Data processing in self-controlling enterprise processes

Abstract

This study presents cause-effect dependencies between inputs and outputs of business transitions that are software objects designed for processing information-decision state variables in integrated enterprise process control (EntPC) systems. Business transitions are elementary components of controlling units in enterprise processes that have been defined as self-controlling, generalized business processes, which may serve not only as business processes but also as business systems or their roles. Business events, which have zero durations by definition, are interpreted as executions of business actions that are main operations of business transitions. Any ordered set of business actions, performed in the controlling unit of a given enterprise process and attributed to the same discrete-time instant, is referred to as ‘the information-decision process’. The i-d processes may be substituted by managerial business processes, performed on the lower organizational level, where durations of activity executions are greater than zero, but discrete-time periods are considerably shorter. In such a case, procedures of business actions are performed by corresponding activities of managerial processes, but on the level of business transitions the durations of their executions are imperceptible, and many different business events may occur at the same discrete-time instant. It has been demonstrated in the paper how to control business actions to ensure that a given i-d state variable may not change more than once at a given instant. Furthermore, the rules of designing the i-d process structures, which prevent random changes of transitory states, have been presented.

Keywords

• enterprise process control
• complex control systems
• industry 4.0
• enterprise process state
• enterprise integration