| EPSRC Reference: |
EP/K009923/1 |
| Title: |
Empirical Modelling of Business Process Patterns with Ontologies |
| Principal Investigator: |
de Cesare, Professor S |
| Other Investigators: |
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| Researcher Co-Investigators: |
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| Project Partners: |
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| Department: |
Brunel Business School |
| Organisation: |
Brunel University London |
| Scheme: |
Standard Research |
| Starts: |
18 June 2013 |
Ends: |
17 September 2016 |
Value (£): |
318,135
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| EPSRC Research Topic Classifications: |
| Information & Knowledge Mgmt |
Software Engineering |
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| EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications: |
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| Related Grants: |
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| Panel History: |
| Panel Date | Panel Name | Outcome |
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09 Oct 2012
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EPSRC ICT Responsive Mode - Oct 2012
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Announced
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Summary on Grant Application Form |
A fundamental problem in the way business process modelling (BPM) is carried out today is the lack of explicit and systematic reuse of previously developed models. Although all business processes possess unique characteristics, they also do share many common properties making it possible to classify business processes into generally recognised patterns of organisational behaviour. Patterns, or general solutions to recurring problems, have become a widely accepted architectural technique in software engineering, however their use in business process modelling is quite limited. Given the documented benefits that patterns have produced in software engineering (for example, increased productivity and acceleration of the learning curve), it can be assumed that their adoption in BPM could yield similar advantages.
However, the systematic adoption of patterns in BPM cannot be a simple transposition of the experience acquired by the design patterns community in software engineering. This is due to some essential differences between business modelling and software design. While the latter involves the representation of an engineered artefact (i.e., software), the former concerns the representation of behaviour of a real world system (i.e., the business organisation) that grows in an emergent manner. Therefore, while software design patterns are normally based on engineering experience, the discovery of generalised business behaviour should be preferably conducted in a more empirical manner via the analysis of organisational process data in all its forms. Empiricism is currently not the basis for the discovery of patterns for BPM and no systematic methodology for collecting and analysing process models of business organisations currently exists. This project aims at developing such a methodology. Moreover, given the real world nature of organisations, ontology is adopted as the principal driver of the methodology so as to interpret business process data, discover recurrent behaviour and model the generalised patterns found.
This project is called Empirical Modelling of Business Process Patterns with Ontologies (EMBO). The assumption underpinning the project is that business organisations will be capable of more flexibly adapting themselves to changing operational practices thanks to the generalised nature and semantic expressiveness of ontology-based business process patterns.
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Key Findings |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Potential use in non-academic contexts |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Impacts |
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| Description |
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk |
| Summary |
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| Date Materialised |
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Sectors submitted by the Researcher |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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| Project URL: |
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| Further Information: |
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| Organisation Website: |
http://www.brunel.ac.uk |