Prototype-based management of business process exception cases

Business process optimization may require to deviate from a default process model, in response to unexpected situations, thus raising exceptions. In this paper, we present a system for supporting end users in handling exceptions in business process management, which exploits the case-based reasoning (CBR) methodology. CBR offers the advantage of relying on operative knowledge, thus reducing the cost of knowledge elicitation, with respect to other methodologies. To maintain and organize the case base, we resort to a type of generalized cases, known as prototypes. The use of prototypes allows us to structure the case base itself, thus speeding up retrieval, and avoiding redundancy. In our system prototypes are also intended as a means to help process engineers in defining revised versions of the process schema, in response to frequent exceptions. The system is currently in use at one of the largest logistics centres in Italy.