Modelling, Analysis and Improvement of Mobile Business Processes with the MPL Method

This paper introduces the Mobile Process Landscaping (MPL) method for modelling, analysing and improving mobile business processes. Current approaches for process modelling and analysis do not explicitly allow the consideration of typical mobility issues, e.g. location-dependent activities, mobile networks as resources and specifics of mobile information systems. Thus, our method focuses on the modelling and analysis of these characteristics, and is furthermore based on the process landscaping approach, supporting the easy creation of hierarchical models of distributed processes. The method comes with a specialized modelling notation and guidelines for the creation of process landscapes, context models, and business object models. Furthermore, it provides a catalogue of formally defined evaluation objectives, targeting at typical mobility issues. Each evaluation objective can automatically be tested on the created process landscape. Furthermore, the method includes a best practices catalogue with patterns for process and application improvements for typical mobility situations. A validation of the method is presented showing results from the method’s use in a real-world project