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Auflistung nach Autor:in "Soffer, Pnina"

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  • Zeitschriftenartikel
    Data Impact Analysis in Business Processes
    (Business & Information Systems Engineering: Vol. 62, No. 1, 2020) Tsoury, Arava; Soffer, Pnina; Reinhartz-Berger, Iris
    Business processes and their outcomes rely on data whose values are changed during process execution. When unexpected changes occur, e.g., due to last minute changes of circumstances, human errors, or corrections of detected errors in data values, this may have consequences for various parts of the process. This challenges the process participants to understand the full impact of the changes and decide on responses or corrective actions. To tackle this challenge, the paper suggests a semi-automated approach for data impact analysis. The approach entails a trans-formation of business process models to a relational database representation, to which querying is applied, in order to retrieve process elements that are related to a given data change. Specifically, the proposed method receives a data item (an attribute or an object) and information about the current state of process execution (in the form of a trace upon which an unexpected change has occurred). It analyzes the impact of the change in terms of activities, other data items, and gateways that are affected. When evaluating the usefulness of the approach through a case study, it was found that it has the potential to assist experienced process participants, especially when the consequences of the change are extensive, and its locus is in the middle of the process. The approach contributes both to practice with tool-supported guidance on how to handle unexpected data changes, and to research with a set of impact analysis primitives and queries.
  • Zeitschriftenartikel
    Detection and Quantification of Flow Consistency in Business Process Models.
    (EMISA Forum: Vol. 37, No. 1, 2017) Burattin, Andrea; Bernstein, Vered; Neurauter, Manuel; Soffer, Pnina; Weber, Barbara
  • Konferenzbeitrag
    A domain engineering approach to specifying and applying reference models
    (Enterprise modelling and information systems architectures, 2005) Reinhartz-Berger, Iris; Soffer, Pnina; Sturm, Arnon
    Business process modeling and design, as an essential part of business process management, has gained much attention in recent years. An important tool for this purpose is reference models, whose aim is to capture domain knowledge and assist in the design of enterprise specific business processes. However, while much attention has been given to the content of these models, the actual process of reusing this knowledge has not been extensively addressed. In order to address this lack, we propose to utilize a domain engineering approach, called Applicationbased Domain Modeling (ADOM), for the purpose of specifying and applying reference models. We demonstrate the approach by specifying a sell process reference model and instantiating it for a chocolate manufacturer. The benefits of utilizing the ADOM approach for specifying business models are the provisioning of validation templates by the reference models and the ability to apply the approach to various modeling languages and business process views.
  • Zeitschriftenartikel
    Model-based Analysis of Data Inaccuracy Awareness in Business Processes
    (Business & Information Systems Engineering: Vol. 64, No. 2, 2022) Evron, Yotam; Soffer, Pnina; Zamansky, Anna
    Problem definition: Data errors in business processes can be a source for exceptions and hamper business outcomes. Relevance: The paper proposes a method for analyzing data inaccuracy issues already at process design time, in order to support process designers by identifying process parts where data errors might remain unrecognized, so decisions could be taken based on inaccurate data. Methodology: The paper follows design science, developing a method as an artifact. The conceptual basis is the notion of data inaccuracy awareness – the ability to tell whether potential discrepancies between real and IS values may exist. Results: The method was implemented on top of a Petri net modeling tool and validated in a case study performed in a large manufacturing company of safety–critical systems. Managerial implications: Anticipating consequences of data inaccuracy already during process design can help avoiding them at runtime.
  • Zeitschriftenartikel
    Why Work Around the Process? Analyzing Workarounds Through the Lens of the Theory of Planned Behavior
    (Business & Information Systems Engineering: Vol. 65, No. 4, 2023) Soffer, Pnina; Outmazgin, Nesi; Hadar, Irit; Tzafrir, Shay
    Workarounds are a common practice in a broad range of organizational and technological contexts, which has received much attention in information systems research. They are sometimes considered negatively, associated with business risks and noncompliance, and sometimes positively, as a source of innovation and improvement. Although workaround-based process improvements typically adopt the workaround if its consequences are not harmful, this is not always the best option. The paper aims to pave the way for leveraging workarounds for process improvement by understanding problems that motivate them, so alternative solutions can be developed for these problems. Despite many proposed explanations, an in-depth understanding of the reasons underlying employee decisions that lead to workarounds is still needed. To this end, following a qualitative research approach, data were collected in six case study organizations, investigating workaround decisions made by employees through the lens of the theory of planned behavior. The principal unique theme running throughout the findings is that workaround motivation stems from perceived misalignment between organizational, local unit, or personal goals and their realization in business processes. Workarounds are enabled by various factors, including perceived workaround opportunities in the organization. These findings are abstracted to form an explanatory model as a contextual adaptation of the theory of planned behavior to explain workaround intentions. The proposed model explains workaround decisions in a way that can leverage this understanding to promote concrete process improvements.