Abstract
Recent research has shown that business process models from practice suffer from several quality problems. In particular, the correctness of control flow has been analyzed for industry-scale collections of process models revealing high error rates. In the past, structuredness has been discussed as a guideline to avoid errors, first in research on programming, and later also in business process modeling. In this paper we investigate the importance of structuredness for process model correctness from an empirical perspective. We introduce definitions of two metrics that capture the degree of (un)structuredness of a process model. Then, we use the Event-driven Process Chain models of the SAP Reference Model for validating the capability of these metrics to predict error probability. Our findings support the importance of structuredness as a design principle for achieving correctness in process models.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Krogstie, J., Sindre, G., Jørgensen, H.: Process models representing knowledge for action: a revised quality framework. Europ. J. of Inf. Systems 15, 91–102 (2006)
Mendling, J., Verbeek, H., Dongen, B., van der Aalst, W., Neumann, G.: Detection and Prediction of Errors in EPCs of the SAP Reference Model. Data & Knowledge Engineering (accepted for publication, 2007)
Gruhn, V., Laue, R.: What business process modelers can learn from programmers. Science of Computer Programming 65, 4–13 (2007)
Vanhatalo, J., Völzer, H., Leymann, F.: Faster and more focused control-flow analysis for business process models through sese decomposition. In: Krämer, B.J., Lin, K.-J., Narasimhan, P. (eds.) ICSOC 2007. LNCS, vol. 4749, pp. 43–55. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)
Mendling, J.: Detection and Prediction of Errors in EPC Business Process Models. PhD thesis, Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration (2007)
Mendling, J., Neumann, G., van der Aalst, W.: Understanding the occurrence of errors in process models based on metrics. In: Meersman, R., Tari, Z. (eds.) OTM 2007, Part I. LNCS, vol. 4803, pp. 113–130. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)
Oulsnam, G.: Unravelling unstructured programs. Comp. J. 25, 379–387 (1982)
Ammarguellat, Z.: A control-flow normalization algorithm and its complexity. IEEE Trans. Software Eng. 18, 237–251 (1992)
Ouyang, C., Dumas, M., Breutel, S., ter Hofstede, A.: Translating standard process models to BPEL. In: Dubois, E., Pohl, K. (eds.) CAiSE 2006. LNCS, vol. 4001, pp. 417–432. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)
van der Aalst, W., Lassen, K.: Translating unstructured workflow processes to readable BPEL: Theory and implementation. Inf. & Softw. Techn. (In Press, 2006)
Mendling, J., van der Aalst, W.: Formalization and Verification of EPCs with OR-Joins Based on State and Context. In: Krogstie, J., Opdahl, A., Sindre, G. (eds.) CAiSE 2007 and WES 2007. LNCS, vol. 4495, pp. 439–453. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)
Hosmer, D., Lemeshow, S.: Applied Logistic Regression, 2nd edn. Wiley, Chichester (2000)
van der Aalst, W.M.: Formalization and verification of Event-Driven Process Chains. Information & Software Technology 41, 639–650 (1999)
Gruhn, V., Laue, R.: Good and bad excuses for unstructured business process models. In: EuroPLoP 2007, Proceedings (to appear)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Laue, R., Mendling, J. (2008). The Impact of Structuredness on Error Probability of Process Models. In: Kaschek, R., Kop, C., Steinberger, C., Fliedl, G. (eds) Information Systems and e-Business Technologies. UNISCON 2008. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 5. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-78942-0_56
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-78942-0_56
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-78941-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-78942-0
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)