=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-1985/BPM17industry10
|storemode=property
|title=Business Process Context for Message Standards
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1985/BPM17industry10.pdf
|volume=Vol-1985
|authors=Nenad Ivezic,Miroslav Ljubicic,Marija Jankovic,Boonserm Kulvatunyou,Scott Nieman,Garret Minakawa
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/bpm/IvezicLJKNM17
}}
==Business Process Context for Message Standards==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1985/BPM17industry10.pdf
Business Process Context for Message Standards
Nenad Ivezic1,*, Miroslav Ljubicic1, Marija Jankovic1, Boonserm Kulvatunyou1,
Scott Nieman2, and Garret Minakawa3
1
National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, USA
{nivezic,miroslav.ljubicic,marija.jankovic,serm}@nist.gov
2
Land O’Lakes, Shoreview, MN, USA
stnieman@landolakes.com
3
Oracle, Redwood City, CA, USA
garret.minakawa@oracle.com
Abstract. Despite unrelenting increase in complexity of message standards
for enterprise systems integrations, there are no effective means to address this
complexity issue in practice. We describe an effort to address the issue by
advancing message standards development and use methods. The new effort relies
on business process model life-cycle management, which is essential for context
definition of message standards usage. Context is essential as it describes the intent
for the message standards usage in a specific systems integration case. We report
results of a preliminary assessment of the approach for an industry use case.
Keywords: systems integration. message standards. life-cycle management.
business process model. context
1 Introduction
Efficient, practical, systems integration continues to be a great challenge for
enterprises of all sizes, in great part because of the increasing complexities of
message standards for the integration. The Open Applications Group, Inc. (OAGi)
is one of the original consortia that standardize message-exchange standards [1].
Without a means to manage a shareable context specification, OAGi members have
seen the message standards becoming complex and their management unwieldy.
Business processes are prime candidate to supply context specification for the
messages involved in information exchanges. This has been recognized for many
decades, starting with the activity modeling language IDEF0 where inputs and
outputs capture the business data to be exchanged between activities [2]. The OAGi
consortium has taken first steps to offer BPMN-based standards for business
processes to provide precise context for message exchanges [3].
Recently, BPMN 2.0, with its BPMN.xsd representation and runtime execution
capability, has accelerated the design, development, and implementation of message
M. Brambilla, T. Hildebrandt (Eds.): BPMN 2017 Industrial Track Proceedings, CEUR-WS.org,
2017. Copyright © 2017 for the individual papers by the papers' authors. Copying permitted for
private and academic purposes. This volume is published and copyrighted by its editors.
N. Ivezic, M. Ljubicic, M. Jankovic, B. Kulvatunyou, S. Nieman, and G. Minakawa
and process standards [3]. However, problems still exist in 1) consistency and
interoperability between business process modeling tools, 2) adequacy of the content
captured in the process model, and 3) process cataloging for reuse and adaptability.
In this paper, we describe a new approach for business-process model life-cycle
management (BPM LCM) to tackle these problems. The outcome of this approach
will be a useful, shared, business process-based context definition for message
standards development and use. Such a definition will allow enterprises to accelerate
systems integration efforts.
2 What are Message Standards, Anyway?
Message standards are data standards that define both the structure and the semantics
of the message. Such standards govern information exchange among applications,
services, and other actors. By doing so, message standards facilitate the systems
integration. Effective information exchange, however, is hindered by the growth of
individual message standards, in both size and complexity.
Presently, message standards, such as Open Applications Group Integration
Specification (OAGIS), are growing complex for multiple reasons [1]. First, systems
today are deployed on a variety of computing platforms, each using a different
computer language. Second, these standards support a wide range of enterprise
business processes and sectors including aerospace, automotive, chemical, and
electronics that are subject to various quality criteria, regulations, and other factors.
Third, new industrial integration use cases continue to expand definitions of message
standards. Thus, critics often claim these standards are ‘bloated.’
To use such ‘bloated’ message standards today, most companies must perform
manual, time-intensive adaptations of message standards to address systems
integration requirements. These adaptations result in subsets or profiles of the
standard for actual use in the context of each such systems integration case. To create
this profile, implementers and business analysts must first determine which elements
of the message standard are applicable to their integration use case. Then, they must
manage and relate that part to edge application APIs. This results in time-intensive,
error-prone, manual interpretations of standards. In addition, these efforts must be
repeated every time a new computing platform is introduced.
As a strategy to address these problems, industry has shown interest in using life-
cycle management (LCM) methods to advance message standards. LCM methods
are processes for the development, use, adaptation, operation, and maintenance of a
standard. These methods are expected to cover all phases of the standard from the
requirements gathering to the end of life. Examples of OAGIS message standards,
and their associated LCM methods, can be found in [1].
The current message-standards LCM methods, however, lack the ability to
manage the growing complexity of message standards. The reasons are 1) they treat
integration use cases independently and 2) they provide only for additions of required
Business Process Context for Message Standards
data elements to standard message definitions. In other words, these methods do not
capture the underlying business processes that drive the integration in the first place;
nor, do they identify the data elements that are shared as part of that integration.
Consequently, there is no consistent, shareable definition of the intended integration
uses of any message standard – that is, definition of context.
Such a definition could inform and specify those intended uses including the
necessary adaptations and refinements of message standard across different
integration situations. To do so, the definition must provide usage information that
includes (1) customized or profiled message standard, (2) intent for the customized
message standard, and (3) accumulation of data at each step of the business process
used to customize the message standard.
Our work addresses the absence of the means to provide and manage usage
information of messaging standards. To understand our approach, consider the
current (As-Is) state of message-standards life-cycle management (MS LCM) in Fig.
1 and the envisioned (To-Be) state of MS LCM in Fig. 2. There are three areas where
we seek advancements in MS LCM (as indicated in the figures), which currently
have very limited tool support:
1. Integration Requirements Definition where today Business Process Analysts
inefficiently and in an ad-hock manner specify the requirements in natural
language (typically using non-standard business process models created in Visio
or Powerpoint) and based on a target business process to be supported.
2. Message Standards Adaptation where today Software Developers inefficiently
work with the integration requirements provided in natural language form to
identify and adapt (e.g., prune and extend) standard messages for specific
application schemes present in the integration case. The developers also review
application APIs to identify required fields that may have been missed, and may
refactor message standard profile to include these fields.
3. Profile Message Generation where presently Software Developers engage in cost-
inefficient transformations of one implementation language-specific profile
message definition into another.
Our focus in this paper is on the first area where a new business process model life-
cycle management (BPM LCM) approach is introduced for message standards
context definition management. The approach allows greater reuse and automation
in the Integration Requirements Definition area, and in the other two areas of interest.
3 Tools to Migrate from the As-Is to the To-Be State
Our research, which was done with OAGi, has led to the development of two
tools: 1) Message Standards Semantic Refinement Tool (MSSRT), which
improves the message standards LCM process; and 2) Business Process
N. Ivezic, M. Ljubicic, M. Jankovic, B. Kulvatunyou, S. Nieman, and G. Minakawa
Cataloging and Classification System BPCCS) to link process models to a usage
meta-model, enabling Business Process Models Life-Cycle Management (BPM
LCM).
Fig. 1. As-is state of Message Standards Life-Cycle Management
Fig. 2. To-be state of Message Standards Life-Cycle Management
Business Process Context for Message Standards
3.1 Overall Architecture
Fig. 2 shows responsibilities of the two tools – BPCCS and MSSRT – in the To-Be
state of MS LCM. BPCCS is being developed as part of a BPM LCM method to
manage the life-cycle of both reference and context-specific OAGIS business-
process models. A core focus of the BPCCS tool is to provide shared definitions of
required concepts and terms for business processes that span across an enterprise and
its multi-tier supplier network. The BPCCS tool performs three major functions.
The first is to create and manage the Context Model. The second is to provide to the
Business Process Analyst a user interface by which the context model is specified
along with additional semantic constraints on the process model. The third is to
communicate this usage information to MSSRT.
MSSRT will apply this usage information to the syntax-independent, standard,
message definition to create a context-specific profile message. MSSRT also
transforms a syntax-independent form of the profile message into an
implementation-specific profile message. In providing these capabilities, the
MSSRT will enable business-process-model-based discovery and reuse of profile
messages. Towards that goal, we are planning to use introspection functionality
(allowing discovery of the model properties at runtime) to harvest business-process-
model information for context definition.
MSSRT is intended to aid the systems integrators and users in generating and
cataloging the message-standard profiling information using a new, CCS-compliant
OAGIS meta-model [4]. This tool is used as a web-based, application-software
environment for the life-cycle management of message standards. In parallel, the
tool will be utilized to experiment with new methods to create, maintain, and use
message standards. The software tool includes collaborative, multi-tenant methods
and meta-models for life-cycle management of message standards. Those methods
and models can be shared with the community and can facilitate the creations of
extensions made by the community to be submitted into the standard. It provides
core functionalities that can be extended and commercialized by industry. Among
the functionalities being explored are those to allow us to deal with natural language
issues, such as term matching and synonym handling (indicated in Fig. 2 as Lexicon).
In the rest of the paper, we focus on our systems engineering approach in
developing BPCCS.
3.2 Business Process Cataloging and Classification System (BPCCS)
In this section, we focus on BPCCS, the current state of its development and initial
tool assessment results.
N. Ivezic, M. Ljubicic, M. Jankovic, B. Kulvatunyou, S. Nieman, and G. Minakawa
Requirements Gathering. We collected use cases to gather requirements for BPM
LCM functions of the BPCCS. For example, one use case is an end-to-end, product-
procurement scenario with the goal to support BPM discovery and reuse. The case
starts with the customer issuing a purchase order and ends with the customer
receiving the goods, the shipment notification, and, the as-built inspection
information. The components of BPMs are classified using a reference classification
framework APQC PCF [5]. Multiple. context-classification schemes are managed in
the BPCCS to help catalog these BPMs, including ISO 10314 classification [6],
ebXML-adopted Porter classification [7], and OAGIS functional classification [5].
When outsourcing the enterprise activities associated with parts of a BPM, the
BPCCS provides BP-based context information to help discover available
manufacturing services. Once services are discovered, the original BPM may be
modified. The original BPM is kept for traceability purposes, where the APQC PCF
is employed to allow cross-industry reference.
Requirements Analysis. Fig. 3 illustrates the two main functional parts of our
approach to support the required BPM LCM functions: Classification Schemes (on
the right) and Catalog (on the left).
The Classification Schemes allow the BPCCS users to classify their process
models (and their parts) using multiple contextual dimensions, thereby defining a
context for the intended use of the model. Several contextual dimensions have been
proposed previously for inclusion into systems like BPCCS. Those dimensions
include industry, product, business process, role, and function, among others [8]. The
assumption is that it should be possible to find a process model with the needed (or
similar) semantics by providing the context in which the model will be used.
The BPCCS Catalog stores and inspects business process models to extract
relevant metadata. Both reference and specific models are stored and described by
the context in which they are derived using Classification Schemes’ context
dimensions. Derived process models are regarded as variants of the reference process
model. Variants are needed because the context of a specific model can differ from
the context of the original reference model, as illustrated in Fig. 3. Reference- model
elements are used as shared terminology to which elements of specific process
models are mapped and thus semantically aligned.
Conceptual Design. Following the requirements analysis, we identified the needed
BPCCS capabilities, chief among which was the ability to capture precisely context
and its semantics for BPM LCM. We analyzed research results in four related areas
regarding these capabilities [9]: Modeling BP Variability; Modeling BP Context; BP
Catalog Approaches; and Industry Approaches. Our analysis showed that effective
support for the needed capabilities still does not exist. (Please see [9] for details of
the analysis.) To address this situation, we proposed a BPCCS metamodel that builds
on the ebRIM specification [10].
Business Process Context for Message Standards
Fig. 3. Overview of Approach
BPCCS allows its users to classify their process models, and parts of the models,
using multiple contextual dimensions. The dimensions can be grouped by their
purposes and organized into ‘aspects’, represented by the ContextAspect element.
Currently, we are leveraging Zachman’s framework [11] and its 5WH maxims 1 to
organize context dimensions into context aspects. For example, geographical-
location and organization-unit context dimensions is related to the ‘Where maxim’;
while, the industry context dimension is related to the ‘What maxim.’ The previous
Introspection functionality can help pre-populate the results of the 5WH maxims.
Fig. 4 illustrates the metamodel concepts on a generic example. Here, the context
of a business process is described by associating the process (the far right of the Fig.
4) with various (multiple) classification nodes (OY, US, 44, 10279, etc.), belonging
to different classification schemes (ISO 3166, NAICS, etc.) used to describe different
dimensions of the context (Role, Geo Location, etc.) through giving the answers to
different context aspects (Why?, When?, etc.).
To define the range of values for a context dimension, different taxonomies or
controlled vocabularies can be used. Beside classification schemes, stored catalog
objects of a particular type can also be used as values of context dimensions.
Finally, the context of a particular catalog object is defined as the set of all the
associations the object has. Included among the associations are classification nodes
of appropriate schemes and other catalog objects of appropriate types that can be
used for particular context dimensions.
Verification. We have developed proof-of-concept prototype based on the BPCCS
metamodel. Also, we collected various business processes together with their models
and context definitions, which we used to populate the prototype implementation.
Most of these processes were obtained from members of the OAGi consortium where
integration use cases are collected for enhanced reuse of information and
communication artifacts. In this example, the goal is to describe business processes
and their components for their subsequent retrieval and reuse.
1
Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How
N. Ivezic, M. Ljubicic, M. Jankovic, B. Kulvatunyou, S. Nieman, and G. Minakawa
Fig. 4. An Illustration of Context for a Business Process Model
We focus on Retrieve Electronic Control Unit (ECU) Information sub-process
which encapsulates activities for exchanging information about the product and its
parts (in this case, ECU) between various systems [12]. The goal is to design this
sub-process by reusing an existing process model.
First, we needed to search the collection of populated, business-process models
for the ones applicable to the context of the Retrieve ECU Information sub-process.
To use this context, values for all context aspects should be provided. As suggested
before, this can be done by answering Zachman’s interrogatives. Context for Retrieve
ECU Information sub-process, defined in this way, is given in Fig. 5.
Fig. 5. Example Context for the Retrieve ECU Information Sub-process
Once the context is identified, we can browse BPCCS to find applicable business
processes. For this purpose, a complete or partial context from Fig. 5 can be used.
For example, we can start by searching processes that achieve the goal (Retrieve
product information). This search yielded three business processes models – three
different BP variants of the Exchange Product Information goal.
Business Process Context for Message Standards
Although the outcome of all variants is the same – exchanging full product
information – each variant uses a different sequence of activities and different
message exchanges. Messages are defined using OAGIS Business Object
Documents (BODs) specification [1]. BODs are defined using a verb-noun structure,
where verb defines the desired action that should be applied to the exchanged
business information, which is represented by a noun. For example, ProcessBOM
BOD (verb: Process; noun: BOM – Bill of Materials) specifies that the receiving
system shall execute a certain process on the BOM contained in the BOD.
Variant 1 uses BODs based on a single noun – ExhaustiveBOM noun, which
defines BOM for full product information, including structure and child item details.
Variant 2, instead of exchanging full product information with a single message, uses
a BOD based on StructureBOM noun to exchange structure of BOM first. Variant 3
is same as Variant 2, but with one subtle difference. After receiving the structure of
the product, the user decides which detailed parts information should be retrieved.
This was not possible in Variant 2, where details for all product’s parts were
exchanged by default.
These differences between variants are related to their different, although similar,
contexts, as shown in Table 1. Columns represent variants, while rows define context
dimension/aspect combinations. Table 1 also shows used classifications.
Analyzing contexts of the business process variants provide information for
determining which variant should be reused. For example, there is a difference in the
Industry context dimension, where Variant 1 is designed for Wireless
Telecommunications Carriers, and Variant 2 and Variant 3 are designed for
Electronic Computer Manufacturing. This context difference had a crucial impact on
variant design and is correlated with the messages (BODs) used in the variant.
Namely, telecommunication products and services do not have overly complex
structure; and, it is computationally feasible to exchange their full information using
a single message. Hence, Variant 1 uses BODs based on ExhaustiveBOM noun.
However, this cannot be expected for manufacturing domain as products are
typically much more complex. Thus, Variant 2 and Variant 3 separate product
information using BODs based on StructureBOM and ItemMaster nouns to make
potentially very large product information exchange feasible.
4 Discussion and Next Steps
Our assessment showed that context specification enabled by the BPCCS metamodel
supports desired behaviors. First, it was possible to specify the goal context
intuitively using Zachman’s 5WH interrogatives. Second, it was possible to search
for business processes applicable to a given context, as described by context
dimensions. Third, manual comparison of business processes by their context was
supported. Fourth, process-model designs could be analyzed in correlation with their
N. Ivezic, M. Ljubicic, M. Jankovic, B. Kulvatunyou, S. Nieman, and G. Minakawa
contexts. Fifth, it was possible to find, and manually reuse, the most appropriate
business process, together with message profiles (i.e., BOD subsets).
Table 1. Comparison of three contexts for retrieved business process variants.
Other types of assessments are planned, including support for greater automation
in business process model reuse and refinement, which requires further development
of context management apparatus. This is planned to be done using semantic
technologies, developed in parallel with a needed ontological basis, for explicit and
shared conceptualization of the context elements. For the automation to be realized,
BPMN [3] conformance testing of process modeling tool is anticipated, which is
necessary for the business process models introspection functionality.
Finally, we are planning for user and organizational adoption of MSSRT and
BPCCS, which is a particularly challenging in the light of likely disruptions to the
current practices of message standards development and use.
5 Conclusion
The paper presented a new approach to manage business process-based context
definition that describes the intent for usage of message standards. Central to the
approach is business process model life-cycle management capability. A preliminary
assessment showed that the approach provides desired support to the end user in
search, comparison, analysis, and reuse of business process models. Next steps
include integration of the approach within the overall message standards life-cycle
Business Process Context for Message Standards
management support, further validation of the approach, and work on its adoption
within standards development organizations.
Disclaimer
Any mention of commercial products is for information only; it does not imply
recommendation or endorsement by NIST.
References
[1] Open Applications Group Integration Specification (OAGIS) . http://www.oagi.org.
Accessed 12 Jul 2017.
[2] NIST (1993) Draft Federal Information Processing Standards, Standard for Integration
Definition for Function Modeling (IDEF0).
[3] BPMN (2011) Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN), Version 2.0.
[4] ISO 15000-5:2014 Electronic Business Extensible Markup Language (ebXML) - Part 5:
Core Components Specification (CCS). https://www.iso.org/standard/61433.html. Accessed
12 Jul 2017
[5] APQC Process Classification Framework. https://www.apqc.org/. Accessed 12 Jul 2017
[6] ISO/TR 10314-1:1990 Industrial automation - Shop floor production - Part 1: Reference
model for standardization and a methodology for identification of requirements.
https://www.iso.org/standard/18360.html. Accessed 12 Jul 2017
[7] ebXML (2001) ebXML Catalog of Common Business Processes v1. 0. UN/CEFACT and
OASIS
[8] ebXML (2001) The role of context in the re-usability of Core Components and Business
Processes. UN/CEFACT and OASIS
[9] Ljubicic M, Ivezic N, Kulvatunyou B, et al. (2017) Business Process Model Life-Cycle
Management in Cloud Manufacturing. Proceedings of the ASME 2017 International
Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference
[10] ebXML RIM (2012) OASIS ebXML RegRep Version 4.0 Part 1: Registry Information
Model (ebRIM). OASIS
[11] Zachman J (2002) The Zachman Framework for Enterprise Architecture.
[12] Kulvatunyou, B., Ivezic, N., and Srinivasan V. "On architecting and composing engineering
information services to enable smart manufacturing." Journal of computing and information
science in engineering 16.3 (2016).