D7.4 BPM demonstrator

Business Process Models (BPMs) are workflows operating at a relatively coarse-grained meta-workflow level. BPMs enable coordination between computational workflows and manual steps using event mechanisms and incorporating business rules. BPMs are now well established with an established execution language and graphical notation (BPMN). BPMs, however, are complex to make and normally aimed at experts to develop on behalf of users to run. A number of commercial enterprises (Oracle, Microsoft, IBM) and open source BPM systems (Activiti, Bonitasoft, Camunda, jBPM, FloSuite, ProcessMaker) are available.

The possible use of BPM for Synthetic Biology holds great potential, especially in the case of coordinating projects that run on distributed facilities.

Deliverable 7.4 evaluates an open source Business Process Model system to model and help enact a project of IBISBA work. The task includes the creation of a demonstrator for a complete project. The enacted workflows and their associated research objects are accessible from the IBISBAHub.

Details of the implementation are given in Annex B: Architecture and implementation. The main body of this document describes the overall approach and lessons learnt.

The major lesson learnt from this piece of work is that in any future BPM-related developments in IBISBA, the BPM requirements must primarily consider the facilities and their work allocation. The detailed steps are a secondary (possibly minor) consideration.