Meet the challenge in service identification: A ratio-based approach

Business processes in todays German universities possess high reorganization potential through Information Technology (IT). In particular service-oriented architectures (SOA) gain importance and respective development projects are started, distributed with respect to personnel, place and can comprise diverse organizations. We assume that a detailed analysis of company’s business process structure is a prerequisite to define useful services. In the SOA domain, the process landscape is most likely modelled in distributed modelling projects. This leads to variations since distributed models e. g. do not necessarly share the same level of detail. Thus, the model integration is a necessary step that has to be done before core functions can be identified within the documented processes for a planned implementation of services for a SOA. As the process models are documented electronically using a modeling tool, the process of identifying the service candidates can be supported by an automatic analysis of the process models. We introduce an approach to support the identification of services by using ratios generated out of the business process models and demonstrate its applicability within the research program.