=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-1408/paper8
|storemode=property
|title=Integrating Cross-Organisational Business Processes Based on a Combined S-BPM/DSM Approach
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1408/paper1-xoc-bpm.pdf
|volume=Vol-1408
}}
==Integrating Cross-Organisational Business Processes Based on a Combined S-BPM/DSM Approach
==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1408/paper1-xoc-bpm.pdf
Integrating Cross-Organisational Business Processes
Based on a Combined S-BPM/DSM Approach
Udo Kannengiesser
Metasonic GmbH
Münchner Str. 29 – Hettenshausen
85276 Pfaffenhofen, Germany
udo.kannengiesser@metasonic.de
Abstract—This paper addresses the issue of cross- due to the conflicting modelling paradigms of DSM and the
organisational process integration using the Design Structure mainstream BPM approaches: The DSM models processes as
Matrix (DSM) approach from engineering design. This approach flows of information, whereas most BPM methods describe
includes a set of generic techniques for minimising iterations processes as flows of control. To make the DSM accessible to
within processes, thus reducing the impact of rework on BPM practitioners, this paper uses the Subject-oriented BPM
processing times both within single processes and across (S-BPM) approach [6] whose emphasis on representing the
interconnected processes. The paper focuses on the latter: How communication between process participants is consistent with
can the DSM be used for aligning processes that are the information-flow paradigm of DSM. A combined use of S-
interconnected yet performed by separate organisations? The
BPM and DSM is proposed to fully include cross-
paper shows that the subject-oriented approach to Business
Process Management (S-BPM) serves as an enabler of DSM-
organisational process integration in the (S-BPM) process
based process integration. An example of using the combined S- lifecycle, enabling the validation, implementation and
BPM/DSM approach for cross-organisational process integration execution of integrated processes without manual model
is presented to demonstrate its applicability and benefits. transformations.
The paper is organised as follows: Section 2 introduces the
Keywords—Business Process Integration; Business Process DSM and the basic techniques it provides for process
Improvement; Business Process Modelling; Subject-oriented
improvement and process integration. Section 3 outlines the S-
Business Process Management (S-BPM); Design Structure Matrix
(DSM)
BPM approach and its ability to model communication
relationships between process elements, as needed for
combining it with the DSM. Section 4 shows how S-BPM
I. INTRODUCTION models of cross-organisational processes can be integrated
In today’s networked economy, cross-organisational and based on the DSM, illustrated using a process of applying for
cross-company processes play an increasingly important role research funding that is executed across two organisations.
for value creation [1]. These processes are composed of a Section 5 discusses the approach and gives an overview of
multitude of services provided by various business partners, future research directions.
suppliers, competitors, public entities and other organisations.
To ensure smooth interoperation in such highly distributed II. THE DESIGN STRUCTURE MATRIX
value networks, the issue of process integration arises: How
can the individual pieces of a process be composed across The design structure matrix (DSM) has been developed as a
organisational boundaries to minimise communication and compact visual aid to analysing and improving complex system
coordination effort [2]? architectures. It is a square N × N matrix representing the
relationships between N system elements. The systems to
A key issue for process integration is the minimization of which the DSM has been mainly applied include product
iterations, as they represent rework that cause delays and cost designs, engineering processes and organisations [7, 5]. This
overruns. This paper addresses this issue using an approach Section gives a brief overview of the basics of DSM and its use
from engineering design: the design structure matrix (DSM) [3, for process integration.
4, 5]. The DSM has been used for decomposing processes,
analysing the relationships between the components, and A. Basics of DSM Representations of Processes
recomposing them to minimize iterations. While this approach
The DSM approach views processes as systems whose
has been developed and applied for managing processes in
elements are activities that are interrelated by informational
engineering design and product development, it is a generic
dependencies; i.e. one activity depends on information
tool that can potentially be used in any process domain
produced by another activity. An example of a process
characterised by complex interactions between process entities.
architecture DSM is shown in Fig. 1. The shaded cells along
Yet, to date this tool has remained almost unnoticed by the
the diagonal represent the activities of the process, whose
business process management (BPM) community, most likely
names are usually written to the left of the corresponding rows
Copyright © 2015 for the individual papers by the paper’s authors.
Copying permitted for private and academic purposes. This volume is
published and copyrighted by its editors.
In: W. Schmidt, A. Fleischmann, L. Heuser, A. Oberweis, F. Schönthaler,
C. Stary, and G. Vossen (Eds.): Proceedings of the Workshop on Cross-
organizational and Cross-company BPM (XOC-BPM) co-located with the
17th IEEE Conference on Business Informatics (CBI 2015), Lisbon, Portugal,
July 13, 2015.
(and sometimes above the corresponding columns). Marks in activity B, which causes iteration as it leads to activity B
the off-diagonal cells indicate the existence of an informational having to do (partial) rework. To eliminate iterations or reduce
dependency between two activities. In Fig. 1, reading along a their impact, the DSM offers a range of techniques. One of
row indicates the outputs of an activity, i.e. the activities to them is the resequencing of activities in a way that the marks
which information is provided. For example, activity D below the diagonal are shifted closer to or above the diagonal,
provides information to activities F and G. In turn, reading which is also known as “partitioning” of the DSM. A number
down a column reveals an activity’s inputs, i.e. the activities of algorithms have been developed for this purpose [3, 8, 9]
providing required information. For example, activity F and implemented in DSM analysis tools.
depends on information provided by activities C, D and E. It
should be noted that many examples from the DSM literature Fig. 2 shows the result of partitioning the DSM from Fig. 1.
also use the opposite convention, i.e. representing inputs in the The iterations are now clearly reduced in both number and size,
columns and outputs in the rows. The DSM research making the process more likely to run on schedule as the
community has not agreed on a uniform convention to date. impact of rework is decreased.
Fig. 2. Partitioned DSM (adapted from [5]).
As shown in Fig. 2, partitioning may not be able to remove
all subdiagonal marks in a DSM. To address any remaining
Fig. 1. Example of a DSM (adapted from [5]).
iterations, other techniques are available [5] that will be
The DSM in Fig. 1 is a binary DSM because the marks mentioned here only briefly:
merely indicate the presence or absence of a relationship. There • Decomposition: breaks down coupled blocks of
are also numerical DSMs, where decimal numbers replace the activities into more fine-grained activities that are then
binary marks to indicate the “strength” of a relationship, for partitioned again to (partially) decouple the higher-
example the likelihood or frequency of interaction between the level activities.
activities. In addition, the duration of activities may be written
in the empty fields on the diagonal. While numerical DSMs • Aggregation: subsumes coupled blocks of activities
allow for sophisticated types of process analysis, this paper will into a single activity. While this runs into the risk of
focus on binary DSMs that provide a sufficient basis for simply hiding issues, the aggregated activity can now
understanding activity relationships and identifying iterations. more easily be assigned to the same organizational unit
Fig. 1 illustrates different types of relationships between that may resolve the issues through improved
adjacent activities (highlighted by squares encompassing teamwork.
groups of four cells along the diagonal): • Tearing: replaces some informational dependencies
• Independent (concurrent) activities: There is no with assumptions, leading to subdiagonal marks being
interaction between activities (A and B, and C and D in temporarily removed (“torn”) from the DSM. This is
Fig. 1); they can thus be executed concurrently (i.e. in followed by a further cycle of partitioning. More
parallel). information about tearing is provided in [3] and [5].
• Dependent (sequential) activities: Only a one-way B. Using the DSM for Process Integration
relationship exists between activities (activities E and F
in Fig. 1), leading to their sequential execution Two features of the DSM make it a suitable tool for process
(potentially with some partial overlapping). integration: Firstly, the DSM supports all levels of granularity
in the representation of processes, including detailed task
• Interdependent (coupled) activities: The activities are structures of individual processes and high-level architectures
connected by subdiagonal and superdiagonal marks (G of interlinked processes such as cross-organisational processes.
and H in Fig. 1), indicating a coupling between these Secondly, the DSM supports modular representations that
activities. separate specific process parts such as the individual processes
of a (cross-organisational) process network. This Section
The sequence of activities as they occur in a process is explains the use of these DSM features for process integration,
represented by their ordering from top to bottom (and left to based on an example presented in [10].
right) in a DSM. As a result, iterations can be identified by
marks that are located below the diagonal. For example, (the The DSM in Fig. 3 is a general representation of the
downstream) activity H provides feedback to (the upstream) relationships between three processes carried out by different
organisations. Note that the elements of the DSM are now
complete processes rather than individual activities of a
process. In addition, there are extensions above and to the right
of the matrix; they represent inputs from and outputs to
external processes. Reading along the extended column “A”
reveals that process A receives an input from external
processes, and reading along the extended row “A” shows that
process A also provides an output to external processes. In the
example in Fig. 3, all three processes receive input and provide
output to external processes. They are also strongly coupled
among one another, as shown by the marks in the main matrix.
Fig. 6. DSM of process C (adapted from [10]).
Fig. 3. DSM of interconnected processes (adapted from [10]).
The strong coupling of the processes indicates that there is
potential for improving the overall process. However, reducing
the coupling by resequencing the processes is impossible.
Integration here needs to be done on a more detailed level, by
decomposing each of the processes into more specific activity
structures. The DSMs of the individual processes A, B and C
are shown in Figures 4, 5 and 6, respectively.
Fig. 7. Decomposed DSM of the interconnected processes (adapted from
[10]).
The decomposed DSM can now be partitioned by
resequencing the individual activities, resulting in the modified
DSM shown in Fig. 8. The iterations are now minimised,
leading to better alignment across the different processes and
potentially a smoother execution of the overall process.
Fig. 4. DSM of process A (adapted from [10]).
Fig. 5. DSM of process B (adapted from [10]).
The DSMs show that each individual process looks
reasonably well structured, with most of the dependencies
between activities being feedforward (superdiagonal). Fig. 8. Decomposed DSM of the interconnected processes after partitioning
However, putting the individual DSMs together in an overall (adapted from [10]).
DSM, as shown in Fig. 7, reveals that iterations occur across
the three processes.
III. SUBJECT-ORIENTED BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT
Subject-oriented Business Process Management (S-BPM)
[6] was first proposed by Albert Fleischmann in 1994 [11]. It is
used in a number of organisations and companies varying in
size from 500 up to 100,000 employees, including FI-TS [12],
NEC [13] and Swisscom [14]. The S-BPM approach differs
from traditional process modelling methods in that it is based
on a decentralised view: Processes are understood as Fig. 10. Subject Interaction Diagram (SID) of an ordering process.
interactions between process-centric roles (called “subjects”),
where every subject encapsulates its own behaviour
specification [15]. Subjects coordinate their individual
behaviours by exchanging messages. Such a communication-
based approach differs from traditional BPM paradigms that
require the orchestration of activities via tokens being passed
along a central control flow. Messages in S-BPM may include
information at any level of granularity, from simple
notifications or requests to complex data structures (referred to
as business objects).
S-BPM models include two types of diagrams: A Subject
Interaction Diagram (SID) specifying a set of subjects and the Fig. 11. Subject Interaction Diagram (SID) of a supply process.
messages exchanged between them, and a Subject Behaviour
Diagram (SBD) for every subject specifying the details of its The distinction between external and internal subjects is
behaviour. SBDs specify subject behaviour using state important because only internal subjects have visible behaviour
machines, in which every state represents an action. There are specifications (SBDs) in the process. In contrast, external
three types of states in S-BPM: “receive” states for receiving subjects exhibit merely a “black-box” behaviour in terms of the
messages, “send” states for sending messages, and “function” messages they receive and send. In the ordering process, only
states for performing actions operating on business objects (i.e., the (internal) “Customer” and “Order handling” subjects have
actions performed without involving other subjects). The SBDs that are shown in Fig. 12. The Figure highlights the pairs
symbols used in the two diagrams are explained in Fig. 9. of “send” and “receive” states that establish a particular
message exchange defined in the SID.
Fig. 9. The principal notational elements used in S-BPM.
An example of a SID is shown in Fig. 10, describing the Fig. 12. Subject Behavior Diagrams (SBDs) of “Customer” and “Order
subjects involved in an ordering process and the messages they handling” subjects.
exchange. Note that the “Shipment” subject is marked as an
“external” subject, which means that it is an interface to One of the key features of S-BPM is its support for
another process linked to the ordering process. In the example, asynchronous message exchange. It is based on the input pool
this linked process could be termed “supply process”. It may concept that can be viewed as a mailbox for all incoming
contain further subjects (e.g. “Production”); however, they are messages. Every subject has such an input pool. It can be
not visible for the ordering process as they do not directly illustrated using the SBD for the “Customer” subject in Fig. 12.
interact with it. The SID of the supply process is shown in Fig. When this subject is in the “receive” state “Wait for
11. From the perspective of this process, “Shipment” is now confirmation”, it can access its input pool and check for
considered an internal subject, interacting with the external messages of type “order confirmation”. As long as there is no
subjects “Order handling” and “Customer”. such message in the input pool, the subject remains in the
receive state. When the message “order confirmation” arrives
(from “Order handling”), the “Customer” subject removes that
message from the input pool and follows the transition to the execution of the process as a role play. Here, the process is
next function state defined in the SBD. The input pool can be “played through” by stakeholders in an offline environment,
structured according to behaviour options: The process focussing on the semantic correctness of the business logic and
modeller can define how many messages of which type and/or the exchange of messages. When using only “happy-path”
from which sender can be deposited and what the reaction is if assumptions and decisions during such a validation session, the
these restrictions are violated. In most cases, input pools are sequence in which subjects are executed can be seen as an
specified without any of these restrictions, allowing for indication for an expected ordering of these subjects.
asynchronous communication and thus higher concurrency of Commercial software support for executing and documenting
the activities executed by different subjects. If a message validation runs of S-BPM models is available
exchange must occur synchronously, the modeller needs to set (www.metasonic.de/en/metasonic-proof).
the maximum size of the input pool to zero [6].
The asynchronicity of subject interactions is a B. S-BPM/DSM Based Process Integration: An Example
differentiating feature of S-BPM with respect to other process The application of a combined S-BPM/DSM approach to
notations where the orchestration of activities is synchronous process integration can be illustrated using a cross-
(via tokens passed along control flows). An implication of this organisational research funding process involving four partial
is that the sequence in which subjects become “active” (i.e. processes: (1) a funding application process executed by an
start executing their individual behaviours) is not deterministic. SME aiming to apply for external research funding, (2) an
application support processes executed by a regional
IV. PROCESS INTEGRATION USING S-BPM AND DSM government organisation devoted to assisting local SMEs in the
application process, (3) a partner proposals process executed by
A. S-BPM and DSM: How They Relate to Each Other a number of potential research partners, and (4) a funding
decision process executed by a research funding body. The four
The explicit representation of the information exchanged as processes and their relationships are represented using the
messages between subjects in SIDs allows a direct mapping DSM depicted in Fig. 14. It shows that the scope for process
between S-BPM models and DSMs. The rows and columns of integration includes only the two processes “funding
a DSM can be filled with the names of all internal subjects in application” and “application support” (as they are in the main
the SID. Where there is a message between two internal matrix). “Funding decision” and “partner proposals” are
subjects, the corresponding cell in the DSM is filled with a considered as external inputs and outputs; in the example they
mark. Any external subject in the SID is represented using are not intended to be integrated with the other two processes.
additional tables above (if that subject provides information)
and/or on the right-hand side (if that subject receives
information) of the DSM, as shown in Fig. 13.
Fig. 14. Top-level DSM of the research funding process.
The S-BPM model1 of the overall cross-organisational
process comprises a SID for “funding application” (Fig. 15)
and a SID for “application support” (Fig. 16). Efforts were
made to lay out the two SIDs in a way to show the expected
sequence of subject executions from left to right. It can be seen
that there are almost no coupled relationships among the
internal subjects in each diagram, which is confirmed by the
corresponding DSMs shown in Fig. 17 (for “funding
Fig. 13. Subject interactions transformed into a DSM. application”) and Fig. 18 (for “application support”).
The decomposed DSM in Fig. 19 of the research funding
Yet, the ordering of the subjects in the DSM is not obvious
process shows the possible iterations across the two partial
due to the non-deterministic execution of different subjects (see
processes. Partitioning2 the DSM interleaves the ordering of
Section III). While one may expect a likely sequence of subject
individual activities across the two processes, reducing the
executions that may be called the “happy path”, there is
iterations as shown in Fig. 20.
generally no guarantee for any specific sequence unless the
process modeller synchronises subject behaviours based on
input pool configuration or specific coordination messages. 1
The S-BPM diagrams in this Section were produced using the
To find the most likely sequence of subject executions, the Metasonic Suite (www.metasonic.de/en).
2
S-BPM model must be validated [6], by simulating the The partitioning was supported by a DSM Excel Macro developed
at MIT (www.dsmweb.org/en/dsm-tools/research-tools.html)
Fig. 15. Subject Interaction Diagram (SID) of the funding application process.
Fig. 16. Subject Interaction Diagram (SID) of the application support process.
The modified DSM can now be used as a basis for checking
whether the individual SBDs support the new sequence of
subject executions or whether they need to be adapted. The
following heuristic supports this:
1. Bring the “send” states of a subject’s behaviour in the
order indicated by the corresponding row (left to right)
in the modified DSM: For example, the “send” states of
the “Partner Finding” subject should be in the order:
(1) Send ‘Failed partner search’ to “Idea Generation”,
(2) Send ‘Partner list’ to “Strategy Checking”, (3) Send
‘Proposal sketch’ to “Proposal Writing”.
2. Bring the “receive” states of the SBD in the order
Fig. 17. DSM of the funding application process. indicated by the corresponding column (top to bottom)
in the modified DSM: For example, the “receive” states
of the “Partner Finding” subject should be in the order:
(1) Receive ‘Proposal sketch’ from “Project
Evaluation”, (2) Receive ‘Eligibility requirements’
from “Funding Program Finding”.
3. Arrange the “receive” and “send” states to match the
business logic, add function states where appropriate:
This involves pairing up specific input and output
messages and bringing them in a logical order, e.g.
receiving the proposal sketch before (finding suitable
partners according to the proposal sketch and then)
sending off a partner list.
Fig. 18. DSM of the application support process. The result of applying this heuristic to the SBD of the
“Partner Finding” subject is shown in Fig. 21. There may be
other cases where such a simple heuristic does not suffice. For
example, according to the modified DSM in Fig. 20 the
“Project Evaluation” subject is executed before the “Proposal
Sketching” subject. This poses a problem, because according to
the SID in Fig. 16 “Project Evaluation” cannot start before it
receives the “Proposal sketch” message from the other subject.
This conflict can be solved in one of two ways:
1. Adapting the modified DSM by swapping the two
subjects, so that “Proposal Sketching” is executed
before “Project Evaluation”: This would resolve the
logical problem, but would also increase the feedback
loop from “Project Evaluation” to “Idea Generation”.
2. Introducing a new message to the SID to act as a
Fig. 19. Decomposed DSM of the research funding process. trigger for the “Project Evaluation” subject: One
solution may be to let the “Idea Generation” subject
send the “Idea summary” message not only to
“Strategy Checking” and “Proposal Sketching” but
also to “Project Evaluation”. This way “Project
Evaluation” may already start executing some of its
behaviour even though some important information
about the project idea may come only after “Proposal
Sketching” produces more details about the initial
project idea. The additional message would need to be
added to the DSM. This particular change of the DSM
would not require another cycle of partitioning because
the new mark corresponding to the new message
would be located above the diagonal. In case a new
message is defined from a downstream subject (i.e.
leading to a new subdiagonal mark in the DSM),
further partitioning is needed.
Fig. 20. Decomposed and partitioned DSM of the research funding process.
problems in multidisciplinary process engineering (e.g. of
industrial control systems) where processes need to be
integrated across different knowledge domains.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The research leading to these results has received funding
from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme
FP7-2013-NMP-ICT-FOF(RTD) under grant agreement n°
609190. www.so-pc-pro.eu
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Future work will explore this approach for integration