The DPIL Framework: Tool Support for Agile and Resource-Aware Business Processes

The Declarative Process Intermediate Language (DPIL) is a declarative process modelling language that allows for specifying multiperspective and multi-modal agile, i.e., flexible, processes. The expressiveness of DPIL and its suitability for business process modelling have been evaluated with respect to the well-known Workflow Patterns. The DPIL Framework provides a tool set for supporting agile and resourceaware business processes based on the language DPIL. While the DPIL Modeller component is used to create and verify models, the DPIL Navigator depicts a rule-based execution engine for enacting models. It comprises a web-based worklist which allows process participants to choose and perform tasks. In addition to this, the DPIL Miner component allows for the discovery of DPIL models from event logs. 1 Background and Significance to BPM Two different representational paradigms for business processes can be distinguished: procedural models describe which activities can be executed next and declarative, i.e., rule-based models define execution constraints that the process has to satisfy [1]. In flexible processes the exact flow of activities cannot be fully determined at design time. These processes heavily depend on human participants, their decisions and expert knowledge. These information cannot be identified and formalized in a whole. As a result, these processes require highly flexible IT support. Flexible processes are common in healthcare where, e.g., patient diagnosis and treatment processes require flexibility to cope with unanticipated circumstances. In brief, a more flexible business process and IT support means a greater number of alternative paths. Within a rule-based model initially all paths are considered viable. The more constraints are added to the model the less paths remain. As result, to make a rule-based model more flexible constraints have to be removed or weakened. Moreover, a rule-based model focuses on crosscutting relations instead of the flow of activities. Hence, a rule-based approach is well-suited for modelling flexible processes [1, 2]. As mentioned above, declarative modelling provides means for increasing the number of alternative ? Copyright c ©2015 for this paper by its authors. Copying permitted for private and academic purposes.