Optimal paths in business processes: Framework and applications

Abstract

We present an innovative framework for calculating optimal execution paths in business processes using the abstraction of workflow hypergraphs. We assume that information about the utility associated with the execution of activities in a process is available. Using the workflow hypergraph abstraction, finding a utility maximising path in a process becomes a generalised shortest hyperpath problem, which is NP-hard. We propose a solution that uses ant-colony optimisation customised to the case of hypergraph traversal. We discuss three possible applications of the proposed framework: process navigation, process simulation, and process analysis. We also present a brief performance evaluation of our solution and an example application.