Modeling Workflows and Processes by Business Rules: MITS5507 Report

This report critically analyzes the academic paper "Modeling Workflows and Processes by Business Rules" by Knolmayer, Endl, and Pfahrer. The paper emphasizes the significance of business rules, particularly Event-Condition-Action (ECA) rules, in modeling workflows and processes within contemporary organizations. It explores how business rules serve as guidelines and restrictions, providing a framework for efficient project management and ensuring that projects meet desired deliverables, especially in smart/intelligent environments. The report delves into the ECA rules, detailing their components (Event, Condition, and Action) and their role in defining the dynamic performance of database management systems. It also examines the application of these rules in various contexts, including active databases, personalization, and the development of intelligent environments. Furthermore, the report highlights the use of rule repositories for managing and refining business rules, enhancing information access for stakeholders. The analysis covers the importance of business rules in integrating different modeling tools and techniques, contributing to an organization's competitiveness.

MODELING WORKFLOWS AND PROCESSES BY BUSINESS RULES

Abstract
Business rules play an essential role in today’s
business environment because they help model
workflows and business processes in the
organization. The rules do not necessary have to be
written in a book because employees can memorize
them. One of the most important business rules is
the ECA rules (Event, condition, and actions).
These rules ensure that projects meet their desired
deliverables, to be precise in Smart /Intelligent
environments. Therefore, the paper focuses on
reviewing an article that revolves around the use of
business rules to model workflows and processes in
contemporary organizations
Index Terms—
Business Rules, ECA, Processes, Workflow
I. INTRODUCTION
Business rules play an essential role in various
processes that characterize the effective functioning
of an organization. For instance, they are applicable
in the deployment, testing, and the gathering of
information regarding a product. They also govern
product validity as they are pertinent throughout the
product life cycle such as software development.
They are often embedded in the minds of
employees or stored in a central repository which is
either a global repository or project specific
repository in the company [9]. Project managers use
them (business rules) as decision points to
determine project deliverables. Therefore, to
succeed in today’s competitive business
environment, organizations must know where they
stand in regards to industry standards so that they
can withstand competition and design products that
meet the needs and wants of their target market.
Therefore, the project critiques an article that
details the importance of business process modeling
and management in contemporary organizations.
Article Analysis

Reference Article: G. Knolmayer, R. Endl and
M. Pfahrer, Modeling processes and work flows
by business rules. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer,
2000.
Knolmayer, Endl, and Pfahrer in their article
primarily focus on describing a rule-based approach
for modeling workflows and business processes in
an organization. The authors define business rules
as statements that provide employees with
restrictions and guidelines regarding organizational
processes. Business rules assume different forms
including books, standards documents, process
models, and any other manuscript that contain rules
that govern employee behaviors [9]. In most
instances, employees do not formally express
business rules because they have memorized and
experienced them. For this reason, organizations
must make sure that business rules are expressed
rigorously and consistently by their staffs. This is
attributable to the fact that business rules are crucial
in maintaining market share, protecting revenues,
reducing operational costs, and mitigating risks [9,
12]. In this context, Knolmayer and colleagues
point out that there exist distinct tools and methods
for describing business workflows and processes in
an organization [7]. However, they note that these
tools and methods vary in their ease of use,
notation, and constructs. Therefore, the tool
identified depends on the development process that
the organization is engaging on.
Describing the Intention of the Article
The article intention is to provide its target audience
with a detailed description of a rule-based strategy
for modeling workflows and processes in the
organization. The article also introduces an
expanded Event-Condition-Action (ECA) notation
after which the authors develop an approach for
refining business rules [7]. According to the
analysis and comparisons of distinct case studies, it
is apparent that rule-based methodology has
numerous benefits compared to Event-Driven
Process Chains and Petri-Nets, which are processes
that are already established in the market. Unlike
Modeling Workflows and Processes by Business Rules
(May 2019)First A. Author, Second B. Author, Jr., and Third C. Author, Member, IEEE
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MODELING WORKFLOWS AND PROCESSES BY BUSINESS RULES
the others, business rules are a crucial aspect of
contemporary information systems and are being
adopted by consulting and software companies to
govern their activities.
Critiquing the Content of the Article
The article content is brief and to the point. It
provides the importance of business rules in
contemporary organizations as well as the ECA
rules. The business rules are defined by two types
of relationships; the relationship at the abstract level
and the hierarchical relationship. The relationship
at the abstract level controls the flow of work
between distinct components that are found at this
level [7]. The hierarchal relationship, in contrast,
focuses on the generation of business rules from
higher-level rules so that they can be used at the
lower abstraction level [7]. For all these reasons,
the business rule approach provides organizations
with an integration platform to execute its
workflows using distinct target systems and
modeling techniques.
The article also does a great job in explaining how
organizations can enhance the dependencies
between workflow and process models at distinct
modeling stages. For instance, the authors note the
importance of using rule repository in keeping
business rules with the sole purpose of enhancing
information access by distinct stakeholders.
Business rule repository is vital in supporting rule-
related needs of all information technology
stakeholders and business [11]. The repository also
provides project managers with an opportunity to
analyze the impacts of a project on end users and
the organization. It also enhances the integrity and
security of rule-related data and of the business [4].
It is also worthwhile to note that rule repository
provides the development environment with a wide
range of tools to enhance the success of a project.
The most important tools include data modeling
tool, refinement tool, process modeling tool, and
organization modeling tool [8, 12]. It also imports
functions for distinct process modeling tools
including generating a variety of workflow
management system.
The ECA Rules
The article also succeeds in helping the reader
understand the importance of ECA rules in software
development. The ECA rules (Event, condition, and
actions) are part and parcel of an active database
management system. The event aspect specifies
when it is viable to execute a rule. It helps project
managers in transitioning from one phase of the
project to the other [7]. The condition aspect
highlights the situation that must be assessed before
undertaking any action while the action component
outlines what needs to be done depending on the
outcome obtained after assessing the condition
component [5]. For this reason, ECA rules specify
the dynamic performances of a database
management system in addition to validating
business rules at the abstract level. In some
instances, the abbreviation ECA is extended to
become ECAA where the last letter “A” stands for
alternative action. The alternative action is
implemented when the assessment of the condition
aspect turns out to false [1, 7]. It is thus evident that
these rules are essential in smart environments or
smart spaces. Ordinary users can utilize ECA
standards to generate rules that can allow them to
perform a wide range of functions in a Smart
environment or space. ECA rules can also be
utilized in verifying the effectiveness of software
and in also avoiding data loss given the uncertainty
that characterizes today’s business environments.
Intelligent environments are expanding at a rapid
rate resulting in researches that are beneficial to the
society. Intelligent Environments (IE) entail a wide
range of applications and scenarios that improves
the functioning an organization, to be precise its
workflows and processes [3]. However, intelligent
environments often react to events in their
immediate surroundings to maintain an ongoing
contact with it. For this reason, it is important to use
rules to program intelligent environments. The rules
often assume the form of ECA (Event-Condition-
Action) rule [10]. Therefore, Santana et al.
highlight the importance of utilizing ECA rules to
enhance the desired behavior, security, safety, and
reliability of intelligent environments [2, 6]. The
process of programming a rule-based system is
prone to errors and somewhat challenging because
of the unpredictability caused in the behavior of the
system through the interaction of various rules.
ECAA-notation and Workflow and Process
Modeling
To model the control flow, it is necessary to cover
the following situations: iteration of actions;
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MODELING WORKFLOWS AND PROCESSES BY BUSINESS RULES
alternate actions, parallel actions, and sequence of
actions [7]. These constructs might be represented
by a mixture of ECAA and EA rules or EA rules in
isolation. In the modeling of sequence actions, an
organization connects related business rules within
a business process. This is applicable when an
action in the previous event appears to influence an
action in the succeeding rule [7]. However, for
parallel actions, the control flow can be split into
parallel paths so that they can be modeled
differently. The authors assert that alternate actions
might either be non-exclusive (OR-Split) or
exclusive (XOR-split). Distinct actions components
of the ECAA rule can model exclusive alternatives
to raise various events [7]. Non-exclusive
alternation actions, in contrast, utilize various ECA
rules activated by a similar event though resulting
in different conditions. Modeling iterations might
be performed repeatedly to raise a similar event
which can be done either explicitly or implicitly.
Conclusion
It is apparent from research that business rules are
integral in the management and competitiveness of
an organization. The rules are crucial in modeling
workflows and business processes by acting as an
integration platform for distinct modeling tools and
techniques. The rules can exist in various forms as
industry standards, books, standard documents, or
process models. For this reason, their storage can
either be formal or informal. For instance, they can
be kept in an organizational book or the minds of
the employees. The rules not only enhance the
integrity of organizational data but also limits or
define employees’ behavior in an organization.
ECA (Event-Condition-Action) rules are vital in
today’s Smart Environments. The rules are
paramount in enhancing the reliability, safety, and
security of the intelligent environments. For this
reason, they are widely utilized in distinct settings
including active databases, subscribe/publish
technology, personalization, and in implementing
and specifying business processes. From the article,
I have learned the importance of business rules
including the application of ECA rules given the
rapidly transforming technological environment.
The article is relevant to what I am studying
because its major focus is on business process
modeling and management.
Bibliography
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