Challenges for Business Process and Task Management

Uwe V. Riss (SAP AG, Walldorf, Germany)

Alan Rickayzen (SAP AG, Walldorf, Germany)

Heiko Maus (DFKI GmbH - German Research Center for AI, Germany)

Wil M.P. van der Aalst (Department of Technology Management, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands)

Abstract: Requirements resulting from knowledge intensive work go beyond what is provided by classical workflow management regarding process flexibility and integration into the personal task management. This is demonstrated considering the example of Engineering Change Requests (ECR), handled by an integrated workflow as provided by SAP's Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) with its specific problems. Only a Process-Aware Information System (PAIS) based on a completely new paradigm seems to be able to cope with these problems. Such a new paradigm is introduced and discussed in this paper on the basis of the additional requirements that occur in the described ECR process. Starting point for the approach is a bottom-up scheme that builds process and task related information of case handling as provided through personal task management. It is compared to previous approaches as provided by projects at the DFKI and others. Central components such as personal task management and pattern mining are discussed in more detail. The approach makes more extensive use of knowledge management methods like retrieval and semantic technologies. Advantages for small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) are considered.

Keywords: knowledge work, process-aware information systems, task management

Categories: H.1, H.4.1, H.5.3, I.2.6