Business Process Simulation in jBPM

1. Business Process Simulation
● Sample scenario:
– Banking company purchased your product.
– You go on-site to help implement their credit approval
process.
– For example you come up with:

2. Business Process Simulation (2)
● Sample scenario (cont.):
– Business process model is done, next step in
BPM Life-Cycle is Execution...BUT WAIT!
– Customer questions:
● How many credit approvals can we handle during a given
timeframe?
● How much will running this process cost us per month?
● How many new resources would we need to double our
throughput?
● Are we ready for winter season (loans triple)?
● What could be done to optimize this process?
– Answer: Let's use simulation to try to answer these questions
for you :)

3. Business Process Simulation (3)
● Goals:
– Statistical Analysis of process models over time
– Pre-execution and post-execution optimization
– Reducing risk of change
– Predict business process performance
– Continuous improvement
● Performance
● Quality
● Resource utilization
● Challenges:
– Increase process complexity
– Result presentation / interpretation
– Standard / Interoperability

4. ● +
– Each element of the process can be parameterized to add
simulation information
● Time
● Resource
● Cost
● Priority
● etc
BPS in jBPM - Notation

5. BPS in jBPM - Runtime
● Extension to the jBPM runtime engine
● Relies on process paths rather than process data
● Built on-top of the Drools simulation and test framework.
● Generates individual events for every simulated activity.
● Events can be stored in simulation repository
● CEP and Rules applied to provide meaningful simulation
results.

6. BPS in jBPM - Tooling
● JBPM Designer
● Simulate “as you go”
● In-line process simulation
● Visualize process paths

7. BPS in jBPM – Tooling (2)
● Per-node simulation properties

8. BPS in jBPM – Tooling (3)
● Execution parameters:

9. BPS in jBPM – Tooling (4)
● Simulation Results:

10. BPS in jBPM – Tooling (5)
● Chart Types:
– Process:
● Execution times
● Activity Instances
● Total cost
– Human Tasks
● Execution times
● Resource Utilization
● Resource Cost
– All other Task types
● Execution times
– Process Paths
● Path Execution

11. BPS in jBPM – Tooling (6)
● Simulation Timeline:
– Navigate through each step of the simulation
– Chart View – Execution times

12. BPS in jBPM – Tooling (7)
● Simulation Timeline:
– Model View – Execution times

13. BPS in jBPM – Tooling (8)
● Path Execution: