=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2973/paper_280
|storemode=property
|title=FEM toolkit – A Tool for Business Process Architects
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2973/paper_280.pdf
|volume=Vol-2973
|authors=Ilia Bider,Dominik Bork,Erik Perjons
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/bpm/BiderBP21
}}
==FEM toolkit – A Tool for Business Process Architects==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2973/paper_280.pdf
FEM toolkit – A Tool for Business Process Architects
Ilia Bider1,2, Dominik Bork3 and Erik Perjons1
1
DSV - Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
2
Institute of Computer Science, University of Tartu, Estonia
3
TU Wien, Business Informatics Group, Favoritenstrasse 9-11, 1040 Vienna, Austria
Abstract
While there are many tools that can depict a business process on any level of detail, there is
lack of tools to depict and/or design process architectures - an interconnected set of business
processes that exist or are to be introduced in an organization. The FEM toolkit bridges this
gap by providing a tool for process architects to discover the process architecture of an
organization as-is or to develop a new one. The FEM toolkit facilitates this by providing means
to discover or develop a so-called Fractal Enterprise Model (FEM) for an organization. FEM
depicts interconnections between the business processes in an enterprise by connecting them
to the assets they use and manage. Assets considered in the model could be tangible (buildings,
heavy machinery, etc.) and intangible (reputation, business process definitions, etc.). The FEM
toolkit has been developed with the help of the metamodeling environment ADOxx. It was
successfully used in a number of practically oriented projects and for teaching purposes.
Keywords 1
business process architecture, fractal enterprise model, FEM, ADOxx
1. Introduction
The field of Business Process Management has a variety of languages and notations to model, depict,
design, simulate and analyze individual processes, including mainstream notations used in practice, like
BPMN [1], and research-oriented ones used mainly by academics, like Petri nets. There are plenty of
computerized tools that support these languages and notations, and they can simulate or execute
business processes according to a model depicted in one of these languages. This level of maturity,
however, has not been reached in the field of business process architecture. There is lack of modelling
notations that could properly depict relationships between indirectly connected processes, like
relationships between a process for hiring people and a process in which they become participants, or
between a process of developing a computer system and the processes that will be using it. This makes
the task of process architects more difficult than the one of individual process modelers.
A toolkit – the FEM toolkit – described in this demo paper fills the gap described above by providing
both, a modeling notation and a tool for drawing architectural diagrams. As a modeling notation, it uses
a so-called Fractal Enterprise Model (FEM) [2]. Initially, FEM was created with the aim of finding a
procedure that helps to discover all processes that exist in an organization. However, the result – FEM
– showed to be more powerful than initially thought. FEM has a form of a directed graph with two basic
types of nodes processes and assets, where the arrows (edges) from assets to processes show which
assets are used in which processes and arrows from processes to assets show which processes help to
have specific assets in “healthy” and working order. The arrows are labeled with metatags that show
in what way a given asset is used, e.g. as workforce, reputation, infrastructure, etc., or in what way a
given process helps to have the given assets “in order”, i.e. acquire, maintain, or retire. Besides
processes and assets, the latest version of FEM includes two new types of nodes – external pool and
Proceedings of the Demonstration & Resources Track, Best BPM Dissertation Award, and Doctoral Consortium at BPM 2021 co-located with the
19th International Conference on Business Process Management, BPM 2021, Rome, Italy, September 6-10, 2021
EMAIL: ilia@dsv.su.se (I. Bider); dominik.bork@tuwien.ac.at (D. Bork); perjons@dsv.su.se (E. Perjons)
ORCID: 0000-0002-3490-6092 (I. Bider); 0000-0001-8259-2297 (D. Bork); 0000-0001-9044-5836 (E. Perjons)
© 2021 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org)
external actor [3]. These are introduced to represent the environment outside the organization, e.g.,
markets or competitors, and connect it to the internal operational activities.
The three distinct features of FEM are:
1. It allows to depict indirect connections between two processes via assets that these processes
share, or one process manages an asset and the other process uses it.
2. It allows to depict the context of each process, internal – related assets and processes, as well as
external – related pools and external actors.
3. It includes a so-called unfolding procedure supported by archetypes (patterns) that guide the
modeler when he/she is building a FEM. This is especially important for modern organizations,
in which there seldom exists a person who has a holistic view on operational activities of the
whole company.
The FEM toolkit is a computerized tool that supports drawing FEM diagrams. It is built on the
ADOxx metamodeling environment [4], [5], and it works as a standalone application for a variety of
operational environments: Windows, Mac, and Linux.
2. Main features
FEM is unique in its approach to represent connections between the processes via assets [2]. In FEM,
graphically, a process is represented by an oval, an asset is represented by a rectangle (box), while a
relationship between a process and an asset is represented by an arrow, see example in Fig. 1. We
differentiate two types of relationships in the fractal model. One type represents a relationship of a
process “using” an asset; in this case, the arrow points from the asset to the process and has a solid line.
The other type represents a relationship of a process changing the asset; in this case, the arrow points
from the process to the asset and has a dashed line. These two types of relationships allow tying up
processes and assets in a directed graph.
In FEM, a label inside an oval names the given process, and a label inside a rectangle names the
given asset. Arrows are also labeled to show the type of relationships between the processes and assets.
A label on an arrow pointing from an asset to a process identifies the role the given asset plays in the
process, for example, workforce or infrastructure. A label on an arrow pointing from a process to an
asset identifies the way in which the process affects (i.e., changes) the asset. In FEM, an asset is
considered as a pool of entities capable of playing a given role in a given process. Labels leading into
assets from processes reflect the way the pool is affected, for example, the label acquire identifies that
the process can/should increase the pool size.
Note that the same asset can be used in multiple processes playing the same or different roles in
them, which is reflected by labels on the corresponding arrows. It is also possible that the same asset
plays multiple roles in the same process. In this case, several labels can be placed on the arrow between
the asset and the process. Similarly, a process could affect multiple assets, each in the same or in
different ways, which is represented by the corresponding labels on the arrows. Moreover, it is possible
that a single process affects a single asset in multiple ways, which is represented by having two or more
labels on the corresponding arrow.
Labels inside ovals (which represent processes) and rectangles (which represent assets) are not
standardized. They can be set according to the terminology accepted in the given domain, or be specific
for a given organization. Labels on arrows (which represent the relationships between processes and
assets) are standardized. This is done by using a relatively limited set of abstract relations, such as,
workforce or acquire, which are clarified by the domain- and context-specific labels inside ovals and
rectangles. Standardization improves the understandability of the models.
While there are a number of types of relationships that show how an asset is used in a process, there
are only three types of relationships that describe how an asset is managed by a process – Acquire,
Maintain and Retire.
To make the work of building a fractal model more systematic, FEM uses archetypes (or patterns)
for fragments from which a particular model can be built. An archetype is a template defined as a
fragment of a model where labels inside ovals (processes) and rectangles (assets) are omitted, but arrows
are labelled. Instantiating an archetype means putting the fragment inside the model and labelling ovals
and rectangles; it is also possible to add elements absent in the archetype, or omit some elements that
are present in the archetype.
Figure 1: An example of a FEM in the FEM toolkit.
FEM has two types of archetypes, process-assets archetypes and an asset-processes archetype. A
process-assets archetype represents the kinds of assets that can be used in a given category of processes,
see an example in Fig. 2. The asset-processes archetype shows the kinds of processes that are aimed at
changing the given category of assets. The whole FEM graph can be built by alternative application of
these two archetypes in a recursive manner representing self-similar patterns on different scales,
fractals. The term fractal in the name of our modelling technique points to the recursive nature of the
model.
Figure 2: A generic process-assets archetype.
The unfolding procedure supported by archetypes has proven to be useful when gathering
information to depict the process architecture of an organization. As soon as a process that exists in the
organization has been discovered, a set of questions, which are derived from an archetype, can be asked,
e.g., who participates in the process, or which software systems are used. Also, as soon as an asset is
discovered, another set of question arises, e.g., which processes add new elements to the asset. This
way of gathering information is especially useful for novice modelers and in a situation when a modeler
investigates an organization unknown to him/her.
Besides the processes and assets, FEM has two, recently added elements – external pools and
external actors – to represent the external context of internal processes, see Fig. 1, which has one pool
– a cloud shape, and one external actor – a rectangle with round corners; the double line in the external
actor shape indicates that there is more than one competitor.
The FEM toolkit was developed with the goal to support drawing of FEM diagrams. Besides
ensuring syntactic correctness when drawing a diagram, the FEM toolkit also implements a number of
useful features, which make the task of the process architect easier, namely the toolkit:
1. Supports archetypes that can automatically expand a FEM diagram. An archetype is invoked by
pressing on the “+” sign at the bottom of the element of the model to which that archetype is to
be applied to (see Fig.1).
2. Supports ghosting to solve the problem of multiple instances of the same model element
appearing in the same or different diagrams. A ghost is a copy of an already existing model
element, which has an arrow on the upper-left side of the shape (see Fig. 1). Ghosting is
accompanied with a navigation mechanism that allows to find all occurrences in the same or
different diagrams (e.g., via clicking on the arrow).
3. Supports decomposing processes and assets.
4. Supports flexible subclassing defined by a modeler at “runtime”, which are expressed by
dedicated background colors of FEM elements. This is demonstrated in Fig. 1, which is related
to a business model transformation example from [6]. The light brown color of the top process
indicates that it is a main process – a process that delivers value to the customers. The yellow
color indicates a process that potentially can become a new main process. The blue color indicates
the elements that can be reused in a new business model.
Some of these features (1 and 2) where implemented directly in the first version of the tool, others
(3 and 4) “emerged” in the subsequent versions based on the experience of using the tool in practice. A
more detailed introduction to these features is given in [7].
3. Maturity
FEM as a language and notation is relatively mature, and it was used in a number of projects through
the years, see, for example, [8]. Also, FEM is constantly revised and extended. The FEM toolkit is a
relatively new tool created one and a half years ago, and currently, it is in a stable version 0.7, while
version 0.8 is in preparation. Nevertheless, the toolkit has already been used in practical projects; the
results from one of them have already been published [9], while the results from another are accepted
for publication and will be published shortly.
Besides the usage of the toolkit in practical projects by professionals, it was successfully used by
master students in their thesis projects. One such project was finding areas of improvements in a
sourcing (purchasing) process in an international concern. The toolkit was also used for teaching in two
master-level courses – one course was hold at Stockholm University, the other one at the University of
Tartu.
More resources related to FEM and the FEM toolkit, including bibliography, video recording of
presentations, and the latest version of the FEM toolkit for download are freely available from [10].
Acknowledgements
The work of the first author was partly supported by the Estonian Research Council (grant
PRG1226). The authors are very grateful to Steven Leego, Erik Falenius and August Carlsson who
independently tested the FEM toolkit in practical projects.
References
[1] OMG: Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN), Version 2.0.2, Object Management Group
(OMG), Document formal/2013-12-09, December 2013. (Accessed February 2015) Available at:
http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/2.0.2/PDF
[2] Bider, I., Perjons, E., Elias, M., Johannesson, P.: A fractal enterprise model and its application
for business development. SoSyM 16(3), 663–689 (2017)
[3] Bider, I.: Structural Coupling, Strategy and Fractal Enterprise Modeling. In : Research Challenges
in Information Science. RCIS 2020, LNBIP 385. Springer (2020) 95-111
[4] ADOxx.org: ADOxx. (Accessed 2017) Available at: https://www.adoxx.org
[5] Bork, D., Buchmann, R., Karagiannis, D., Lee, M., Miron, E.: An Open Platform for Modeling
Method Conceptualization: The OMiLAB Digital Ecosystem. Communications of the
Association for Information Systems 44 (2019)
[6] Bider, I., Lodhi, A.: Moving from Manufacturing to Software Business: A Business Model
Transformation Pattern. In : Enterprise Information Systems. ICEIS 2019, LNBIP 378. Springer
(2020) 514-530
[7] Bider, I., Perjons, E., Bork, D.: Towards on-the-fly creation of modeling language jargons. In :
ICTERI’21: 17th International Conference on ICT in Education, Research, and Industrial
Applications, p.in press. (2021)
[8] Bider, I., Chalak, A.: Evaluating Usefulness of a Fractal Enterprise Model Experience Report. In
: Enterprise, Business-Process and Information Systems Modeling. BPMDS 2019, EMMSAD
2019, LNBIP, vol. 352, pp.359-373 (2019)
[9] Klyukina, V., Bider, I., Perjons, E.: Does Fractal Enterprise Model Fit Operational Decision
Making? In : Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Enterprise Information System
(ICEIS) 2021, p.Forthcoming (2021)
[10] fractalmodel.org: FEM toolkit. (Accessed March 2021) Available at:
https://www.fractalmodel.org/fem-toolkit/