GOAL-ORIENTED PROCESS GENERATION

• US 20150081610A1
• Filed: 10/25/2013
• Published: 03/19/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 09/13/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Linehan, Mark H., Pinel, Florian
• Granted Patent: US 9,536,196 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 706/46
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 20/00 Machine learning
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/02 Knowledge representation; Symbolic representation

Abstract

An apparatus comprises a memory and a processor device operatively coupled to the memory. The processor device is configured to receive a set of process metrics, evaluate the set of received process metrics to determine a set of process classifications, determine a set of process parameters, and generate one or more processes based at least in part on the set of process parameters and the set of process classifications, each of the one or more processes having respective sets of process metrics similar to the set of received process metrics.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

a memory; and

a processor device operatively coupled to the memory and configured to;

receive a set of process metrics;

evaluate the set of received process metrics to determine a set of process classifications;

determine a set of process parameters; and

generate one or more processes based at least in part on the set of process parameters and the set of process classifications, each of the one or more processes having respective sets of process metrics similar to the set of received process metrics.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the set of received process metrics comprises a business goal and the one or more processes comprise respective new business processes.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor device is configured to evaluate the set of received process metrics by determining one or more classifications of objects, tasks and actors commonly associated with the set of process classifications.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor device is further configured to search a domain knowledge database to determine the set of process classifications.

5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the domain knowledge database stores a plurality of objects, actors, tasks and processes clustered by respective classifications.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the set of process parameters comprises one or more process inputs and one or more process outputs.

7. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the set of process parameters comprises a numeric range of a number of objects, actors or tasks to be included in the one or more generated processes.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the set of process parameters comprises one or more objects, actors and tasks to exclude or include in the one or more generated processes.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor device is configured to determine the set of process parameters by:

presenting the set of process classifications to a user; and

receiving the set of process parameters from the user.

10. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processor device is configured to generate the one or more processes by generating two or more processes, the processor device being further configured to select a given one of the two or more processes.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the processor device is configured to select the given process responsive to a comparison of the set of received process metrics with the respective sets of process metrics associated with the two or more processes.

12. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the set of received process metrics comprises a target cost and a target duration, and wherein the processor device is configured to select the given process responsive to a comparison of the target cost and target duration with the respective costs and durations of the two or more processes.

13. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the set of process parameters includes at least one process input and at least one process output and the processor device is configured to generate the one or more processes by:

determining a set of possible paths between the at least one process input and the at least one process output, wherein paths comprise respective sequences of objects connected by tasks;

filtering the set of possible paths based on one or more additional process parameters to determine a subset of the possible paths; and

selecting one or more of the possible paths in the subset to generate the one or more processes.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the processor device is configured to utilize a backward chaining algorithm to determine the set of possible paths.

15. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the processor device is configured to generate the one or more processes by, for each object in a given one of the selected possible paths:

determining a first class associated with a currently selected object and a second class associated with a next object in the sequence;

extracting subgraphs from a plurality of existing processes having one or more of the set of process classifications, each subgraph comprising an object sequence beginning with an object associated with the first class and ending with an object associated the second class; and

selecting a given one of the extracted subgraphs.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the processor device is configured to select a given one of the extracted subgraphs by sorting the extracted subgraphs by one or more characteristics associated with the extracted subgraphs and selecting the given extracted subgraph based on the sorting.

17. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the one or more characteristics comprise at least one of a frequency of occurrence of the respective extracted subgraphs and a number of tasks in the respective extracted subgraphs.

18. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the processor device is further configured to combine the selected subgraphs for each object in the given path to generate a given one of the one or more processes.

19. An article of manufacture comprising a computer readable storage medium for storing computer readable program code which, when executed, causes a computer to:

receive a set of process metrics;

evaluate the set of received process metrics to determine a set of process classifications;

determine a set of process parameters; and

generate one or more processes based at least in part on the set of process parameters and the set of process classifications, each of the one or more processes having respective sets of process metrics similar to the set of received process metrics.