UoC SNAPT @ Thales 24/02/2012

www.s-cube-network.eu

Service Networks Visualization:Service Network Analysis & Prediction Tool

(SNAPT)

University of Crete (UoC)Christos Nikolaou, Pantelis Petridis, George Stratakis, Mariana

Karmazi

S-Cube Industrial Dissemination Workshop, Thales, Paris, 24/02/2012

© S-Cube - 2

Research Area

S-Cube

Business Process Management

(Performance) Analysis and Design of Service Networks

Service Network Analysis and Prediction Tool (SNAPT)

S-Cube Industry Workshop @ Thales, 24/2/2012

Overview

Background & Problem Description

Service Network Analysis and Prediction Tool (SNAPT)– SNAPT Overview and Fundamental Concepts

– SNAPT Metamodel and Visualization Techniques

– From Service Network Models to initial draft Business Process Models

Conclusion

© S-Cube - 2 S-Cube Industry Workshop @ Thales, 24/2/2012

Background: Service Systems (or Service Networks)

Service system: dynamic co-creation configuration of resources (people, organizations, shared information) and technology, connected together through value propositions (Spohrer, Maglio)

– Proposed in order to model, analyze and optimize interactions among various network partners.

– High level of abstraction, hiding details regarding concrete interactions in terms of business processes

- Model services that are offered and consumed by business entities- Service providers (providing a set of service offers)

Formatted mainly because of: globalization, advances in ICT, pressure for innovation, increased competition, constant change of customers’ demands, which lead to increased focus on core competencies (or strengths) and outsourcing.

Based on a new marketing discipline: Service-Dominant (S-D) Logic

Service networks are considered as projections of service systems and they are embedded in Service Ecosystems


http://www.s-cube-network.eu/km/terms/a/agile-service-network/

http://www.s-cube-network.eu/km/terms/b/business-process

http://www.s-cube-network.eu/km/terms/s/service-provider/

Background: Service Ecosystem

A Service Ecosystem is a socio-technical environment consisting of:

– All the services available in a particular sector of the economy (e.g. home electronics, online media, etc.)

– All the supporting (enabling) good and services (e.g. Banking, building maintenance, power and telecom utilities, brokers, distributors, etc.)

– All the regulating and supervising authorities


Perspectives on Service Systems Modeling and Analysis

Business Perspective (economic and marketing viewpoint): Conceptual modeling and analysis techniques studying service networks in a high abstraction layer depicting the entities participating in the network while analyzing network vitality and calculating value created for each participant and for the network as a whole.

– Value chain, Value Networks

IT Perspective: Deals with the alignment and coordination of the participating entities’ business processes and information systems in order to achieve the agreed-upon business outcome

– Business Process Management (BPM) and its lifecycle

– Service-oriented architecture (SOA)


http://www.s-cube-network.eu/km/terms/v/value-chain

http://www.s-cube-network.eu/km/terms/v/value-network/

http://www.s-cube-network.eu/km/browse-by-domain/business-process-management/

Problem Description

Thus, there is a need for a holistic approach combining the concepts underpinning BPM and SOA in order to support service systems prevailing in the networked economy

– Propose a unified modeling methodology combining concepts from the business perspective and the IT perspective

– Target both- Business analysts- IT experts

SNAPT Vision:

– Visualize service networks (SNs), define business metrics and goals to SNs in terms of Key Performance Objectives (KPOs), monitoring of KPIs corresponding to KPOs sets, take corrective actions (e.g., violations)

– A prototype tool for constructing service network models and transforming into initial business process models based on BPMN, bridging the gap between tools and concepts.


http://www.s-cube-network.eu/km/terms/k/key-performance-indicator

Overview

Problem Description




Conclusion


Overview of SNAPT

SNAPT is a prototype tool for:

– Modeling service networks as a set of services and business entities based on a proposed meta-model

– Adding Key Performance Objectives (KPOs) to services within SNs

– Analyzing performance of service networks

– Extracting draft business process models out of service networks models - BPMN support, Eclipse BPMN editor- IBM Websphere Studio process diagrams

– Support for simulation tools (e.g., Vensim, iThink)- Currently, service networks models are

mapped to simulation models supported in Vensim


SNAPT Architecture in brief

SNAPT has been developed following the Model-Driven Architecture (MDA)

Eclipse platform has been utilized for the development process taking advantage of the plug-ins extension mechanisms in order to allow future extensions or modifications to the tool.


SNAPT Models and Plug-ins


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SNAPT Fundamental Concepts


Foundation principle: any business can be modeled as a service.

– Products as a service = it is the delivery of the product that comprises the service offered to the end customer

The existence of a service network implies that there is a single service or a bundle of services that a key business entity delivers to an end customer.

A Service Network is defined as a set of business entities and services and it can be visualized as a graph of nodes

– Nodes correspond to business entities

– Arcs correspond to services offered and consumed by the business entities inside the network

- An arc implies an economic exchange- Origin point of the arc reveals the business entity that offers the service- The end point of the arc reveals the business entity that consumes the

service

http://www.s-cube-network.eu/km/terms/s/service/

Overview

Problem Description


– SNAPT Meta-smodel and Visualization Techniques


Conclusion


SNAPT Service Network Metamodel


Snapshots: Visualize Service Networks

Participant offers a Single service to the End Customer

Enablement Service: an Enabler enables the delivery of the Service 1


Snapshots: Service Sub-Networks

“Service” offered by ServiceSubNetwork in the Service Network (left), is mapped to an output port in the ServiceSubNetwork (right).

Service “Supplies” consumed by ServiceSubNetwork in the SN (left), is mapped to an input port in the ServiceSubNetwork (right).

Service Network ServiceSubNetwork

Sub-network input

Sub-network output


Snapshot: Assign KPOs

SNAPT provides a KPI Library based on the APQC Process Classification Frameworks

Fully compatible with IBM Websphere Business Modeler

SNAPT updates its internal KPI library from the KPIs Repository

REST-based interface

SNAPT user can select from the library the desired KPO to assign to a service


Case study: Car Repair Service Network

The purpose of this network is to efficiently deliver to the car owners the service of “Parts and Repair”

In order for the Dealers to deliver the “Parts and Repair” service to the Car Owners, they must first order the parts with the help of the Parts Manager and then consume one of the “Parts” service delivered by Car OEM or the Third Party Suppliers, together with the “Repair” service provided by the technicians and taking into account the “Advice for Repairs” service delivered by the CAR OEM. The CAR OEM delivers the “Parts” and the “Advice for Repairs” service after consuming the corresponding services from the Supply Chain Supplier and the Help Desk Experts, respectively.


Case study: Car Repair Service Network Model


Overview

Problem Description




Summary


From Service Network Models to initial draft Business Process Models

SNAPT supports a methodology for mapping Service Network Models to Business Process Models

Two sets of transformation rules are proposed and supported by SNAPT

– The 1st set maps SN models to collaborative business process models according to BPMN standard and the export format is compatible with the Eclipse BPMN Editor, an open source business process diagram editor

– The 2nd set maps SN models to process models based on the format supported by IBM WebSphere Business Modeler Advanced.- A commercial business process modeling and analysis tool


Sequencing of Services (1/3)

The delivery of the service offered by a service network implies that the resources and back-end systems of the business entities are integrated and coordinated accordingly in order to achieve connection of entire business value chains that will deliver the desired outcome.

However, service networks models are highly abstract in nature and they do not include any operational details, like sequencing of processes, message exchanges, etc.

So, it’s mandatory to properly annotate services in the service network models to define the order of services in a service network model

– Identify composite services


Sequencing of Services (2/3)

Sequencing information of each service s is created relatively to the set of services that are offered to the source business Entity of service s

Gateways are used to express sequencing, which can be nested in any order

– Sequential Block: this gateway implies that any of its children elements is delivered in series, one after the other

– AND Block: this gateway specifies that its elements should be delivered in parallel

– XOR Block:denotes that exclusively one of the elements in the block must be delivered.

To sum up, any sequencing service (a service with sequencing information attached) is decomposed to several services that will be delivered in the order defined by gateways


Sequencing of Services (3/3): Simple Sequential Block Example

Example of Sequential Block: In order for Service1 to be delivered to Participant2, both Service2 and Service3 must first be delivered to Participant1 in order.

Annotation indicating Sequencing Services

Sequence Order


From SNAPT to Eclipse BMPN Editor


Mapping from SN constructs to BPMN elements

Mapping a single service delivery to a generic BPMN workflow

© S-Cube - 2 S-Cube Industry Workshop, Palaisseau, 24/2/2012

From SNAPT to IBM WebSphere Business Modeler

Mapping from SN constructs to IBM Modeler elements

Mapping a single service delivery to a generic workflow


From SNAPT to IBM WebSphere Business Modeler


Case study: Car Repair Service Network to IBM WebSphere Modeler


From SNAPT to VENSIM tool

A system dynamics model in Vensim tool also consists of variables and arrows that represent the relations and specifically the dependencies among the variables.

Business entities are mapped to either a constant or an auxiliary variable

Services are mapped to variables, as well. For each Service Network Model Service, three variables are declared corresponding to the two business entities and the service; two arrows connect the service variable to the source and target business entity


From SNAPT to VENSIM models


Overview

Problem Description




Conclusion


Conclusion

Towards bridging the world of business analysts and IT experts including the concept of service systems

SNAPT serves as a hub providing appropriate outputs to both simulation tools that analyze the vitality of these networks as well as to BPM suites, for supporting the underlying business processes which connect the systems of the involved participants.

Current Work– Integrating the library of business protocols based on RosettaNet

– Performance analysis of strategic interactions

– Contracts Compliance


Acknowledgements

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme [FP7/2007-2013] under grant agreement 215483 (S-Cube).


UoC SNAPT @ Thales 24/02/2012

Technology

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