[...]
Thus, many organisations are still struggling to assess the real impact of WS
and the accompanying opportunities and threats. Without an appropriate
business alignment, WS might be perceived as a purely technical solution not
delivering significant business benefits. This constitutes a potential risk factor
in the light of recent views on IT benefits and current IT spending practice
and could eventually hamper a wide adoption.
The complete thesis tries to mitigate this issue. It gives a concise description
of the underlying ideas and constituting elements of WS and also describes
their relationship to other IT concepts. The expected impact and benefits of
WS applications are outlined and the stumbling blocks and risks associated
with WS are described. Comprehensive classification schemes are proposed
for both the benefits and issues. Predicted future WS adoption stages and
their characteristics are outlined. The actual state of WS adoption is also
determined and described by presenting recent survey results and the
outcome of an own WS review. WS implementations are described and
categorised according to identified major business drivers for WS application.
Based on this comprehensive characterisation of WS, the focus of the thesis
is then put on developing a methodology for the assessment of WS through
Business Process Modelling (BPM). A structured framework is proposed for
selecting the most appropriate processes for WS applications. Following this,
information domains and types are identified that need to be contained in a
Business Process Model to support systematic WS assessments and
facilitate WS deployment. This critical information is then mapped to its representation in a Business Process Model with appropriate BPM
techniques offered by the ARIS Toolset, a widely used toolset for BPM. The
conceptual possibilities are finally illustrated through an example in eprocurement.
The proposed methodology facilitates a business-oriented view on WS.
Containing several checklists and adaptable scoring tables it allows
executives and analysts to systematically identify WS opportunities and IT
vendors to position their solutions.
The thesis concludes with a discussion of the discovered limited functionality
of the modelling toolset and provides an outlook for further research in the
area of using BPM to support Web Service applications for improving
business processes.
Inhaltsverzeichnis (Table of Contents)
- Introduction
- Motivation for Research
- Research Objective and Research Questions
- Thesis' Structure
- Research Methodology
- Research Design
- Literature Review
- Focus Group
- The Focus Group as a research method
- Characteristics of Focus Groups
- Conducting Focus Groups
- Creation of an exemplary Business Process Model
- Web Services facilitating Business Processes
- Growing economic challenges
- Service-Oriented Architecture
- Concept
- Evolution of major system architectures
- Characteristics and principles
- Interaction model
- Impact
- Web Services defined
- Challenges addressed
- Architectural elements
- Foundation standards and protocols
- The enabling Service Grid
- Application services
- Web Service evolution - Web Services compared
- Web Services and components
- Web Services' communication styles
- Web Services vs. ASP
- Web Services vs. EAI
- Web Services vs. EDI
- Web Service impact and benefits
- Main technical benefits
- Main business benefits
- Web Services benefit framework
- Web Service purposes and adoption
- Business purposes driving Web Service projects
- Web Service technology adoption phases
- Current adoption stage and trend
- Web Service implementation example review
- Web Service issues
- Technical domain
- Financial domain
- Organisational domain
- Web Services & Business Process Modelling
- Introduction to Business Process Modelling
- Business Process Modelling for composite Web Services
- Motivation
- Choreography and Orchestration
- Executable and abstract processes
- Overview of current specification activities
- Need for evaluation
- Lack of mature, intuitive BPM support for Web Services
- BPM for Web Service assessment & deployment
- BPM for identifying first Web Service projects
- Introduction to the decision methodology
- 1st stage - Process rejection based on discarding criteria
- 2nd stage - Process characteristics
- 3rd stage Organisational characteristics
- Optional stage - Assessment of WS' strategic importance for organisation
- 4th stage - Assigning WS implementation priority to suitable processes
- Support through Business Process Modelling
- BPM for Web Service deployment
- Support through Business Process Modelling
- Example: A collaborative Business Process Model for Web Service application in e-Procurement
- Introduction to ARIS
- Description
- Justification
- Elements and functionalities of the ARIS Toolset
- ARIS model types
- Description of adequate modelling constructs
- Matching critical information with appropriate ARIS constructs
- E-Procurement as a potential area for Web Service deployment
- Design of a Business Process Model for Web Service integration
- Discovered limitations of the modelling tool
- Conclusion
- Thesis Summary
- Limitations
- Outlook
Zielsetzung und Themenschwerpunkte (Objectives and Key Themes)
This thesis aims to investigate the potential of Web Services (WS) for improving business processes and to develop a methodology for assessing and deploying WS applications using Business Process Modelling (BPM). It explores the impact of WS, their benefits and risks, and their role in facilitating a service-oriented architecture.
- The application of Web Services in business process optimization.
- The benefits and challenges associated with adopting Web Services.
- The development of a methodology for assessing and deploying Web Services through Business Process Modelling.
- The use of BPM techniques for identifying suitable processes for Web Service implementation.
- The analysis of the limitations of current BPM tools in supporting Web Service applications.
Zusammenfassung der Kapitel (Chapter Summaries)
- Introduction: This chapter sets the stage for the research, outlining the motivation, objectives, and structure of the thesis. It highlights the growing importance of service-oriented IT architectures and the need for a systematic approach to assessing the impact of Web Services.
- Research Methodology: This chapter details the research design, including the literature review, the use of focus groups, and the creation of an exemplary business process model. It clarifies the methods used to gather and analyze data.
- Web Services facilitating Business Processes: This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of Web Services, including their definition, architectural elements, benefits, and challenges. It also examines different types of Web Service applications and their impact on various business domains.
- Web Services & Business Process Modelling: This chapter explores the use of Business Process Modelling (BPM) for Web Service assessment and deployment. It delves into the motivation for using BPM for Web Services, discusses the need for evaluation and the limitations of existing BPM tools.
- BPM for identifying first Web Service projects: This chapter outlines a methodology for identifying suitable processes for Web Service implementation using BPM. It introduces a structured decision process with various stages and criteria for assessing the suitability of processes for WS adoption.
- BPM for Web Service deployment: This chapter focuses on how BPM can support the deployment of Web Service applications. It discusses the role of BPM in facilitating the integration of Web Services into existing business processes.
- Example: A collaborative Business Process Model for Web Service application in e-Procurement: This chapter provides a concrete example of how BPM can be used to model and assess Web Service applications in a specific business context, namely e-Procurement. It uses the ARIS Toolset to demonstrate the practical application of the proposed methodology.
Schlüsselwörter (Keywords)
This thesis explores the intersection of business process optimization, Web Services, and Business Process Modelling. It focuses on the adoption of Web Services in various business domains, their impact on business processes, and the use of BPM for identifying and deploying appropriate WS applications. Key concepts include service-oriented architecture, Web Service benefits and risks, business process analysis, BPM methodologies, and the ARIS Toolset.
- Quote paper
- Jan-Hendrik Sewing (Author), 2003, Identifying and Assessing Opportunities for the Introduction of Web Services through Business Process Modelling, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/21986
