Computer Programs, Methods, Apparatus and Systems Providing Improved Evaluation of Business Processes

• US 20090192842A1
• Filed: 01/29/2008
• Published: 07/30/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 01/29/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ServiceNow Incorporated
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Ludwig, Heiko, Kanevsky, Dimitri, Grabarnik, Genady, Shwartz, Larisa
• Granted Patent: US 8,103,535 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/7.27
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06313 Resource planning in a project environment
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0633 Workflow analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0637 Strategic management or analysis, e.g. setting a goal or target of an organisation; Planning actions based on goals; Analysis or evaluation of effectiveness of goals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0639 Performance analysis of employees; Performance analysis of enterprise or organisation operations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0206 Price or cost determination based on market factors

Abstract

The exemplary embodiments of the invention provide computer programs, methods, apparatus and systems that describe techniques providing improved evaluation of business processes based on considerations such as throughput and/or parallelization. As a non-limiting example, such techniques may be useful for evaluating agreements between entities, such as SLAs between a service provider and another entity (e.g., a supplier or customer of the service provider), for example. In one exemplary embodiment of the invention, a method includes: obtaining a workflow model having a plurality of atomic processes, each atomic process having a distribution of throughput; determining an overall distribution of throughput for the workflow model using the distributions of throughput of the atomic processes; and outputting a determination of whether an agreement relating to the workflow model is fit based on the determined overall distribution of throughput.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

obtaining a workflow model comprising a plurality of atomic processes, each atomic process having a distribution of throughput;

determining an overall distribution of throughput for the workflow model using the distributions of throughput of the atomic processes; and

outputting a determination of whether an agreement relating to the workflow model is fit based on the determined overall distribution of throughput.

2. A method as in claim 1, wherein determining an overall distribution of throughput for the workflow model comprises at least one of removing a loop from the workflow model or combining at least two atomic processes.

3. A method as in claim 1, wherein the determination of whether an agreement is fit is further based on an overall distribution of execution time for the workflow model.

4. A method as in claim 3, further comprising:

determining the overall distribution of execution time for the workflow model using distributions of execution time of the atomic processes.

5. A method as in claim 1, wherein the determination of whether an agreement is fit is further based on a profit and loss function for the agreement.

6. A method as in claim 1, wherein the determined overall distribution of throughput for the workflow model is further based on a parallelization level of the atomic processes.

7. A method as in claim 1, wherein the workflow model is representative of a business process.

8. A program storage device readable by a machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine for performing operations, said operations comprising:

obtaining a workflow model comprising a plurality of atomic processes, each atomic process having a distribution of throughput;

determining an overall distribution of throughput for the workflow model using the distributions of throughput of the atomic processes; and

outputting a determination of whether an agreement relating to the workflow model is fit based on the determined overall distribution of throughput.

9. A program storage device as in claim 8;

wherein determining an overall distribution of throughput for the workflow model comprises at least one of removing a loop from the workflow model or combining at least two atomic processes.

10. A program storage device as in claim 8, wherein the determination of whether an agreement is fit is further based on an overall distribution of execution time for the workflow model.

11. A program storage device as in claim 8, said operations further comprising:

determining the overall distribution of execution time for the workflow model using distributions of execution time of the atomic processes.

12. A program storage device as in claim 8, wherein the determination of whether an agreement is fit is further based on a profit and loss function for the agreement.

13. A program storage device as in claim 8, wherein the determined overall distribution of throughput for the workflow model is further based on a parallelization level of the atomic processes.

14. A program storage device as in claim 8, wherein the workflow model is representative of a business process.

15. A processing device comprising:

an input configured to receive a workflow model comprising a plurality of atomic processes, each atomic process having a distribution of throughput;

a processing unit coupled to the input and configured to determine an overall distribution of throughput for the workflow model using the distributions of throughput of the atomic processes; and

an output coupled to the processing unit and configured to output a determination of whether an agreement relating to the workflow model is fit based on the determined overall distribution of throughput.

16. A processing device as in claim 15, wherein the processing unit determining an overall distribution of throughput for the workflow model comprises at least one of the processing unit removing a loop from the workflow model or the processing unit combining at least two atomic processes.

17. A processing device as in claim 15, wherein the determination of whether an agreement is fit is further based on an overall distribution of execution time for the workflow model.

18. A processing device as in claim 15, wherein the determination of whether an agreement is fit is further based on a profit and loss function for the agreement.

19. A processing device as in claim 15, wherein the determined overall distribution of throughput for the workflow model is further based on a parallelization level of the atomic processes.

20. A processing device as in claim 15, wherein the workflow model is representative of a business process.