers pointed out (e.g.

Oyuang et al., 2006), basically due to the different

nature of these languages: graph-oriented the former,

block-based the latter.

An example of BPMN-to-BPEL coding is shown

in Figure 4, where the process flow goes through a

decision point (a gateway). First, the “receive evalu-

ation” process exchanges messages with the “cus-

tomer evaluation” one, and hence the gateway is

fired. If the sample has to be modified, then the

“analyze deficiencies” process is executed. Other-

wise, the “create component list” process is ex-

ecuted.

5 THE BUSINESS PROCESS

MANAGEMENT PLATFORM

Weske et al. (2004) define a BPM System as “a ge-

neric software system that is driven by explicit

process designs to enact and manage operational

business processes”. There are several BPM systems

that help business analysts improve their work: BPM

market is not well established today, and there is not

a predominant vendor.

A recent survey from BPTrends (Harmon and Wolf,

2008) lists 22 BPMS Suites used in organizations,

like IBM WebSphere BPM, Oracle BPEL Process

Manager, SAP NetWeaver, and so forth. Moreover,

two-thirds of interviewed people have declared to

adopt graphics modeling tools (e.g. Microsoft Visio,

a pure drawing tool) to manage and document busi-

ness processes in their own company. In particular,

we experienced, by using different tools, that the

robustness of the BPMN-to-BPEL coding module is

crucial for the effectiveness of the overall BPM

framework. For instance, in our experimental stu-

dies, we tested the Visual Paradigm solution for

BPM, i.e., Business Process Visual Architect (BP-

VA). Although commercial declarations (Visual

Paradigm, 2007) boast to provide extensive support

for BPMN, we realized that in BP-VA the following

constructs are not immediately translated: (i) an

“end” event immediately after a task or a gateway;

(ii) tasks immediately after a macro-process; (iii) a

task that receives and sends messages at the same

USING BPMN AND TRACING FOR RAPID BUSINESS PROCESS PROTOTYPING ENVIRONMENTS

209

time; (iv) until loops, where condition is tested after

loop has executed.

The current version of the proposed framework uses

the BPM solution proposed by Intalio

(www.intalio.com). It is fully compliant with the

BPMN standard: it is an open source project and is a

very user-friendly tool to support BPM, making it

suitable also for non-technical users.

Furthermore, Intalio offers a BPM platform to

execute and simulate prototypes of business

processes modeled with BPMN and translated into a

BPEL specification.

<bpel:if>

<bpel:condition>1 =$evaluation...

</bpel:condition>

<bpel:sequence>

<bpel:empty

bpmn:label="Analyze deficiencies"

bpmn:id="..." />

</bpel:sequence>

<bpel:else>

<bpel:sequence>

<bpel:empty

bpmn:label="Create Component list"

bpmn:id="..." />

</bpel:sequence>

</bpel:else>

</bpel:if>

Figure 4: Example of BPMN-to-BPEL coding.

5.1 The Auto-configuration Phase

One of the purposes of our approach is to perform

analytical BP simulations. To this aim, a set of pa-

rameters can be associated with each activity. Two

examples of these parameters are the duration time

and types of defects. Quality requirements often play

a crucial role in modern BPM, and thus they deserve

particular attention in the corresponding traceability

systems as well. The ISO 9000 standard defines

quality as the totality of features and characteristics

of a product or service that bear its ability to satisfy

stated or implied needs. To meet quality require-

ments, we used a traceability framework developed

in Bechini et al. (2008). This framework models an

abstract class QualityFeature, which includes a de-

scription of the feature itself and a collection of me-

thods to set and retrieve feature values. Values can

be either categorical or numerical. This class organi-

zation allows dealing uniformly with different quali-

ty features.

Once modeled, each quality feature can be asso-

ciated with a corresponding parameter of an activity,

and this parameter can be fulfilled with a concrete

value derived from the traceability system. For in-

stance, the duration time can be derived by calculat-

ing the average time of the corresponding traced

activity.

5.2 Deployment Process

After being modeled, business processes can be au-

tomatically deployed in the Intalio BPM platform.

Several artifacts are generated during this step: the

BPEL code representing the overall process, some

WSDL files to model interactions with other busi-

ness actors or to describe external services, and other

files specific to Intalio.

In particular, the web interfaces related to busi-

ness processes are managed in the deployment

process by suitable Web forms named XForms

(W3C, 2004) inside the BPMS Web User Interface.

An XForm is an evolution of XHTML Web form,

based on the Model-View-Controller paradigm

(W3C, 2004). Users exploit XForms to perform

message exchange with the system or other business

actors, or to choose alternatives in decision points.

In our case study, we created several forms to allow

business participants to have the control in making

decisions at the correct time, in order to lead

processes. For instance, an XForm can show the

prices of the ordered item and ask for its acceptance,

thus letting the user decide on the process flow.

5.3 Simulation and Execution Phase

Simulation is a precious tool to understand how a

process behaves, to measure its performance, and to

carry out cost-effective business analysis (Tumay,

1996). Kellner et al. (1999) list six reasons to per-

form simulations: strategic management, planning,

control and operational management, process im-

provement and technology adoption, understanding,

and training and learning.

Simulation provides a safe environment to test

the efficiency and effectiveness of the modeled

process, before enacting it in real business. Changes

and enhancements are easy to implement directly on

the process model, restarting our BPM framework.

Further, in our platform, once the deployment

step is completed, information business process can

be directly executed on the Intalio BPMS Web User

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Interface, which represents an interaction context for

business actors communication. In this way, a robust

integration within the supply chain is achieved. For

instance, a customer can order the accurate quantity

of required goods, and a supplier can assure a punc-

tual shipment. This information exchange is auto-

matically connected to the business status.

6 CASE STUDY

We applied our proposed framework to a real leather

firm to have concrete insights about its processes

and to enhance decision making activities. In this

section, we will show two examples concerning the

improvement of outsourcer selection, and the analy-

sis of the value stream in the supply chain. Typical-

ly, the outsourcers are used to manufacture the bag

after cutting the leather.

As regards the outsourcer selection, our frame-

work is able to trace the most important parameters

to support this decision. In particular, for a set of

crucial activities, we collected information about

lead time, variance of lead time, maximum observed

delay, price, percentage of faults (or defects), and

average delay in signaling defects. Comparing the

same parameters for each outsourcer, executive

managers can decide the outsourcer which best fits

specific requirements of a job order. Furthermore,

the process tracing service has allowed managers to

know the exact time requirements for certain phases

of the manufacturing process. Table 1 shows ga-

thered information concerning the production of a

high quality bag. The considered activities sweep

from the processing of the leather, through the cut of

the bag elements, to the assembly and packing of the

end product. Depending on the chosen outsourcer,

duration times and costs can change accordingly.

Furthermore, other quality parameters have been

modeled to better cope with the outsourcer selection

problem. In particular percentage of defects and av-

erage delay in signaling defects have been traced in

order to give executive managers the chance to se-

lect the suitable outsourcer.

As regards the second application, the analysis of

the value streams concerns the characterization of

activities into two classes: value-added and non-

value-added activities. This allows determining

possible causes of waste and reducing total lead time

within the supply chain. Using the proposed frame-

work, each activity has been classified and an execu-

tion time has been associated with it. We grouped all

activities of our case study into manufacturing, wa-

rehousing, waiting, transport and inspection

processes. For each process, we traced lead times as

shown in Table 2. This information has allowed

management to investigate causes of waste (e.g.,

waste of time for waiting, waste of space for ware-

housing, waste of workforce for transport) and to

identify improvement areas.

Table 1: Gathered information from process tracing ser-

vice concerning the production of a high quality bag.

Activity Lead

time

(min.)

Δ lead

time

(min.)

Price per

minute

(Euros)

price

(Euros)

Cutting 25 ± 3 0.32 ± 0.05

Predisposition 28 ± 3 0.25 ± 0.05

Assembly 135 ± 10 0.29 ± 0.03

Packing 11 ± 2 0.28 ± 0.02

Table 2: Lead time for each process.

Activity Time (min.) Percentage

Manufacturing 2880 53.51 %

Warehousing 1920 35.67 %

Waiting 480 8.92 %

Transport 95 1.77 %

Inspection 7 0.13 %

Total 5382 100.00 %

7 CONCLUSIONS

In this paper, we have proposed a framework to per-

form business process analysis and to provide an

effective integration between supply-chain actors.

The framework relies on the BPMN to model

processes in a manner that is both human and ma-

chine readable, on the basis of visual BP diagrams

and BPEL code, respectively.

We have also developed a supporting platform

which is mainly composed of a visual designer, a

process tracing service, and a business process serv-

er. The framework has been experienced and docu-

mented on a real leather firm, considering two busi-

ness cases: the improvement of outsourcer selection,

and the analysis of the value stream in the supply

chain.

A critical evaluation of the proposed system, in-

clusive of future improvements, will be based on the

results and issues raised by the partners that are ex-

periencing the system. As first result, the system

should allow a significant reduction of the time and

effort needed to evaluate the real production cost.

Then, the system should permit to significantly re-

duce the problems caused by delays in signaling

defects. The most common consequence of these

delays is a late shipment, which is very negative in

fashion sector. Finally, the system should guarantee

USING BPMN AND TRACING FOR RAPID BUSINESS PROCESS PROTOTYPING ENVIRONMENTS

211

an increase in supply chain integration by control-

ling possible defects and limiting their effects.

On the other hand, the lack of general metrics to

assess the quality of the modeled BPs and of the

whole BPM workflow (Vanderfeesten et. al. 2007)

does not allow comparing our system with similar

approaches.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was supported by the Tuscany Region

under the DOCUP 2000-2006, Measure 2.8, Action

2.8.4, project "Innovazione, progettazione, qualità,

tracciabilità per il sistema moda" and the DOCUP

2000-2006, Measure 1.7, Action 1.7.1, project

"Tracce sulla pelle". The authors would like to thank

the Consorzio Centopercento Italiano and A.S.S.A.

Società Cooperativa Consortile for the valuable help

in modeling the processes used as example in the

paper.

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