Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
In the third step, a process model is generated for the chosen path.
Eventually, the last step in the methodology concerns the implementation of
the monitoring process. In this regard, we discuss an architecture for the imple-
mentation of the methodology in a service-oriented environment. This discussion
is made in Section 4.
From now on, the paper will focus on the application of PBWD to design
monitoring processes to satisfy the monitoring requirements of the consumer
(stakeholder) in the running example depicted in Fig. 1. In order to decrease its
own risk, the consumer is interested in monitoring (i) the status of the payment
and (ii) the progress of requests on the supplier side. Monitoring information
on the payment can be reconstructed as a combination of information on when
the factor sent out the payment and information on when the supplier received
the payment. If for instance, the factor has sent out the payment, but this has
not been acknowledged by the supplier in a reasonably short period, then the
payment may not have been successful.
Monitoring information on the progress of an order can be provided either by
the supplier or directly by the contractors. The supplier has only a low-quality
view on the order progress, e.g. the supplier may only report that the order
has been sent to contractor 1, but he cannot access the details of the internal
enactment of contractor 1's process. More detailed monitoring information can
be provided directly by contractors.
3.1 The Product Data Model
Fig. 3 summarizes in a PDM the information products available to satisfy the
monitoring information requirements of the consumer. A PDM is constituted
by information products and operations. Information products in the PDM are
depicted by circles, while the operations performed on the input elements to
produce the output are represented by hyperarcs. Each operation has zero or
more input elements and has exactly one output element, i.e. the information
product obtained through the combination of its input elements. A PDM may
contain alternative paths to produce a certain information element. Hence, we
define a
path
as any sub-graph of the PDM. A
complete
path is a sub-graph of
the PDM containing the root element.
In our example, the correct monitoring information for the consumer
(MON)
is obtained combining information on the delivery of the payment
(PAY) and
information on the progress of the request
(PRO)
. The monitoring information
PAY
can be obtained either as information on when the factor has sent out
the payment (
PF
), information on when the supplier has received the payment
(
PS
),
or
a combination thereof. The progress report (
PRO
) can be obtained
either from the supplier (
SPx
)
or
from the contractors (
Eyx
). Note that
x
rep-
resents the quality of the provided monitoring information, i.e. High or Low
(
x
). The supplier and
contractors 1 and 2 can provide two different types of monitoring information,
that is, more or less accurate (see
SPH
and
SPL
or
E1H
and
E1L
).
∈{
H, L
}
), whereas
y
identifies the contractor (
y
∈{
1
,
2
}
