Business Rules & Processes

Business Incubation Process Framework: The Case of Iranian High-Tech innovations

by Hamed Qahri Saremi

Ontology-based Multi-Agent System to support business users and management

by Dejan Lavbič

Published in Technological and economic development of economy (TEDE) journal and co-authored with Olegas Vasilecas and Rok Rupnik.

For some decision processes a significant added value is achieved when enterprises’ internal Data Warehouse (DW) can... more For some decision processes a significant added value is achieved when enterprises’ internal Data Warehouse (DW) can be integrated and combined with external data gained from web sites of competitors and other relevant Web sources. In this paper we discuss the agent-based integration approach using ontologies (DSS-MAS). In this approach data from internal DW and external sources are scanned by coordinated group of agents, while semantically integrated and relevant data is reported to business users according to business rules. After data from internal DW, Web sources and business rules are acquired, agents using these data and rules can infer new knowledge and therefore facilitate decision making process. Knowledge represented in enterprises’ ontologies is acquired from business users without extensive technical knowledge using user friendly user interface based on constraints and predefined templates. The approach presented in the paper was verified using the case study from the domain of mobile communications with the emphasis on supply and demand of mobile phones.

SBVR Business Rules Generation from Natural Language Specification

by Imran Sarwar Bajwa

AAAI Spring Symposium 2011 – Artificial Intelligence 4 Business Agility, San Francisco, USA, pp:541-545

In this paper, we present a novel approach of translating natural languages specification to SBVR business rules. The... more In this paper, we present a novel approach of translating natural languages specification to SBVR business rules. The business rules constraint business structure or control behaviour of a business process. In modern business modelling, one of the important phases is writing business rules. Typically, a business rule analyst has to manually write hundreds of business rules in a natural language (NL) and then manually translate NL specification of all the rules in a particular rule language such as SBVR, or OCL, as required. However, the manual translation of NL rule specification to formal representation as SBVR rule is not only difficult, complex and time consuming but also can result in erroneous business rules. In this paper, we propose an automated approach that automatically translates the NL (such as English) specification of business rules to SBVR (Semantic Business Vocabulary and Rules) rules. The major challenge in NL to SBVR translation was complex semantic analysis of English language. We have used a rule based algorithm for robust semantic analysis of English and generate SBVR rules. Automated generation of SBVR based Business rules can help in improved and efficient constrained business aspects in a typical business modelling.

Transformation Rules for Translating Business Rules to OCL Constraints

by Imran Sarwar Bajwa

7th Euorpean Conference on Modelling Foundations and Applications (ECMFA 2011) pp:132-143

In design of component based applications, the designers have to produce visual such as Unified Modeling Language... more In design of component based applications, the designers have to produce visual such as Unified Modeling Language (UML) models, and describe the software component interfaces. Business rules and constraints are the key components in the skeletons of software components. Semantic of Business Vocabulary and Rules (SBVR) language is typically used to express constraints in natural language and then a software engineer manually maps SBVR business rules to other formal languages such as UML, Object Constraint Language (OCL) expressions. However, OCL is the only medium used to write constraints for UML models but manual translation of SBVR rules to OCL constraints is difficult, complex and time consuming. Moreover, the lack of tool support for automated creation of OCL constraints from SBVR makes this scenario more complex. As, both SBVR and OCL are based on First-Order Logic (FOL), model transformation technology can be used to automate the transformation of SBVR to OCL. In this research paper, we present a transformation rules based approach to automate the process of SBVR to OCL transformation. The presented approach implemented in SBVR2OCL prototype tool as a proof of concept. The presented method softens the process of creating OCL constraints and also assists the designers by simplifying software designing process.

Design of Decision Service Using Cause-and-Effect Business Process Analysis

by Olga Levina

Business processes are executed according to a
specific business logic that can be formulated as business... more Business processes are executed according to a
specific business logic that can be formulated as business rules.
Often decisions are taken during the course of the process to
fulfill conditions or exceptions leading to process variations.
These decisions are meant to support business process operations and are composed of a set of business rules, additionally being based on a solid process relevant knowledge and know-how.
These processes are here referred to as decision knowledge
intensive processes. In this paper the question of how business
rules and consequently operational decisions can be derived from
the business process model is addressed. The therefore necessary business process analysis and decision identification are performed using the cause-and-effect approach. Service-oriented implementation of the found decisions is suggested and outlined.

SOA and BPM Partnership: A paradigm for Dynamic and Flexible Process and IT Management

by Imran Sarwar Bajwa

WASET 2008 International Conference, Lyon, France pp:16-22

Business Process Management (BPM) helps in optimizing the business processes inside an enterprise. But BPM... more Business Process Management (BPM) helps in optimizing the business processes inside an enterprise. But BPM architecture does not provide any help for extending the enterprise. Modern business environments and rapidly changing technologies are asking for brisk changes in the business processes. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) can help in enabling the success of enterprise-wide BPM. SOA supports agility in software development that is directly related to achieve loose coupling of interacting software agents. Agility is a premium concern of the current software designing architectures. Together, BPM and SOA provide a perfect combination for enterprise computing. SOA provides the capabilities for services to be combined together and to support and create an agile, flexible enterprise. But there are still many questions to answer; BPM is better or SOA? and what is the future track of BPM and SOA? This paper tries to answer some of these important questions.

Exploring the impact of business rules consideration on processes in E-Business

by Olga Levina

Business rules are supposed to enable a better process handling and decrease deployment time when changes in process... more Business rules are supposed to enable a better process handling and decrease deployment time when changes in process logic occurs. Up until now, to the authors' knowledge, these arguments were perfectly as logic reasoning but without any quantitative proof. Here we present a short quantitative study from E-Business context on how a defined and implemented business rule as well as business event processing can affect the processing time of a business process. The simulation was made using a rather simple E-commerce scenario and complex event processing with Esper.

Immanent Non-Algorithmic Rules: An Ontological Study of Social Rules

by Ismael Al-Amoudi

What kind of things are social rules? The paper starts from the critique of social rules articulated by... more What kind of things are social rules? The paper starts from the critique of social rules articulated by ethnomethodologists and proposes an alternative conception of rules as situated, often tacit, imperatives. This ontological theorization borrows insights from critical realism and post-structuralism to explore general features of rules. For instance: they under-determine fields of legitimate actions, are prone to logical stratification, are anchored to desires and are inherently open to interpretation, though in a discursively structured way. Moreover, it is proposed that a rule is social if and only if it is internally related to a social relation. In turn, this helps to clarify and systematize how social rules relate to social positions and identities.

The purpose of this ontological study is three-fold. Firstly, it attempts to articulate a realist conception of rules that avoids their dilution (as in the works of ethnomethodology) as well as their reification into codes or algorithms (as in the works of functionalist sociology). Secondly, it purports to initiate a dialogue with other authors writing on rules such as Giddens, Lawson and Searle. Finally, it aims to facilitate the development of empirical research on rules and related processes of legitimation, identification and subversion

Modeling and Analysis of Business Processes with Business Rules

by Krzysztof Kluza

Abstract only (to get the full version, contact the author of this paper). Co-authored with Grzegorz J. Nalepa and Sebastian Ernst.

Cite as: Nalepa, G.J., Kluza, K., Ernst, S.: Modeling and Analysis of Business Processes with Business Rules. In: Business Process Modeling: Software Engineering, Analysis and Applications. Nova Science Publishers (2011) (in press)

Visual business process representation languages such as BPMN are a useful tool for specification of business... more Visual business process representation languages such as BPMN are a useful tool for specification of business processes. However, practical verification and execution of Business Process Models is a challenging task. One solution to this problem is integration of business processes with business rules, which provides a flexible runtime environment. This chapter concerns Business Process Models as a visual inference specification method for modularized rule bases. To provide the background for this approach, selected analysis and execution methods for Business Processes, such as BPEL and BPMN tools, are presented. Business Processes can be supported with Business Rules as executable logic. Rule-Based Systems have well-established methods for verification and optimization. This chapter presents selected rule-based solutions, such as Drools and XTT2 - a novel visual rule specification that provides formalized analysis - as well as their integration with BPMN as a visual method for inference specification. The proposed BPMN+XTT2 solution combines flexible business process modeling provided by BPMN with verification and execution features of XTT2.