Supporting the management of change in business processes using intelligent
task management and coordination technologies
OVERVIEW
The overall aim of the TBPM project is
to support the management of change in business processes with the help
of intelligent task management and coordination technologies. To provide
this support in a realistic business environment integration of existing
tools and systems and effective communication must be achieved. In order
to make the intelligent task management and coordination technologies feasible,
advanced process modelling techniques are required together with an agreed
terminology (ontology).
We propose to produce the following:
-
an advanced process modeller for capturing the knowledge about processes
required for task management and coordination.
-
an ontology as a basis for modelling, integration, and communication.
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an agent-based architecture for integration together with support for agent
development.
-
a task manager for the enactment of processes which directly supports user
tasks with the help of advanced task management and coordination technologies.
-
a set of models of a suitable process to show how our approach addresses
issues of business process modelling and to illustrate how our results
are applied in a realistic business situation.
PARTICIPANTS
The TBPM is a collaborative project between the Artificial
Intelligence Applications Institute of the Division
of Informatics at The University
of Edinburgh and the Plant
Engineering Group of the Department
of Chemical Engineering at Loughborough
University with industrial participation from BG
(formally British Gas), ICI, and Unilever.
This work is funded by EPSRC as
part of the SEBPC
programme.
COMPONENTS
Process Modeller
The work is drawing on results from previous projects at AIAI like Enterprise
and O-Plan.
The major innovations will be to develop rich representations required
for effective coordination and task management and to provide capture and
visualisation tools for those rich representations. The representations
will be linked into existing and emerging standards.
Ontologies
Ontologies provide the basis for modelling, integration, and communication.
We will develop two ontologies: a process ontology and a domain ontology.
The first will cover processes, roles, tasks, etc. The second will cover
an application domain specified in sufficient detail for task management
requirements. The major innovations will be to develop such ontologies
linking into emerging standards and to use the ontologies for task management
support.
Task and Option Manager
We will design and develop a task and option manager to support the enactment
of processes. The task and option manager will be based on an agent-based
architecture for integration together with support for agent development
(writing new agents and converting legacy systems into agents). The main
innovations will be the direct support of users tasks, the dynamic use
of tools to support tasks, the explicit management of options and the use
of coordination technologies to allow groups of people to contribute to
a common task.
Case Studies
To evaluate the approach we are taking in the project, we will carry out
industrial case studies. In the case studies we will address issues related
to legacy systems, design rationale and conformance to standards in realistic
business situations.
EVENTS
The project team is involved in the organization the following workshops:
PUBLICATIONS
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J. Stader, J. Moore, P. Chung, I. McBriar, M. Ravinranathan, A. Macintosh.
2000:
"Applying Intelligent Workflow Management in the Chemicals Industries";
In
The Workflow Handbook 2001, L. Fisher (ed), Published in association
with the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC), Oct 2000, pp 161-181, ISBN
0-9703509-0-2
Download
postscript (388K)
-
J. Moore, R. Inder, P. Chung, A. Macintosh, and J. Stader. 2000:
"Who Does What? Matching Agents to Tasks in Adaptive Workflow."; In
Proceedings
of the 2nd International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS
2000), B. Sharp, J. Cordeiro, and J. Filipe (eds), Stafford, July 2000,
pp 181-185, ISBN 972-98050-1-6.
Download
postscript (248K)
-
J. Moore, R. Inder, P. Chung, A. Macintosh, and J. Stader. 2000:
"Combining and Adapting Process Patterns for Flexible Workflow"; To be
presented at DEXA 2000 DomE: International Workshop on Enterprise and
Domain Engineering, to be held in conjuction with DEXA 2000: 11th
International Conference on Database and Expert Systems Applications,
London, Greenwich, 4-8 September 2000.
Download
postscript (376K)
-
J. Moore, J. Stader, P. Chung, P. Jarvis, and A. Macintosh. 1999:
"Ontologies to Support the Management of New Product Development in
the Chemical Process Industries"; In Proceedings of the International
Conference on Engineering Design (ICED 99), Munich, Germany; ISBN 3-922979-53-X,
Vol.1, pp 159 - 164.
Download
postscript (240K)
-
J. Moore, J. Stader, P. Chung, A. Casson-du Mont, and A. Macintosh. 1999:
"Intelligent Task Management Support for New Product Development in
the Chemical Process Industries"; In Proceedings of the 6th International
Conference on Product Development Management (IPDM'99), Cambridge,
UK; Vol.2, pp 787-796.
Download
postscript (384K)
-
P. Jarvis, J. Stader, A. Macintosh, J. Moore, and P. Chung. 1999:
"What Right Do You Have to Do That? Infusing Adaptive Workflow Technology
with Knowledge about the Organisational and Authority Context of a Task";
In Proceedings of the First
International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS-99),
Setubal, Portugal.
Download
postscript (448K). Also available as AIAI-TR-233
-
P. Jarvis, J. Stader, A. Macintosh, J. Moore, and P. Chung. 1999:
"Exploiting Organisational Knowledge in Adaptive Workflow Systems";
In SMBPI - System Modelling for Business Process Improvement; D.
Bustard et al (eds); Artech House; Chapter 6; pp 81 - 94; May 2000.
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P. Jarvis, J. Stader, A. Macintosh, J. Moore, and P. Chung. 1999:
"A Framework for Equipping Workflow Systems with Knowledge about Organisational
Structure and Authority"; In Proceedings of the Workshop
on Systems Modeling for Business Process Improvement (SMBPI-99),
University of Ulster, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, UK, pp 205 - 219.
Download
postscript (488K)
-
P. Jarvis, J. Moore, J. Stader, A. Macintosh, and P. Chung. 2000:
"Harnessing AI Technologies to Meet the Requirments of Adaptive Workfow
Systems"; In J. Filipe (ed): Enterprise Information Systems; Kluwer
Academic Publishers. ISBN 0-7923-6239. pp 163 - 170. (Not available for
download due to (c) restrictions)
-
P. Jarvis, J. Moore, J. Stader, A. Macintosh, A. Casson-du Mont, and P.
Chung. 1999:
"Exploiting AI Technologies to Realise Adaptive Workflow Systems";
In Proceedings of the Workshop on Agent Based Systems in the Business
Context held during AAAI-99.
Download
postscript (996K)
-
J. Stader and A. Macintosh. 2000:
" Capability Modelling and Knowledge Management"; In Applications
and Innovations in Expert Systems VII, Proceedings of ES 99 the 19th International
Conference of the BCS Specialist Group on Knowledge-Based Systems and Applied
Artificial Intelligence, Cambridge, December, 1999; Springer-Verlag;
ISBN 1-85233-230-1; pp 33 - 50.
Download
postscript (688K)
-
T. Lydiard, P. Jarvis, and B. Drabble. 1999:
"Realizing Real Commercial Benefit from Workflow: A Report from the
Trenches"; In Proceedings of the Workshop on Agent Based Systems in
the Business Context, to be held during AAAI-99.
PEOPLE
Previous people
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Stuart Aitken
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Andrew Casson-du Mont
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Ian Harrison
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Robert Inder
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Peter Jarvis
RELATED WORK
At AIAI
-
O-Plan - part of the DARPA/Air
Force Research Laboratory (Rome) Planning Initiative (ARPI).
-
Enterprise project
- funded by EPSRC under the ISIP programme
-
ISAT project - part of the
DARPA/Air Force Research Laboratory (Rome) Planning Initiative (ARPI).
-
NIST PSL - National
Institute of Standards and Technology - Process Specification
-
PIF - Process Interchange
Format Standards
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WfMC - Workflow Management Coalition
At Loughborough
Internationally
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We maintain a list
of the academic, commercial and standards organisations related to our
work
INTERNAL WEB PAGES
Page
maintained by Jussi Stader.
Last updated: Thu Aug 21 16:42:46 2003
