Specification and Management of Complex Resources in a Process Environment

Business process management system have become very important in the last years. They have changed many different domains. One area where so far very little interaction with processes has taken place is in the specification and management of resources. The high importance that resources have in organizations and their direct influence on the execution of processes, show, however, that this is an ideal subject to bring into the business process world.

This work shows how a model for the specification and management of complex resources in a process environment can be developed. It demonstrates what kind of requirement have to be met, both for the sake of correct representation of the resources themselves and for the sake of a functioning integration with the business processes. It shows how all aspects of the business processes have to be taken into account and what concepts are important in the different phases of the business process lifecycle. The impact that the integration of resources has on adaptive process management is presented. Similarly it is shown what business intelligence can achieve for resources. Finally, a working prototype for the integration of resources into the business process management system AristaFlow is shown.