INTRODUCTION

On November 6 and 7 2008 the School for Information and Knowledge Systems (SIKS) will organize an advanced course on "Business Process Management ". The course takes two days, will be given in English and is part of the Advanced Components Stage of the Educational Program for SIKS-PhD Students. Although these courses are primarily intended for SIKS-PhD Students, other participants are not excluded. However, their number of passes will be restricted and depends on the number of students taking the course. The course is given by experienced lecturers actively involved in the research areas related to the topics of the course.

Especially PhD-students working on the SIKS-focus "Enterprise Information Systems" are strongly encouraged and expected to participate.

Business Process Management (BPM) is concerned with the development and use of generic software systems that is driven by explicit process designs to enact and manage operational business processes. The classical example of a BPM system is a workflow management system. However, over the last two decades many other process-aware information systems emerged, e.g., EPR systems like SAP often have multiple process engines, high-tech devices such as medical equipment can be configured based on workflows, web-services are being driven by BPEL-based workflow engines of companies like IBM and Oracle, and even the Vista operating system has workflow inside (cf. Microsoft's Workflow Foundation). These show the relevance of BPM for SIKS researchers: "processes are everywhere and need to be supported".

Despite the abundance of commercial BPM systems, many research challenges remain. Still there is a huge gap between the idealistic "PowerPoint process models" made by managers and the complexity and limitations of actual systems and their configuration. This Advanced SIKS course on Business Process Management will focus on such challenges.


LOCATION: Landgoed Huize Bergen, Vught

DATE: 06-07 November 2008

SCIENTIFIC DIRECTORS:
Prof. dr.ir. W.M.P. van der Aalst (TUE)
Prof. dr. M.U. Reichert (University of Ulm)

PROGRAM: the course covers the following subjects:

• Formal foundations of BPM
• Overview of challenges and paradigms in workflow management
• Advanced techniques for process analysis
• Advanced issues on process flexibility
• Implementation of process engines
• Business process redesign
• Practical experiences with BPM

Thursday, November 6 2008
09.00 - 09.30 Coffee/opening
09.30 - 11.00 Manfred Reichert [Basic Concepts and Technologies for Business Process Management]
11.00 - 11.15 Break
11.15 - 12.45 Wil van der Aalst [Formal Foundations of Business Process Management (Systems)]
12.45 - 13.45 Lunch
13.45 - 15.15 Hajo Reijers [Intelligent Design ... of Business Processes!]
15.15 - 15.45 Break
15.45 - 17.15 Nick Russell [Workflow Patterns: Towards a Foundation for BPM]

Friday, November 7 2008
09.00 - 10.30 Wil van der Aalst [Process Mining]
10.30 - 11.00 Break
11.00 - 12.30 Manfred Reichert [Flexibility in Business Process Management]
12.30 - 13.30 Lunch
13.30 - 15.00 Rinus Plasmeijer [iTasks - Specifying Workflows in a Functional Language]
15.00 - 15.30 Break
15.30 - 17.00 Paul Eertink [BPM|one by Pallas Athena, use of BPM concepts and technology in commercial software]

Detailed information can be found here

For more information about the content of the course, contact Wil van der Aalst or Manfred Reichert
For all details on SIKS educational program, contact office@siks.nl

REGISTRATION
In the conference center there is a limited number of places and there is interest from other groups in the topic as well. Therefore, an early registration is required.

Deadline for registration for SIKS-Ph.D.-students: October 21 2008

After that date, applications to participate will be honoured in a first-come first-serve manner. Of course, applications to participate from other interested groups are welcome already. They will receive a notification whether they can participate as soon as possible.

For registration you are kindly requested to fill in the registration form

Arrangement 1 includes single room, all meals, and course material. Arrangement 2 includes two lunches, one dinner and course material. So no stay in the hotel and no breakfast.