Flexibility requirements in real-world process scenarios and prototypical realization in the care domain

Abstract

Flexibility is a key concern in business process management and mature solutions and systems have been developed during the last years. What can be observed is that the approaches mostly consider process instances that are executed based on a process schema reflecting a process type, e.g., an order process. The process instances might be adapted during runtime in an individual manner (ad-hoc changes) or the process schema evolves due to, for example, new regulations. We studied cases from four different domains for their requirements on flexibility. These use cases are characterized by long running, highly adaptive, and individual instances, i.e., instances that are not based on a common process schema, but develop during runtime based on context and processrelevant data. The requirements analysis shows that can only part of them can be met by existing approaches. To illustrate an initial solution meeting the identified requirements, a prototypical implementation of the care domain use case is demonstrated, followed by a discussion of lessons learned and a research agenda.