Titulo Estágio
A BPMN Extension for Business Process Digital Twins
Áreas de especialidade
Sistemas de Informação
Local do Estágio
DEI-FCTUC
Enquadramento
A digital twin is a digital replica of a physical object or system, with real-time monitoring and decision-support capabilities. For example, the aeronautical industry is using the concept to improve data collection and analysis of an airplane engine performance, simulating specific events, and optimizing the operation. It is also possible to create replicas of systems or entire processes (e.g., the entire lifecycle of airplane production).
How to model a business process digital twin? Business process management is nowadays well established in organizations, defined as “a structured approach to analyse and continually improve fundamental activities such as manufacturing, marketing, communications and other major elements of a company’s operation” (Zairi, 1997).
Business processes are at the core of digital transformations, justifying extensions in popular modeling languages (Zarour et al., 2019), for example, BPM 2.0 (https://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/2.0/PDF/). The work of Ribeiro et al., (2021) proposes BPMN extensions for industry 4.0 scenarios, considering the modeling of smart manufacturing operations, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and the multiple partners that are involved in inter-organizational operations. Complementing this perspective, Cardoso et al., (2021) propose a modeling approach that incorporates risk assessment operations of the several process tasks. Additional research is necessary to develop and evaluate BPMN extensions that could be adapted or improved to the context of digital twins.
References:
Cardoso, P., Respício, A., & Domingos, D. (2021). RiskaBPMN - A BPMN extension for risk assessment. Procedia Computer Science, 181, 1247–1254. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2021.01.324
Ribeiro, V., Barata, J., & Cunha, P. R. (2021). A BPMN Extension to Model Inter-Organizational Processes in Industry 4.0. International Conference on Information Systems Development.
Zairi, M. (1997). Business process management: a boundaryless approach to modern competitiveness. Business Process Management Journal, 3(1), 64–80.
Zarour, K., Benmerzoug, D., Guermouche, N., & Drira, K. (2019). A systematic literature review on BPMN extensions. Business Process Management Journal, 26(6), 1473–1503. https://doi.org/10.1108/BPMJ-01-2019-0040
Objetivo
The main objectives of this work are:
• Proposal of a BPMN extension to model digital twins of business processes.
• Demonstrate and evaluate the proposed BPMN extension with a real case.
Plano de Trabalhos - Semestre 1
The main phases for the first semester are presented as follows (may overlap):
1) Research the state-of-the-art: digital twins and BPM.
Duration: 2 months
2) Study BPM 2.0 specification and the development of BPMN Extensions. (https://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/2.0/PDF).
Duration: 1 month
3) Initial draft of the BPMN extension, focusing on the identification of modelling attributes, modeling requirements, and domain ontology.
Duration: 1 month
Work results of the semester:
• Literature review about the most relevant concepts and the method to develop BPMN extensions.
• Modeling attributes, modeling requirements, and domain ontology for the business process digital twin.
• Intermediate report.
Plano de Trabalhos - Semestre 2
The main phases for the second semester are presented as follows (may overlap):
4) Development of a modeling notation for the business process digital twin using BPMN 2.0 extensions.
Duration: 3 months
5) Evaluation of the modeling notation. The processes used for evaluation will be obtained from the projects NEXUS and Estrela Twin.
Duration: 1 month
6) Writing of the thesis and a scientific paper
Duration: 2 months
Results of the 2nd semester:
• Scientific publication
• Final report
Condições
The student will be integrated in the Information Systems group (ISG) of CISUC, Department of Informatics Engineering, University of Coimbra. A workplace and the required resources will be provided.
The student will have the opportunity to travel to the selected companies and to present the papers that are accepted at conferences, with expenses paid.
Observações
The student will be engaged with the activities of ISG in a topic with major relevance for industries worldwide. Therefore, this work offers an opportunity to strengthen the skills of IT consultancy and IS design for digital transformation.
Orientador
João Barata, Paulo Rupino da Cunha, Vitor Ribeiro
barata@dei.uc.pt 📩