Petri Net Simulator for Small-Medium Enterprises’ Business Process Management in a Network Business Environment PISTOL Luminița1, a, ȚONIȘ-BUCEA-MANEA Radu2,band ȚONIȘ-BUCEA-MANEA Rocsana3,c * 1,
Spiru Haret University Str. Fabricii nr.46G, Sector 6, București, Romania
2
Stefanini ADC Romania, Bd. Dimitrie Pompeiu 10 A, București, Romania
3
Politehnica University of Bucharest, Splaiul Independenței 313, București, Romania
a
[email protected],
[email protected],
[email protected] (Corresponding Author) [Don’t type anything in this line, it’ll show the date of receipt and acceptance]
Keywords: intelligent engine system, Petri Nets, business process management system, Romanian Small-Medium Enterprises, Network Business Environment.
Abstract. Strong companies have a significant impact on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth, and also on the impoverishment of large segments of population. To balance this inequity the government policies have to sustain Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to form a digital professional ecosystem in order to represent a real competition for big companies. The digital environment dedicated to SMEs cooperation has to be based on distributed Information and Communications Technology (ICT) platforms. The article purpose is to test a dynamic economic model by simulating SMEs interactions in a Network Business Environment. SMEs interactions concern assets acquisitions through partnerships and developing commercial transitions. We used the Colored Petri Net (CPN) Tool for simulating SMEs interactions, based on Dining Philosopher problem. This simulation concerns a business ecosystem of SMEs and a single type asset. In our future research, one intelligent system engine should contain many other components able to answer to the business rules. Introduction The article is the result of research in the field of distributed ICT platforms. Our scope is to build an intelligent system (IES) able to simulate the SMEs interaction inside a business ecosystem. The result of the simulation helps the SMEs to make decisions, such as develop partnership, develop transactions, outsource or insource assets. We have chosen a Petri Nets modeling tool, which is able to simulate the business processes between SMEs. In our case study we work with 20 SMEs. Our model is scalable for n SMEs and may be used to recommend a proper economic solution for each entity in the network. Research Methodology Our research methodology is to study the scientific literature with the focus on business process management. We discover that we can use Petri Nets in order to develop a simulator as part of a technical platform for Romanian SME - a Network Business Environment (NBE). Our study has five steps: - Defining the research questions to answer: How BPMS help controlling the flux of activities in a NBE?, Is Petri Net simulator a proper tool for modeling this flux?; - Choosing databases to search for articles, chapters and notes, such as Web of Science, EBSCOhost, IS journals and IS conference proceedings; - Screening new papers and extracting information that might be transformed into knowledge. In our selection we chose the following keywords: Petri Nets, Business process management, SMEs etc.; - Making a comparison of available Petri Nets Tools and chose CPN Tools [1];
- Developing a Petri Net simulator for SMEs’ Business Process Management in a Network Business Environment Literature Review The government economic policies worldwide deepen the gap between poor and rich. Currently 1% of population achieved 23% of GDP, compared with previous years when the same percentage of the population achieves only 10% of the GDP. This is mainly due to lowering taxes for the wealthy part of the population. This theory relies on the fact that rich peoples’ wealth will have a positive impact on the poor’s living standard. It was expected that they would make investments and create jobs. Unfortunately, the impact on the poor was negative, forming a more dependable class on government social policies, on which revenues did not reflect any economic improvement (sticky floor). Many economists thought globalization of the capital and labor will stimulate competition and diminish the profit of the strong economic players, but they grew even stronger (too big to fall). There are countries like Sweden where the level of taxation for the rich is very high and these taxes are used by government for efficient social policies and to stimulate a sustainable economic development. As a consequence, 88% of the population in Sweden is satisfied with their living standard. Government policies have enriched a small percentage of the population by favoring multinationals and monopolistic activities. These large companies have a significant impact on GDP growth, and also on the impoverishment of the population. The access for resources is more and more limited for the SME’s due to international monopolistic groups so the development of professional digital networks of SMEs will improve their competitiveness. By forming an ecosystem, SMEs will have access to information, funding, free online tools and technology, research studies conducted by universities, may use the same resources for research and development, innovation, free marketing campaigns, accordingly to a sustainable economical growth. We described this ecosystem in the papers [2] and [3]. Current SMEs try to answer question such as what?, how?, where?, who?, when?, why?, all these questions being columns heads in Zachman framework which describe an enterprise architecture. Zachman architecture is a 6 x 6 matrix with the Communication Interrogatives as columns and the Reification Transformations as rows. At the intersection of columns and rows are descriptive representations of enterprise activity. The columns refer at 6 instantiations, each of it answering to the questions above: inventory (what), process (how), distribution (where), responsibility (who), timing (when), motivations (why). The rows refer at six perspectives: executive following the scope, business management based on business concepts, architect following the system logic, engineer technology based on physics, technician using tool components and the enterprise from the user point of view. Thus each enterprise can identify, define, represent, specify and configure each of the six instantiations. [4] This architecture provides an accurate model for analysis that can be used to formulate conditions of SMEs economical interaction, as members of a digital network business environment, described in the section below. This model can be integrated in a Business Process Management System (BPMS). Currently we have generic BPMS applications, such as: Staffware, MQSeries, and COSA. But BPMS could also be integrated as components in a domain specific application. Giants in data processing like SAP, Baan, PeopleSoft, Oracle, and JD Edwards has workflow engines that integrate business processes with management systems. BPMS can be used to avoid hard-coding the work processes into tailor-made applications and thus support the shift from programming to assembling. Moreover, process orientation, redesign, and organic growth are supported.[5] BPMS models take into account three major perspectives: The process perspective follows the normal repetitive flux of tasks during the current organization activity; the information perspective deals with all the data and knowledge transmitted between processes, between organization employees, between organization and exterior environment and the resource perspective which deals with organization structure and different kind of resources, roles, and groups. [6] Further on in our paper, we focus on the process perspective being relevant for our paper discussion.
Business process modeling is based on routing constructs in different kind of workflow nets. These routing constructs could be sequential, parallel, conditional, and iterative. Workflow nets have clear semantics. The fact that we are able to play the so-called token game using a minimal set of rules shows the fact that these models are executable. [5] We decided to use Petri Nets for modeling the relationships between SMEs within a digital business ecosystem that provides the available assets. Network Business Environment We intend to create a Digital Business Ecosystem for Romanian SMEs, more efficient then the Romanian portal www.immromania.ro, using distributed ICT platforms, to inform SMEs about free of charge open source software technologies and business.[3] The relations between SMEs, modeled as a producer-consumer dichotomy, would provide useful data for the research on the economic development & innovation field of study. The SMEs interactions would be monitored and facilitated by an Intelligent System Engine (ISE) designed to evaluate and discover new business opportunities for all SMEs in the network to create sustainable cooperative solutions. The ISE has to find SME’s weak points and suggests improvements, such as finding out business partners or resources that may fuel its growth. In our case study the partner (SME) is evaluated depending on available resources, solving a strategic problem. Shortcomings appear very often because markets are perceived as unable to adequately bundle the relevant resources and capabilities. This is the reason why pooling resources in network organization allows keeping strong incentives while maintaining organization flexibility. [7] Thus we modeled a simulator using a Colored Petri Nets tool to answer the next four restrictions: R1: IF the required asset is critical AND the partner’s asset is also critical THEN DEVELOP A PARTNERSHIP R2: IF the required asset is critical AND the partner’s asset is not critical THEN INSOURCE THE ASSET R3: IF the required asset is not critical AND the partner’s asset is critical THEN OUTSOURCE THE ASSET R4: IF the required asset is not critical AND the partner’s asset is not critical THEN DEVELOP A TRANSACTION In the near future, we’ll try to rank SMEs and choose the right partner accordingly to its behavior in previous cooperation and the ability to answer promptly to other SMEs needs – a state aware Petri Net with memory.[8] In order to solve this problem each SME in the NBE has to describe its strategic assets within the Zachman’s framework of Enterprise representation. This way, a semantic classification of strategic assets is made, so the ISE will solve operational problems, scanning economic data and finding bottlenecks in exploiting resources. Petri Nets – Theory For our case study we chose Petri Nets to model our entities, the conditions, and the relations dynamically established between them. Another strong point of Petri Nets is the ease data, resources and activity flows are graphically represented. A Petri Nets is a mathematical modeling language for the description of discrete event systems. A Petri Net is a directed bipartite graph, in which the nodes represent transitions, places, and directed arcs that describe the relation between places and transitions. From a mathematical point of view Petri Nets Definition is [9]. Thus, a Petri Net is a triple N = (P, T, A): P = {p1, p2, ..., pn} is a finite set of places, n ≥ 0,
(1)
T = {t1, t2, ..., tm} is a finite set of transitions, m ≥ 0,
(2)
A ⊆ (P × T) ∪ (T × P) is the flow relation,
(3)
P ∩ T = ∅): P and T are disjoint sets. (4) A classical Petri Net consists of places and transitions. The places in a Petri Net depict the current state of a Petri Net. A place is represented as a circle and a transition as a square. The transitions of a Petri Net can change the state when they fire. In a Petri Net places and transitions are connected with each other by directed arcs. Arcs between two places or two transitions are not allowed. Arcs may point from a place to a transition and vice-versa, providing input and output respectively. Execution of Petri Net is nondeterministic so Petri Nets are well suited for modeling the concurrent behavior of distributed systems. Colored Petri Nets are an enhancement of Petri Nets, the main extensions being colors, time and expressions attached to arcs and transitions. Modeling a Petri Net We model our Petri Net by mapping the workflow and following the next rules (Table 1) [10]:
Workflow Activity Activity migration condition Decision node
Table 1: Mapping WF entities into Petri Net objects Petri Net Transition Place Mutex choice structure
The workflow diagram is presented below (fig. 1). We have 2 binary logic variables (required asset and partner asset). Thus we have 22 combinations (i=0…3) that map the four enterprise restrictions, modeled below as a switch case.
Fig.1. Workflow diagram contain the enterprise restriction The transitions taken into account are in our case study are: T1- Develop partnership, T2- Develop transaction. The places are the following: P0- Partnership, P1- Transaction, P2 - Available asset. CPN Tools There are lots of available tools allowing advanced Petri Net modeling. Making a comparison of Petri Nets Tools [1] we have chosen free CPN Tools [11] available for PC, Linux, Macintosh and Mac OS. This tool provides a graphical editor, fast simulation, structural analysis, interchange file format and services for modular modeling.
CPN Tools is a widespread tool for editing, edi simulating and analyzing alyzing colored P-nets. Feedback facilities provide contextual error messages and indicate dependency relationships between model elements. The tool features incremental syntax checking and code generation which take place while a model is being constructed. d. This means that it is possible to simulate and analyze the parts of a model that are syntactically correct, while parts that are incomplete or have errors are ignored. It is also possible to modify a model during a simulation, and then continue the simulation simu after the modified parts of the model have been rechecked. CPN Tools is using eXtended tended Markup Language (XML) files for holding the models. The XML format of CPN Tools files is described using Document Type Definition (DTD DTD). [12] The format of XML file ile of CPN Tools is quite simple, for example in our model the globbox node contains the following: val n = 20; SME 1 n sme ASSET 1
n ml> asset SME s fun Assets(sme(i)) = 1`asset(if i=n then 1 else i+1);
Case Study The CPN model describes how a number of processes (SMEs interactions) interactions share common resources (assets). ts). The Dining Philosophers [13] is one of the traditional examples used by computer scientists to illustrate ate new concepts in the area of synchronization and concurrency. In our model if an asset is critical for a SME, it develops develop a partnership ensuring the critical asset to develop new transactions in the future; if the asset is not critical, then a SME could develop transaction right away and may develop partnerships in the future. The simulation stops when the required number of steps is accomplished or when no SME has any critical assets ass to develop transactions. (Fig. 2) The SME’s ecosystem ystem is modeled by the Colored Colored Petri Nets shown below. The SME color set represents the SMEs, while the ASSET color set represents the assets. The function Assets maps each SME into the asset next to him: fun un Assets(sme(i)) =1’asset(if i=n then 1 else i+1);
Fig.2. Petri Net simulator diagram Conclusions In our research we designed design a simulation scheme and developed the associated ML code in order to model the SMEs integration through partnerships and commercial transactions within a business network ecosystem.. The aim of our simulation experiment is to improve the SMEs competitiveness by developing an intelligent system engine to assist assist decision for interconnected SMEs.
Acknowledgement This work is supported by the Romania’s Operational Program for Human Resource Development (POSDRU), financed from the European Social Fund and the Romanian Government under the contract number POSDRU/159/1.5/S/134398. References [1] Petri Nets Tools - https://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/TGI/PetriNets /tools/quick.html. [2] L. Pistol, R. Țoniș (Bucea-Manea), Model of Innovation through Information Network Sharing, Journal of Applied Economic Series, Volume X, 4(34) (2015) 509-513. [3] R. Ţoniş Bucea-Manea, M. G. Catană, S. Tonoiu, Network Business Environment for Open Innovation in SMEs, Applied Mechanics and Materials, 760 (2015) 751-756 . [4] Zachman architecture - http://www.zachman.com/about-the-zachman-framework. [5] W.M.P. van der Aalst, Making Work Flow: On the Application of Petri Nets to Business Process, Management Department of Technology Management, Eindhoven University of Technology. http://wwwis.win.tue.nl/~wvdaalst/publications/p153.pdf [6] S. Jablonski, C. Bussler, Workflow Management: Modeling Concepts, Architecture, and Implementation, International Thomson Computer Press, London, UK, 1996. [7] C. Menard, The Economics of Hybrid Organizations, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 160 (2004) 345–376. [8] G. Perrone, L. Scarpulla, L. Cuccia, Fostering SMEs networking through Business Ecosystem and ICT, ERIMA07’ Proceedings, Italy, (2007) 154-162. [9] M. Snoeck, K.U. Leuven, Business Process Verification: a Petri Net Approach Manu De Backer, Dept. of Applied Economic Sciences, Naamsestraat 69, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium, http://core.ac.uk/download/files/153/6338942.pdf [10] J. Chen, H. Xiong, L. Han, K. Zheng, G. Gao, A Modeling Method in Financial Work on Using Petri Nets, Journal of Information & Computational Science 9: 6 (2012) 1625-1632. [11] Colour Petri Nets Tools - http://cpntools.org/ [12] M. Zäuram, Business Process Simulation Using Coloured Petri Nets, Master’s Thesis, http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:nuMJvIfvA4cJ:comserv.cs.ut.ee/forms /ati_report/downloader.php%3Ffile%3DB588E43D2D553E437CC37B032C2429ECFA3D2B8 3+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ro [13]
K. Jensen, Aarhus University, Denmark, http://cpntools.org/_media/documentation/diningphilosophers.pdf
Dining
Philosophers,
