Requirements and Tools for Variability Management

Marco Aiello, Pavel Bulanov, Heerko Groefsema

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionAcademicpeer-review

29 Citations (Scopus)
324 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Explicit and software-supported Business Process Management has become the core infrastructure of any medium and large organization that has a need to be efficient and effective. The number of processes of a single organization can be very high, furthermore, they might be very similar, be in need of momentary change, or evolve frequently. If the ad-hoc adaptation and customization of processes is currently the dominant way, it clearly is not the best. In fact, providing tools for supporting the explicit management of variation in processes (due to customization or evolution needs) has a profound impact on the overall life-cycle of processes in organizations. Additionally, with the increasing adoption of Service-Oriented Architectures, the infrastructure to support automatic reconfiguration and adaptation of business process is solid. In this paper, after defining variability in business process management, we consider the requirements for explicit variation handling for (service based) business process systems. eGovernment serves as an illustrative example of reuse. In this case study, all local municipalities need to implement the same general legal process while adapting it to the local business practices and IT infrastructure needs. Finally, an evaluation of existing tools for explicit variability management is provided with respect to the requirements identified.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationComputer Software and Applications Conference Workshops (COMPSACW)
PublisherIEEE (The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
Pages245-250
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9780769541051
ISBN (Print)9781424480890
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2010
EventWorkshop on Requirement Engineering for Services - Seoul, Korea, Republic of
Duration: 19-Jul-201023-Jul-2010

Workshop

WorkshopWorkshop on Requirement Engineering for Services
Country/TerritoryKorea, Republic of
CitySeoul
Period19/07/201023/07/2010

Keywords

  • workflow management software
  • software architecture
  • business data processing
  • web services

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