Monitoring Hybrid Process Specifications with Conflict Management: The Automata-theoretic Approach

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method for monitoring multiple hybrid process specifications, combining Petri nets and temporal logic, with conflict detection and violation cost management to guide optimal process execution decisions.

Contribution

It presents a novel automata-theoretic approach for real-time monitoring of conflicting hybrid process specifications with a cost-based violation management system.

Findings

Effective conflict detection between specifications.

Cost-based violation minimization strategies.

Supports hybrid procedural and declarative models.

Abstract

Business process monitoring approaches have thus far mainly focused on monitoring the execution of a process with respect to a single process model. However, in some cases it is necessary to consider multiple process specifications simultaneously. In addition, these specifications can be procedural, declarative, or a combination of both. For example, in the medical domain, a clinical guideline describing the treatment of a specific disease cannot account for all possible co-factors that can coexist for a specific patient and therefore additional constraints may need to be considered. In some cases, these constraints may be incompatible with clinical guidelines, therefore requiring the violation of either the guidelines or the constraints. In this paper, we propose a solution for monitoring the interplay of hybrid process specifications expressed as a combination of (data-aware) Petri nets and temporal logic rules. During the process execution, if these specifications are in conflict with each other, it is possible to violate some of them. The monitoring system is equipped with a violation cost model according to which the system can recommend the next course of actions in a way that would either avoid possible violations or minimize the total cost of violations.