An Enterprise Collaborative Portal with a Case-Based

Reasoning Tool for Business Process Model Creation

D. T. Pham, S. S. Dimov and D. K. Tsaneva

Manufacturing Engineering Centre, Cardiff University, UK

An Enterprise Collaborative Portal with a Case-based reasoning tool for business process model creation

D. T. Pham, S. S. Dimov and D. K. Tsaneva

Manufacturing Engineering Centre,Cardiff University, UK

Outline

Introduction
Enterprise Collaborative Portals, Business Process Modelling and Case-Based Reasoning (CBR)
Proposed approach for collaborative authoring of process models
System architecture
Case study
Conclusions
Future work
Acknowledgments
References

Introduction

No focus on resource management leading to non-executable process models
No efficient enough enterprise integration to address process co-ordination issues in large distributed business environments
No current solutions addressing the process modelling and collaboration of dynamic workflows that could support geographically dispersed teams

→ A new approach is required for developing richer process models, encompassing all aspects of enterprise modelling

Enterprise Collaborative Portals, Business Process Modelling and CBR

Business process modelling:

Product/process (P/p) methodology - ”an approach for process modelling together with product data” [Kaposi and Myers 2001]
Unified Modelling Language (UML) - “the business model is shown from a number of views, each view being expressed in one or more diagrams” [Eriksson and Penker 2000]

Case-based reasoning - provides a methodology for capturing problem-solving expertise
Enterprise collaborative portals - facilitates enterprise users to share information and make it available over the Internet.author(s)

Proposed approach for collaborative authoring of process models

Aim - to provide a methodology for the collaborative distributed development of dynamic manufacturing process models
Objectives:

To provide a methodology that overcomes the problems of the existing BPM approaches
To create a case base of standard process models, which can be reused by applying CBR techniques
To develop an approach for collaborative creation of BPMs involving members of geographically dispersed teams
To develop a distributed business environment based on ECP that enables collaborative authoring of dynamic workflows

Proposed approach for collaborative authoring of process models

Figure 1. The algorithm for creating a process model

System architecture

Several new tools are required to enable automated workflow modelling:

Graphical process modelling tool
Collaboration tool
CBR tool
Portal services

System architecture

Figure 2. System architecture

Case study

The task is to build a prototype of golf training device employing Rapid Prototyping (RP) technology (SLS DuraForm). The main participants in fulfilling this task are the following three parties:

the client, ordering the production of the training device – “Company X”
the manufacturer - “Company Z”
the supplier of materials – “Company Y”

Case study

Figure 3. Extended P/p graph of process model

Case study

The team that should create/agree a business process for providing a RP service includes:

Product engineer from “Company X” who has created the 3D model of the product
Production manager from “Company Z” who co-ordinates all the processes within the company
RP project manager who is responsible for the project within “Company Z”
Material supplier from “Company Y”

Case study

Figure 3. Extended P/p graph of process model

Case study - ECP

Figure 4. Enterprise portal architecture

Case study - ECP

The ECP enables:

communication between geographically dispersed teams
collaborative design of the BPMs by using graphical process-modelling tool
assistance in defining the attributes of products by emloying CBR tools

Conclusions

Benefits of the proposed system:

Time savings – the time to create a new process model or to change an existing model is shortened by using a CBR tool and the ECP features.
Cost savings – communication between the different partners in the team is facilitated by the adoption of ECP technologies.
Knowledge enrichment – this occurs through sharing of ideas and creation of new process models, which are stored for future reference in the case base.

Future work

The case base can be enriched and reorganised and the retrieval and adaptation techniques refined
The algorithm for collaborative authoring of dynamic process models could be refined in accordance with the principles of Concurrent Engineering

Acknowledgments

The research reported in this paper was carried out within the Objective 2 ERDF project “ITEE”, the Objective 1 ERDF project ‘‘Superman’’ and the DTI project CoTeam. The case study in the paper includes example information supplied by the Manufacturing Engineering Centre, Cardiff University, Wales, UK. This work was also part funded by the EPSRC Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre and the Network of Excellence “Innovative Production Machines and Systems” (I*PROMS).

References

[1] Huang GQ, Huang J and Mak KL. Agent-based workflow management in collaborative product development on the Internet. CAD, 32 (2), 2000, pp. 133-144
[2] Rezayat M. The Enterprise Web Portal for life-cycle support, CAD, 32 (2), 2000, pp. 85-96
[3] Pham DT, Dimov SS and Tsaneva DK. Enterprise Collaborative Portal for Business Process Modelling. Proc. of Int. Conf. on Perf. Meas., Benchm. and Best Pract. in New Economy, Univ. of Minho, Braga, Portugal, 2003, pp. 517 – 523
[4] Tam S, Lee WB, Chung WWC and Lau HCW. An object-based process planning and scheduling model in a product design environment. Log. Inf. Man., 13 (4), 2000, pp. 191-200
[5] Kaposi A and Myers M. Systems for all. Imperial College Press, London, UK, 2001
[6] Choy KL and Lee WB. Task allocation using case-based reasoning for distributed manufacturing systems. Log. Inf. Man., 13 (3), 2000, pp. 167 - 176
[7] PTC. Windchill Business Administrator’s Guide. Windchill Rel. 6.2, Needham, MA, USA, 2001
[8] Madhusudan T and Zhao JL. A Case-Based Framework for Workflow Model Managament, BPM 2003, Spr.-Verlag, Berlin and Heid., LNCS 2678, 2003, pp. 354 – 369
[9] Eriksson H and Penker M. Business modelling with UML: business patterns at work. Wiley, New York, USA, 2000