LS/ABPM – Living Systems^®
Autonomic Business Process Management

LS/ABPM represents a next generation approach to business process modeling and execution.

LS/ABPM is based on state-of-the-art goal-oriented concepts and technologies: the business goals to be achieved are defined in the process model, providing business-oriented modeling.

Agile business process navigation 

This goal-based process model is directly executed in the run-time environment, striving to achieve the goals by determining and executing the required steps. LS/ABPM provides what Whitestein calls agile business process navigation in lieu of the traditional business process execution.

LS/ABPM is particularly suited for businesses where processes are required to swiftly adapt to changes, and where the processes don't need to, or even cannot, just follow a strict predefined sequence. This makes LS/ABPM a superior choice for human-centric activity fields with collaborating experts.

Comprehensive BPMS

LS/ABPM represents a comprehensive BPM suite (BPMS) with the following main components: 

• Process Modeling & Testing Environment (using GO-BPMN)
• Process Management & Administration Console
• Process Navigation Engine
• Process Analysis & Improvement Environment
• Application & tasks frameworks & libraries

LS/ABPM is build upon LS/TS, in particular its goal-oriented execution engine (BDI engine)

Highlights of LS/ABPM

Graphical modeling language 

Process models focus on business goals and business organization, via a graphical modeling language GO-BPMN, which extends OMG-standard BPMN with business goal-hierarchies that the execution engine understands and strives to achieve.

Autonomic orchestration of plans

Each business goal has one or more so called plans (modeled in standard BPMN), each defining one possible way to achieve the goal. The execution engine selects the appropriate plans at run-time based on business rules.

Agile process navigation 

That is, the process navigation engine assembles the actual business process at run-time, at the last moment, which allows an unprecedented agile adaptivity to changing business conditions.

Separation of goals and plans 

GO-BPMN models provide separation of the definition of the desired system behavior (goals) from the various possible ways to achieve that behavior in different contexts and implementing different strategies (plans, rules).

Process models made for business domain experts

Thanks to the primary focus on business goals in lieu of procedures, the resulting process models are of highly declarative and thus descriptive nature. This supports not only easier changes, but also enables domain experts to directly do the modeling. Hence, LS/ABPM substantially narrows the gap between business and technology (business-oriented process modeling).

Process models are directly executable

As the process models are directly executable, with the user interface generated from the process model, the modeling domain experts can test their models immediately on their personal computer. Hence, LS/ABPM's tools support rapid process development and the full process life cycle right on the modeler's personal computer.

J2EE and J2SE ready 

LS/ABPM's tools are Eclipse-based, and the run-time engine can be deployed both in J2EE and J2SE environments. In J2EE contexts, all major application servers are supported (including WebSphere, WebLogic, and JBoss). LS/ABPM supports clustering and scales well also for high loads.

Close the gap between business and IT 

LS/ABPM, with its LS/TS underpinning, addresses the needs of

• business professionals: define and test business process models
• IT professionals: integrate the process models at defined extension points into existing IT landscapes, e.g., by means of SOA.

Detailed monitoring of processes 

LS/ABPM provides detailed monitoring of running process instances. At any point, the achieved, running, waiting goals of a process can be inspected, as well as the corresponding pending tasks.