2nd Workshop on the Role of Real-world objects in Business Process Management Systems, as part of EDOC 2016, Vienna, Austria, 5th - 6th September 2016

Associate Editor

The increased diffusion of sensors in the world has lead to the possibility to monitor in detail the evolution of several real-world objects of interest. GPS receivers, RFID chips, transponders, detectors, cameras, satellites, etc. concur in the depiction of the current status of monitored things. Therefore, the opportunity arose to connect physical reality to digital information. The screening of real-world objects makes indeed sensors the interface towards real-world information, as they are the originators of machine-readable events. The exploitation of such knowledge is leading to successful applications such as Smart Cities, Flight Monitoring, Pollution Control, Internet of Things, and Dynamic Manufacturing Networks.

The amount of information at hand would consent a fine-grained monitoring, mining, and decision support for business processes, stemming from the joint observation of business-related objects in the real world. However, the main focus of process and data analysis in Business Process Management (BPM) still lies at a high level of abstraction, such as activities’ status, and is based on digital-to-digital information, such as information systems’ data- and activity-centric logs. Furthermore, a limited investigation from the BPM community has been evinced towards the physical-to-digital bridge so far. Such a bridge would be naturally provided by rethought information systems, where the knowledge extracted from real-world objects would best depict the contingencies and the context in which business processes are carried out. At the same time, awareness of physical reality for undertaken actions would allow for a better control over the interaction that the Business Process Management Systems (BPMSs) have with the real world.

The objective of the RW-BPMS workshop is therefore to attract novel research and industry approaches investigating the connection of business processes with real-world objects monitoring. Conceptual, technical and application-oriented contributions are pursued within the scope of this theme.