Business process and decision automation: end-to-end deployment with a BPMN and DMN-based workflow engine

Abstract

Today’s organizations deliver a broad range of products and services. Contemplating the perpetually increasing number of their business processes, an organizational culture, conducive to process thinking and responsive to process changes, is a determining factor for the effectiveness and competitiveness of contemporary enterprises. Given the fact that currently everything has to be performed faster, with greater flexibility and agility, business process and decision automation have become an integral part of every digital transformation initiative. In this regard, workflow automation, has come in frontline for automating business process and decisions, relying on a predefined process model. The present research aims to investigate practically the workflow automation paradigm, on the basis of executable notations, namely the BPMN and DMN notations, by introducing an end-to-end loan application-to-approval process and automating it by the means of a workflow engine. For this purpose, the BPMN notation is thoroughly presented, before shedding light on the DMN notation and its capabilities to be well integrated with BPMN, rendering business processes as decision-aware and decision-intelligent. With the ultimate aim to automate the introduced process, this research highlights how business-oriented models can be executable, paving the way for their automated enactment by the means of a workflow engine of a contemporary BPMS.