TY - JOUR
T1 - Dealing with change in process choreographies
T2 - Design and implementation of propagation algorithms
AU - Fdhila, Walid
AU - Indiono, Conrad
AU - Rinderle-Ma, Stefanie
AU - Reichert, Manfred
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 The Authors.
PY - 2015/4
Y1 - 2015/4
N2 - Enabling process changes constitutes a major challenge for any process-aware information system. This not only holds for processes running within a single enterprise, but also for collaborative scenarios involving distributed and autonomous partners. In particular, if one partner adapts its private process, the change might affect the processes of the other partners as well. Accordingly, it might have to be propagated to concerned partners in a transitive way. A fundamental challenge in this context is to find ways of propagating the changes in a decentralized manner. Existing approaches are limited with respect to the change operations considered as well as their dependency on a particular process specification language. This paper presents a generic change propagation approach that is based on the Refined Process Structure Tree, i.e.; the approach is independent of a specific process specification language. Further, it considers a comprehensive set of change patterns. For all these change patterns, it is shown that the provided change propagation algorithms preserve consistency and compatibility of the process choreography. Finally, a proof-of-concept prototype of a change propagation framework for process choreographies is presented. Overall, comprehensive change support in process choreographies will foster the implementation and operational support of agile collaborative process scenarios.
AB - Enabling process changes constitutes a major challenge for any process-aware information system. This not only holds for processes running within a single enterprise, but also for collaborative scenarios involving distributed and autonomous partners. In particular, if one partner adapts its private process, the change might affect the processes of the other partners as well. Accordingly, it might have to be propagated to concerned partners in a transitive way. A fundamental challenge in this context is to find ways of propagating the changes in a decentralized manner. Existing approaches are limited with respect to the change operations considered as well as their dependency on a particular process specification language. This paper presents a generic change propagation approach that is based on the Refined Process Structure Tree, i.e.; the approach is independent of a specific process specification language. Further, it considers a comprehensive set of change patterns. For all these change patterns, it is shown that the provided change propagation algorithms preserve consistency and compatibility of the process choreography. Finally, a proof-of-concept prototype of a change propagation framework for process choreographies is presented. Overall, comprehensive change support in process choreographies will foster the implementation and operational support of agile collaborative process scenarios.
KW - Business collaboration
KW - Change propagation
KW - Process change
KW - Process choreography
KW - Process-aware information system
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84912544165&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.is.2014.10.004
DO - 10.1016/j.is.2014.10.004
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84912544165
SN - 0306-4379
VL - 49
SP - 1
EP - 24
JO - Information Systems
JF - Information Systems
ER -