uBPM 2017 - First International Workshop on Ubiquitous Computing in Business Process Management

Business Process Management (BPM) is the body of methods, techniques and tools to manage the business processes (chains of events, activities, and decisions performed in a coordinated manner) of an organization in order to achieve its strategic goals. Although the use of Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp) technology has already revolutionized many areas, its application in BPM is still in its infancy. Ubicomp enables computing to appear anytime and everywhere, becoming "invisibly" embedded in physical objects to sense and respond to their surrounding environment. This embedding allows building a bridge between the digital and the physical worlds, which could benefit the BPM field in many ways, i.e., by automating tasks or by making business processes more flexible to better fit each situation. Ubicomp could enable fitness between business processes (BPs) and their execution environment, maintaining the suitability of a process instance through its execution life. The business process context information could also provide managers and consumers with up-to-date information that allows a better use of resources, leveraging better and faster decisions. The integration of Ubicomp in BPM is however challenging since it implies the coordination of multiple technologies (sensors, internet, mobiles, electrical appliances, etc.) and different disciplines (Human-computer interaction, context-aware computing, distributed computing, etc.). Therefore, more research and industrial cases are needed to bring BPM to a new whole level, and to make the community understand the benefits and challenges that Ubicomp can bring to BPM and vice versa. The objective of this workshop is therefore to attract novel research in Ubicomp and BPM areas by bringing together practitioners and researchers from both communities that are interested in making ubiquitous business processes a reality. uBPM will discuss the current state of ongoing research, industry needs, future trends, and practical experiences. The topics of the workshop include, but are not limited to:
Ubicomp in the BPM Life-cycle:
Design/Modelling/Implementation/Deployment/Execution/Monitoring/Optimization of uBPs
Business Process Context:
Which context data are relevant for BPM?
Should context data be specific for each BPM application domain? Or can it be generalized?
Potential of context awareness and adaptation in BPM. How context can be used to improve BPM?
Techniques for analysing context data in BPM
Modelling of context-adaptive BPs
Execution and simulation of context-adaptive BPs
Monitoring context-adaptive BPs
Verification of context-adaptive BPs
Mining context-adaptive BPs
Optimizing BPs using context information
Integration of context data for being consumed by BPMSs
Privacy issues of context-awareness in BPMS
Business Process Automation and Industrial Cases:
How can Ubicomp be used to automate activities in BPs?
How can Ubicomp be used for achieving self-* BPMS?
In which industrial domains Ubicomp can provide a bigger competitive advantage for BPMS?
Industrial examples of Ubicomp technologies applied to BPs.
Ubiquitous BPs for Smart Cities