Real-Time Process Adaptation: A Context-Aware Replanning Approach

• Published in: IEEE transactions on systems, man, and cybernetics. Systems Vol. 48; no. 1; pp. 99 - 118
• Main Authors: Nunes, Vanessa T., Santoro, Flavia M., Werner, Claudia M. L., Ralha, Celia G.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01-01-2018; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Adaptation; Adaptation models; Air traffic control; Computer science; Context; Context awareness; Domains; dynamic adaptation; Oils; process planning; Proposals; Real-time systems
• ISSN: 2168-2216; 2168-2232
• DOI: 10.1109/TSMC.2016.2591538

Complexity and dynamism of day-to-day activities are inextricably linked, thus the need for constant adaptation to address emerging demands has grown. Process adaptation is the action of customizing a process instance to make it applicable to a particular situation. However, unplanned conditions may occur at any time during process execution. So, the design of a complete process model has given place to a flexible design based on reuse and adaptation. This paper addresses the problem of dynamic adaptation within a process-aware information system (IS). On top of a theory for context-aware ISs, we argue that an unexpected situation can be characterized by a number of known contextual elements and could be used to automate the decision of replanning the process flow in a specific instance, in order to preserve the process strategy. The solution was evaluated in real setting observational studies in the domains of oil and gas and air traffic control.