Formulating the Data-Flow Perspective for Business Process Management.

Author List: Sun, Sherry X.; Zhao, J. Leon; Nunamaker, Jr., Jay F.; Sheng, Olivia R. Liu;
Information Systems Research, 2006, Volume 17, Issue 4, Page 374-391.
Workflow technology has become a standard solution for managing increasingly complex business processes. Successful business process management depends on effective workflow modeling and analysis. One of the important aspects of workflow analysis is the data-flow perspective because, given a syntactically correct process sequence, errors can still occur during workflow execution due to incorrect data-flow specifications. However, there have been only scant treatments of the data-flow perspective in the literature and no formal methodologies are available for systematically discovering data-flow errors in a workflow model. As an indication of this research gap, existing commercial workflow management systems do not provide tools for data-flow analysis at design time. In this paper, we provide a data-flow perspective for detecting data-flow anomalies such as missing data, redundant data, and potential data conflicts. Our data-flow framework includes two basic components: data-flow specification and data-flow analysis; these components add more analytical rigor to business process management.
Keywords: data-flow anomalies; data-flow specification; data-flow verification; dependency analysis; process data diagram; workflow modeling
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#167 0.243 workflow tools set paper management specification command support formal implemented scenarios associated sequence large derived taxonomies called given systematic specifications
#69 0.108 process business reengineering processes bpr redesign paper research suggests provide past improvements manage enable organizations regarding focal cycle creating issues
#126 0.105 data database administration important dictionary organizations activities record increasingly method collection records considered perturbation requirements special level efforts administrators analyzed
#44 0.088 approach analysis application approaches new used paper methodology simulation traditional techniques systems process based using proposed method present provides various
#184 0.087 modeling models model business research paradigm components using representation extension logical set existing way aspects issues current integrated languages traditional
#117 0.076 standards interorganizational ios standardization standard systems compatibility effects cooperation firms industry benefits open interoperability key heterogeneous vertical propose vendors collective
#191 0.062 model models process analysis paper management support used environment decision provides based develop use using help literature mathematical presented formulation
#96 0.053 errors error construction testing spreadsheet recovery phase spreadsheets number failures inspection better studies modules rate replicated detection correction optimal discovering