Constraint-centric workflow change analytics

In a globalized economic environment with volatile business requirements, continuous process improvement needs to be done regularly in various organizations. However, maintaining the consistency of workflow models under frequent changes is a significant challenge in the management of corporate information services. Unfortunately, few formal approaches are found in the literature for managing workflow changes systematically. In this paper, we propose an analytical framework for workflow change management through formal modeling of workflow constraints, leading to an approach called Constraint-centric Workflow Change Analytics (CWCA). A core component of CWCA is the formal definition and analysis of workflow change anomalies. We operationalize CWCA by developing a change anomaly detection algorithm and validate it in the context of procurement management. A prototype system based on an open-source rule engine is presented to provide a proof-of-concept implementation of CWCA. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.