Incorporating structural improvement into resource allocation for business process execution planning

Abstract

Resource management has been recognised as an important topic for business process execution for a long time. Most existing works on resource allocation for business processes simply assume that the structure of a business process is always fixed, and therefore do not discuss the possibility of optimising resource allocation by adapting process structures to actual resource situations. To fill this gap, we propose a resource optimisation approach of improving process structures according to resource situations and thereby pursuing the best resource utilisation efficiency. This approach comprises a role-based business process model for resource allocation and the strategies for optimising resource allocation in conjunction with a business process improvement. A set of heuristic rules are established to guide the resource allocation for the purposes of preventing resource conflicts, shortening the total execution time, minimising the total cost, etc. Particular algorithms are also developed to implement the resource allocation according to these rules. In addition, an experimental study is conducted to discuss the incorporation of business process improvement into resource allocation for optimal process execution. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.