Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Towards automatic business process redesign: an NLP based approach to extract redesign suggestions

  • Published:
Automated Software Engineering Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Business process redesign (BPR) is widely recognized as a key phase of the business process management lifecycle. However, the existing studies have focused on proposing theoretical models, methodologies, and redesign patterns, whereas, the BPR activity remains dependent upon domain experts with little or no consideration to end-user feedback. To facilitate these experts, in this study, we have proposed a natural language processing (NLP) based approach to identify redesign suggestions from end-user feedback in natural language text. The proposed approach includes a novel set of annotation guidelines that can be used to generate computational resources for business process redesign. Secondly, to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, we have generated computational resources which are composed of three real-world business processes and end-user feedback containing 8421 sentences. Finally, we have performed 270 experiments using six traditional and three deep learning techniques to evaluate their effectiveness for the identification of redesign suggestions from raw text. The classified suggestions can be used by domain experts to prioritize the redesign possibilities, without going through the details of the customer feedback.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Antunes, G., Bakhshandeh, M., Borbinha, J., Cardoso, J., Dadashnia, S., Di Francescomarino, C., Dragoni, M., Fettke, P., Gal, A., Ghidini: The process model matching contest 2015. GI-Edit. Lect. Notes Inf. 248, 127–1553 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  • Cho, M., Song, M., Comuzzi, M., Yoo, S.: Evaluating the effect of best practices for business process redesign: an evidence-based approach based on process mining techniques. Decis. Support Syst. 104, 92–103 (2017)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Danilova, K.B.: Process owners in business process management: a systematic literature review. Bus. Process Manag. J. Bus. Process Manag. J. 25, 1377–1412 (2019)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dumas, M., la Rosa, M., Mendling, J., Reijers, H.A.: Introduction to business process management. In: Fundamentals of business process management. Springer, The Netherlands (2013)

  • Dumas, M., la Rosa, M., Mendling, J., Reijer, H.A.: Fundamentals of Business Process Management. Springer, Berlin (2018)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Grisold, T., vom Brocke, J., Gross, S., Mendling, J., Röglinger, M., Stelzl, K.: Digital innovation and business process management: opportunities and challenges as perceived by practitioners. Communications of the Association for Information Systems (2021)

  • Grisold, T., Grob, S., Stelzl, K., Brocke, J., vom, Mendling, J., Roglinger, M., Rosemann, M.: The five diamond method for explorative business process management. Bus. Inf. Syst. Eng. 63, 1–18 (2021)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Khan, M.M., Shahzad, K., Malik, M.K.: Hate speech detection in roman urdu. ACM Trans. Asian Low-Resour. Lang. Inf. Process. (TALLIP) 20, 1–19 (2021)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leopold, H., Mendling J., Polyvyanyy, A.: Generating natural language texts from business process models. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering, 64–79 (2012)

  • Leopold, H., Mendling, J., Polyvyanyy, A.: Supporting process model validation through natural language generation. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. 40, 818–840 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lohrmann, M., Reichert, M.: Effective application of process improvement patterns to business processes. Softw. Syst. Model. 15, 353–375 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mansar, S.L., Reijers, H.A.: Best practices in business process redesign: validation of a redesign framework. Comput. Ind. 56, 457–471 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mansar, S.L., Reijers, H.A.: Best practices in business process redesign: use and impact. Bus. Process Manag. J. 13, 193–213 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mendling, J., Pentland, B.T., Recker, J.: Building a complementary agenda for business process management and digital innovation. 208–219 (2020)

  • Mustansar, A., Shahzad, K., Malik, M.K.: AutoEPRS-20: extracting business process redesign suggestions from natural language text. In: Proceedings of the 35th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering Workshops, 118–124 (2020)

  • Muzaffar, S.I., Shahzad, K., Aslam, F., Khalid, M., Malik, M.K.: Process matching: performance trade-off between summary and full-length descriptions. Comput. Inf. 38, 851–882 (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  • Phellas, C.N., Bloch, A., Seale, C.: Structured methods: interviews, questionnaires and observation. Res Soc Cult 3, 181–205 (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  • Process Model Matching at Ontology Alignment Evaluation Initiative (OAEI) (2016). http://web.informatik.uni-mannheim.de/oaei/pm16/. Accessed 10 July 2020

  • Recker, J., Mendling, J.: The state of the art of business process management research as published in the BPM conference. Bus. Inf. Syst. Eng. 58, 55–72 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reijers, H., Mansar, S.L.: Best practices in business process redesign: an overview and qualitative evaluation of successful redesign heuristics. Omega 33, 283–306 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rosemann, M.: Explorative process design patterns. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Business Process Management. 349–367 (2020)

  • Sànchez-Ferreres, J., van der Aa, H., Carmona, J., Padró, L.: Aligning textual and model-based process descriptions. Data Knowl. Eng. 118, 25–40 (2018)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • van der Aa, H., Leopold, H., Reijers, H.A.: Comparing textual descriptions to process models-the automatic detection of inconsistencies. Inf. Syst. 64, 447–460 (2017)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • van der Aa, H., Rebmann, A., Leopold, H.: Natural language-based detection of semantic execution anomalies in event logs. Inf. Syst. 102, 1–13 (2021)

    Google Scholar 

  • Vanwersch, R., Shahzad, S., Vanderfeesten, I., Vanhaecht, K., Grefen, P., Pintelon, L., Mendling, J., van Merode, G.G., Reijers, H.A.: Methodological support for business process redesign in health care: a literature review protocol. Int. J. Care Pathw. 15, 119–126 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vanwersch, R., Shahzad, S., Vanderfeesten, I., Vanhaecht, K., Grefen, P., Pintelon, L., Mendling, J., van Merode, G..G., Reijers, H..A.: A critical evaluation and framework of business process improvement methods. Bus. Inf. Syst. Eng. 58, 43–53 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • vom Brocke, J., Rosemann, M.: Handbook on Business Process Management 1: Introduction, Methods, and Information Systems. Springer, Berlin (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  • Womack, J.P., Jones, D.T., Roos, D.: The Machine that Changed the World: the Story of Lean Production. Simon and Schuster, New York (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  • Zellner, G.: Towards a framework for identifying business process redesign patterns. Bus. Process Manag. J. 19, 600–623 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Department of Software Engineering, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan

    Amina Mustansir

  2. Department of Data Science, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan

    Khurram Shahzad

  3. Department of Information Technology, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan

    Muhammad Kamran Malik

Authors
  1. Amina Mustansir
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Khurram Shahzad
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Muhammad Kamran Malik
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Amina Mustansir.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Mustansir, A., Shahzad, K. & Malik, M.K. Towards automatic business process redesign: an NLP based approach to extract redesign suggestions. Autom Softw Eng 29, 12 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10515-021-00316-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10515-021-00316-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation