Context-Based Assignment and Execution of Human-Centric Mobile Services

Performing tasks with the help of smart mobile devices is demanded for various areas in everyday life. In business environments, for example, tasks requiring complex paper work (e.g., paper-based documentation in the context of machine maintenance) shall be digitally transformed with the use of smart mobile devices. However, the realization of respective mobile applications is challenging as coordination issues have to be addressed in this context. For example, mobile application A performing task A may have to be finished before mobile application B performing task B may be started, i.e., human-centric mobile services need to be coordinated. To accomplish the latter, a formal context capturing service dependencies is required, while at the same time considering the mobile context of each involved human-centric mobile service needs to be considered. The presented approach extends existing process management technology with mobile activities to enable this. More precisely, we developed a mobile context framework that allows for a robust and flexible execution of mobile activities. The feasibility of the approach is demonstrated through a prototypical implementation as well as case studies. Altogether, the support of human-centric mobile services is promising regarding work efficiency in numerous scenarios and application domains in everyday life.