Beyond E-Business: Towards networked structures by Paul Grefen

Author:Paul Grefen [Grefen, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781138801769
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2015-07-15T16:00:00+00:00

6.5.5 Static versus dynamic processes

There is one aspect of business processes in networked e-business that remains to be discussed: the difference between static processes and dynamic processes.

We call an e-business process static if its specification is completely predefined without taking specific, individual e-business orders into account. The parties involved in the execution of a static process instance can be chosen during execution (e.g., a consumer may decide which provider to use in a buying process), but the activities and control flow of the process are not changed during the process. Selecting involved parties is role resolution within a scenario: specific organizations are assigned to roles, such as provider, consumer or intermediary, based on pre-specified roles.

We call an e-business process dynamic if its complete specification is determined right before the execution of a process instance on the basis of one individual e-business order – or, even during the execution of the process instance. The latter approach means that the execution of a process starts with an ‘incomplete’ specification, which is ‘filled in’ when all parties are selected. This implies that role resolution is coupled to on-the-fly process specification. The dynamic approach to e-business process management allows for high levels of flexibility in collaboration, but it also implies high levels of complexity (both in the organizational aspect and in the architecture and technology aspects).

An example of a dynamic e-business process is a process the specification of which contains ‘blanks’; that is, placeholders for parts of the process that are not yet specified. Depending on the nature of a process instance, these ‘blanks’ can be filled in differently. If the instance handles a high-volume transaction, the blanks may be filled in with more details than in the case of a low-volume transaction.

In e-business research advanced approaches towards dynamic business process support have been used, for example, in scenarios using the dynamic outsourcing business structure (as discussed in section 5.5) for dynamic service outsourcing scenarios [Gref00] and the dynamic partnering structure for dynamic business network formation [Gref09]. In dynamic service outsourcing the ‘blanks’ approach, as discussed earlier, can be used to have these ‘blanks’ filled in by selecting specific business processes provided by external parties.

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