Process- and Resource-Aware Information Systems (PRAIS)

A Process-Aware Information System (PAIS) is a software system that manages and executes operational processes involving people, applications, and/or information sources on the basis of process models. The core elements in a business process are the activities and their execution order, which have been extensively researched in the last decade. There are other business process perspectives that have received less attention, most notably the organisational perspective. This perspective is concerned with the way in which human resources in an organisation are involved in the business processes executed in it. First, resources must be considered when process models are defined such that it is specified who can participate in the execution of each activity. Second, during process execution suitable resources must be allocated to the activities to ensure efficient and effective process completion. Finally, the event logs generated during process execution provide insights about the actual use of resources that may be useful for a subsequent improvement of the processes and/or the organisational models. Current PAIS provide limited support for the organisational perspective in terms of flexibility and teamwork management. The Process- and Resource-Aware Information Systems (PRAIS) project aims to integrate resource management as a first-class concept in PAIS. The project addresses three research questions related to this aim, specifically: (1) How can we develop graphical support for assigning resources to activities in business process models? (2) How can we develop strategies for flexible resource allocation that can be integrated with graphical resource-aware process models? (3) How can we perform continuous resource monitoring that contributes to process improvement and compliance checking and allows for process (re- )planning under evolving environmental conditions? The design-science paradigm will be used to develop the following contributions. First, the design of new graphical resource assignment notations for the definition of complete process models that also consider collaborative work. The notations will be evaluated with user experiments to make sure that they are suitable for non-technical users. Second, the development of flexible resource allocation techniques enriched for continuous process planning, which notably extend the static support currently provided by PAIS towards a more dynamic and effective process execution. Reasoning formalisms that have proved to deal well with optimisation problems will be used for this purpose. Finally, the integration of these techniques with process monitoring and mining functionalities for process improvement. Resource mining will be applied for resource-aware compliance checking and for providing support for the re-design of resource-aware process models. Altogether, the project contributes to the business process management research field by providing an integrated approach for resource management in PAIS and aims to enhance not only the design and execution of resource-aware business processes but also the operation of the organisation involved in them.

Human resources are crucial for the correct and timely execution of business processes as they are involved in the completion of the process activities and supervise the work performed. However, current Process-Aware Information Systems (PAISs) put the emphasis on the right definition of the process activities and their coordination and present limitations regarding resource management, specifically, concerning flexibility and support for collaborative work. The PRAIS project conducted research in the area of Business Process Management (BPM) pursuing the goal of evolving the concept of PAIS towards a Process- and Resource-Aware Information System (PRAIS). A PRAIS treats human resources as first-class citizens and hence, gives them the relevance they deserve in the BPM lifecycle. The project addressed three operations related to resource management, particularly: - Resource assignment, which involves the design-time definition of the constraints that determine the resources that can hold specific responsibilities in the execution of process activities, such as performing the work or approving it. In the PRAIS project, novel approaches for graphically assigning different responsibilities to process activities in process models were developed, enabling team assignment and generating executable business process models. - Resource allocation, which carries out the selection of the specific resource(s) that will be involved in every activity execution at run time, taking into consideration pre-defined optimisation criteria (e.g., time minimisation) to select the most suitable resource(s). In the PRAIS project, new techniques for allocating individual resources and teams to process activities were developed and a benchmark to compare different resource allocation approaches was designed and implemented. - Resource monitoring and mining, which uses process execution data usually stored in event logs to extract information about how resources are taking part in process activities, aiming at identifying deviations from expected behaviours to react accordingly. In the PRAIS project, we developed more efficient resource mining solutions whose output can be defined with graphical modelling notations. The existing process execution data was also used for resource utilisation prediction aiming at enhancing future resource assignment and allocation decisions. Finally, we explored the needs of resource re-planning and adaptation. The project had a very practical orientation. Software tools were developed for most of the scientific contributions. Furthermore, the collaboration with two companies in the course of the project evidenced problems related to resource management in nowadays process-oriented organisations and helped to design solutions for real-world problems. This also had an impact in industry. In summary, the research conducted in the PRAIS project produced a big advancement in the area of resource management in business processes, addressing problems and bridging gaps that were theretofore open both in academia and industry.