SoftAlloc: A Work Allocation Language with Soft Constraints

Stefansen, Christian; Rajamani, Sriram K.; Seshan, Parameswaran

doi:10.1109/icws.2008.41

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…According to Vanderfeesten and Grefen (2015), in business processes, human resources are often performing tasks. Allocating tasks to human resources (workers) is more complex than allocating to computer resources, because in addition to having multiple, changing attributesrole, organizational positions, skills, availability, time constraintshuman resources are creative and social beings (Yu et al, 2013) that have personal preferences, different experience levels, and they can choose to override the allocation rules at run-time (Stefansen et al, 2008).…”

Section: New Work Distribution Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

A new approach for improving work distribution in business processes supported by BPMS

Pereira

Varajão

Uahi

2020

BPMJ

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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is regarding the execution of business processes by Business Process Management Systems (BPMS), during design-time modelers have to specify the potential performers of a work activity according to their organizational position or role. Once several workers may share the same role, at run-time all of them (indistinctively) can be assigned by BPMS to execute a work activity. However, distinct individuals have different personality traits and, for certain instances of work (requiring, for example, specific soft skills) some of them might perform better. A new approach to work distribution in business processes supported by BPMS, which takes into account the psychological characteristics of workers was proposed.Design/methodology/approachAs stated in Section 3 of the paper, in this work the Design Science Research (DSR) methodology, as proposed by Kuechler and Vaishnavi (2008) was used. All the five steps, from the “Awareness of problem” to the “Conclusion” were accomplished, being described in the paper.FindingsIt is demonstrated that, by using the proposed approach, BPMS might deliver work to people in a more effective way, by selecting those workers that seem to be more suitable to accomplish each particular piece of work, taking into account the characteristics of the work itself and the specific profiles of the workers eligible to execute it.Originality/valueBPMSs are responsible for the execution of business process models, by delivering work activities to suitable agents (human or artificial), which execute them. Addressing a gap in the BPM literature, this paper presents a new approach for improving work distribution in business processes supported by BPMS, enabling to assign (in run-time) the most suitable workers to perform specific work activities, grounded on the concept of psychological profile and taking into account technical, human and social aspects.

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Section: New Work Distribution Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

A new approach for improving work distribution in business processes supported by BPMS

Pereira

Varajão

Uahi

2020

BPMJ

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“…creation patterns, push and pull patterns), which can help demonstrate how resources can be used and represented in workflow systems. These resource patterns have been used across a variety of proposed approaches, providing support to the different allocation methods presented (Arias et al, 2015;Cabanillas et al, 2013Cabanillas et al, , 2015Stefansen et al, 2008;Talib et al, 2010;Tan and van der Aalst, 2006). For instance, Stefansen et al (2008) utilize distinct resource patterns as part of the resource allocation language called SOFTALLOC, in order to be able to manage different restrictions (soft constraints) during dynamic resource allocation.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These resource patterns have been used across a variety of proposed approaches, providing support to the different allocation methods presented (Arias et al, 2015;Cabanillas et al, 2013Cabanillas et al, , 2015Stefansen et al, 2008;Talib et al, 2010;Tan and van der Aalst, 2006). For instance, Stefansen et al (2008) utilize distinct resource patterns as part of the resource allocation language called SOFTALLOC, in order to be able to manage different restrictions (soft constraints) during dynamic resource allocation. Cabanillas et al (2015) use a set of eight creation patterns to evaluate a proposed Resource Assignment Language (Cabanillas et al, 2011), which is a domain-specific language used to establish the conditions for selecting candidates to participate in the execution of process activities.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human resource allocation in business process management and process mining

Arias

Saavedra

Marques

et al. 2018

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Purpose-Human resource allocation is considered a relevant problem in business process management (BPM). The successful allocation of available resources for the execution of process activities can impact on process performance, reduce costs and obtain a better productivity of the resources. In particular, process mining is an emerging discipline that allows improvement of the resource allocation based on the analysis of historical data. The purpose of this paper is to provide a broad review of primary studies published in the research area of human resource allocation in BPM and process mining. Design/methodology/approach-A systematic mapping study (SMS) was conducted in order to classify the proposed approaches to allocate human resources. A total of 2,370 studies published between January 2005 and July 2016 were identified. Through a selection protocol, a group of 95 studies were selected. Findings-Human resource allocation is an emerging research area that has been evolving over time, generating new proposals that are increasingly applied to real case studies. The majority of proposed approaches relate to the period 2011-2016. Journals and conference proceedings are the most common venues. Validation research and evaluation research are the most common research types. There are two main evaluation methods: simulation and case studies. Originality/value-This study aims to provide an initial assessment of the state of the art in the research area of human resource allocation in BPM and process mining. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first research that has been conducted to date that generates a SMS in this research area.

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“…These constraints can be either hard or soft. The former are always enforced by the system, the latter define desirable restrictions that can be violated under certain conditions [20].…”

Section: Resource Perspective In the Development Of Paissmentioning

confidence: 99%

Defining the resource perspective in the development of processes-aware information systems

Stroppi

Chiotti

Villarreal

2015

Information and Software Technology

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Context. The resource perspective has impact on the performance of business processes. However, current workflow management systems (WfMSs) provide disparate support to its implementation and business process modeling languages provide limited capabilities for its definition. Thus, it is difficult to specify requirements regarding this perspective and to select an appropriate WfMS to support them in order to obtain a technological solution aligned with the organizational needs.Objective. To provide support to the definition, implementation, verification and validation of resource perspective requirements in the development of Process-Aware Information Systems (PAISs) based on WfMSs.Method. The following activities were carried out: (i) identification of resource perspective aspects in executable workflow specifications, (ii) analysis of the elements provided by the BPMN modeling language to represent these aspects, (iii) development of a framework based on BPMN for defining and implementing these aspects by using the extension mechanism provided by this language, (iv) development of a model-driven development method that leverages the framework to develop PAISs, (v) demonstration of the proposed framework and method through the development of a tool supporting them, a case study, and the evaluation against the Workflow Resource Patterns.Results. A framework, a method and a tool that support the definition of the resource perspective in the development of PAISs. Conclusion. By using the proposed framework and method, practitioners are able to: define the resource perspective requirements in conceptual process models, select a WfMS as implementation platform, and define the implementation of these requirements maintaining the consistency between the conceptual process models and the workflow specifications.

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SoftAlloc: A Work Allocation Language with Soft Constraints

Cited by 5 publications

References 10 publications

A new approach for improving work distribution in business processes supported by BPMS

A new approach for improving work distribution in business processes supported by BPMS

Human resource allocation in business process management and process mining

Defining the resource perspective in the development of processes-aware information systems

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