SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR ORGANIZING DOCUMENTED PROCESSES

• US 20110106801A1
• Filed: 10/29/2009
• Published: 05/05/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/29/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Mukherjee, Debdoot, Srivastava, Biplav
• Granted Patent: US 9,020,944 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/737
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/285 Clustering or classification
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

Business Process Management (BPM) to enterprises having business processes documented in multiple representations. Embodiments of the invention reconcile and organize documented information about processes into groups that convey inter-process similarity. The discovered knowledge can be used by embodiments of the invention for many applications to find process clusters that significantly boost performance.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

one or more processors;

a program storage device tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the one or more processors, the program of instructions comprising;

computer program code configured to extract one or more process descriptions from one or more process documents, the one or more process documents comprising one or more of flow documents and text documents;

computer program code configured to represent the one or more process descriptions from the one or more process documents in separate canonical representations; and

computer program code configured to compare the separate canonical representations.

2. The system according to claim 1, wherein the program of instructions further comprises computer program code configured to disambiguate the one or more process descriptions utilizing of one or more parts of the one or more process documents.

3. The system according to claim 2, wherein the disambiguation further comprises reconciling the one or more process descriptions to produce an enhanced process definition that corrects and extends the one or more process descriptions.

4. The system according to claim 1, wherein the program of instructions further comprises computer program code configured to augment the one or more process descriptions with information gathered from one or more parts of the one or more process documents.

5. The system according to claim 1, wherein the program of instructions further comprises computer program code configured to build clusters of one or more similar processes via computing inter-process distance using compatible fragments of process information of the one or more process documents.

6. The system according to claim 1, wherein the computer program code configured to compare the separate canonical representations is further configured to assign one or more separate canonical representations to one or more parts of a flow document and a text document.

7. The system according to claim 6, wherein the computer program code configured to compare the separate canonical representations is further configured to assign a similarity score in response to comparing the one or more process documents;

and

wherein the similarity score is computed by aggregating a similarity score of content of the separate canonical representations.

8. The system according to claim 1, wherein the separate canonical representations comprise one or more of single content strings, single content parts, content list parts, and content table parts extracted from the one or more process documents;

and

wherein the computer program code configured to compare the separate canonical representations is further configured to compare two single content strings, single content parts and content list parts, single content parts and content table parts, two content lists parts, content list parts and content table parts, and two content tables parts.

9. The system according to claim 5, further comprising:

one or more user interfaces;

wherein the program of instructions further comprises;

computer readable program code configured to accept a query from one or more users for one or more similar processes contained in the one or more process documents; and

computer readable program code configured to output one or more query results in response to the query.

10. A method comprising:

utilizing one or more processors to execute of instructions tangibly embodied on a program storage device, the program of instructions comprising;

computer program code configured to extract one or more process descriptions from one or more process documents, the one or more process documents comprising one or more of flow documents and text documents;

computer program code configured to represent the one or more process descriptions from the one or more process documents in separate canonical representations; and

computer program code configured to compare the separate canonical representations.

11. The method according to claim 10, wherein the program of instructions further comprises computer program code configured to disambiguate the one or more process descriptions utilizing of one or more parts of the one or more process documents.

12. The method according to claim 11, wherein the disambiguation further comprises reconciling the one or more process descriptions to produce an enhanced process definition that corrects and extends the one or more process descriptions.

13. The method according to claim 10, wherein the program of instructions further comprises computer program code configured to augment the one or more process descriptions with information gathered from one or more parts of the one or more process documents.

14. The method according to claim 10, wherein the program of instructions further comprises computer program code configured to build clusters of one or more similar processes via computing inter-process distance using compatible fragments of process information of the one or more process documents.

15. The method according to claim 10, wherein the computer program code configured to compare the separate canonical representations is further configured to assign one or more separate canonical representations to one or more parts of a flow document and a text document.

16. The method according to claim 15, wherein the computer program code configured to compare the separate canonical representations is further configured to assign a similarity score in response to comparing the one or more process documents;

and

wherein the similarity score is computed by aggregating a similarity score of content of the separate canonical representations.

17. The method according to claim 10, wherein the separate canonical representations comprise one or more of single content strings, single content parts, content list parts, and content table parts extracted from the one or more process documents;

and

wherein the computer program code configured to compare the separate canonical representations is further configured to compare two single content strings, single content parts and content list parts, single content parts and content table parts, two content lists parts, content list parts and content table parts, and two content tables parts.

18. The method according to claim 14, further comprising:

accepting a query from one or more users via one or more user interfaces, the query being configured to identify one or more similar processes contained in the one or more process documents; and

providing one or more outputs having one or more query results in response to the query.

19. A computer program product comprising:

a computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code comprising;

computer program code configured to extract one or more process descriptions from one or more process documents, the one or more process documents comprising one or more of flow documents and text documents;

computer program code configured to represent the one or more process descriptions from the one or more process documents in separate canonical representations; and

computer program code configured to compare the separate canonical representations.