A Colored Workflow Model for Business Process Analysis

비즈니스 프로세스 분석을 위한 색채형 워크플로우 모델

  • 정우진 (경기대학교 일반대학원 컴퓨터학과) ;
  • 김광훈 (경기대학교 정보과학부)
  • Published : 2009.06.30

Abstract

Abstract Corporate activities are composed of numerous working processes and during the working flow, various business processes are being created and completed simultaneously. Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) makes the working process simple, yet creates more complicated work structure and therefore, there is an absolute need of efficient management for business processes. The workflow literature has been looking for efficient and effective ways of rediscovering and mining workflow intelligence and knowledge from their enactment histories and event logs. As part of studies to analyze and improve the process, the concepts of 'Process Mining', 'Process re-discovery', 'BPR (Business Process Reengineering)' have appeared and the studies for practical implementation are proactively being done. However, these studies normally follow the approach throughout data warehousing for log data of process instances. It is very hard for these approaches to reflect user's intention to the rediscovering and mining activities. The process instances designed based on the consideration of analysis can make groupings effectively and when the analysis demand of user changes within the analysis domain can also reduce the cost of analysis. Therefore, the thesis proposes a special type of workflow model, which is called a colored workflow model, that is extended from the ICN (information control net) modeling methodology by reinforcing the concept of colored token. The colored tokens represent the conceptual types of constraints and criteria that can be used to classifying and grouping the workflow intelligence and knowledge extracted from the corresponding workflow models' enactment histories and event logs. Through the runtime information of process instances, it makes possible to analyze proactive and user-oriented process with the goal of deriving business knowledge from the beginning of process definition.

기업의 업무 활동은 수많은 프로세스로 이루어져 있고 기업들이 업무를 처리하는 모든 활동 속에서 수많은 비즈니스 프로세스가 동시다발적으로 생성되고 처리된다. 전사적 업무환경은 업무의 처리를 간편하게 만든 동시에 더욱 복합적인 업무 형태를 만들어내었고 이에 따라 비즈니스 프로세스의 효율적 관리가 더욱 절실하게 되었다. 이에 기업 및 조직은 프로세스에 대한 개선과 새로운 비즈니스의 발견을 목표로 프로세스를 분석하고 비즈니스와 관련한 지식 도출을 위한 연구 개발에 집중하게 되었다. 프로세스를 분석하고 개선하기 위한 연구들로써 프로세스 마이닝, 프로세스 재발견, BPR(Business Process Reengineering) 등의 개념들이 등장하였고 실제 적용을 위한 연구들이 활발히 진행 중에 있다. 하지만 이러한 연구들은 대부분 프로세스 인스턴스들의 이력 정보에 대한 데이터웨어하우징을 통한 접근법을 따르고 있다. 이러한 접근법은 점점 복잡화되는 최근의 기업 환경과 수시로 변화하는 사용자의 요구를 충족시키기에 부족하다. 분석적인 측면을 고려하여 설계된 프로세스 인스턴스들은 효과적인 그룹화가 가능하고, 분석 도메인 내에서 사용자의 분석 요구가 변화하게 되는 경우에도 분석 비용을 줄일 수 있다. 본 연구에서는 기존 프로세스 모델링 방법론인 ICN을 확장하여 효과적인 프로세스 분석과 비즈니스 관련 지식 도출을 목표로 색채형 워크플로우 모델을 정의한다. 프로세스 인스턴스들에 대한 실행 정보를 통해 수동적인 프로세스 분석이 아닌, 프로세스 정의 시점부터 비즈니스 지식 도출을 목표로 하여 적극적이고 사용자 중심적인 프로세스 분석이 가능하게 한다.

Keywords

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