Monitoring Constraints in Business Processes Using Object-Centric Constraint Graphs

TL;DR

This paper introduces Object-Centric Constraint Graphs (OCCGs) to effectively monitor constraints in object-centric business processes, addressing limitations of existing methods that assume a single case notion.

Contribution

The paper proposes a novel approach using OCCGs for constraint monitoring in object-centric processes, supported by a web application and real-life case studies.

Findings

OCCGs accurately model interactions among multiple objects.

The approach detects constraint violations effectively in object-centric logs.

Case studies demonstrate practical applicability in SAP ERP systems.

Abstract

Constraint monitoring aims to monitor the violation of constraints in business processes, e.g., an invoice should be cleared within 48 hours after the corresponding goods receipt, by analyzing event data. Existing techniques for constraint monitoring assume that a single case notion exists in a business process, e.g., a patient in a healthcare process, and each event is associated with the case notion. However, in reality, business processes are object-centric, i.e., multiple case notions (objects) exist, and an event may be associated with multiple objects. For instance, an Order-To-Cash (O2C) process involves order, item, delivery, etc., and they interact when executing an event, e.g., packing multiple items together for a delivery. The existing techniques produce misleading insights when applied to such object-centric business processes. In this work, we propose an approach to monitoring constraints in object-centric business processes. To this end, we introduce Object-Centric Constraint Graphs (OCCGs) to represent constraints that consider the interaction of objects. Next, we evaluate the constraints represented by OCCGs by analyzing Object-Centric Event Logs (OCELs) that store the interaction of different objects in events. We have implemented a web application to support the proposed approach and conducted two case studies using a real-life SAP ERP system.