A Cooperative Approach for Knowledge-based Business Process Design in a Public Authority
Mohammad Azarijafari, Luisa Mich, Michele Missikoff, Oleg Missikoff
TL;DR
The paper tackles the challenge of cooperative knowledge-based business process design within a public authority context, emphasizing the need for shared representations among diverse stakeholders. It introduces the BPA Canvas, a knowledge-based framework organized into eight artefact segments to guide designers from simple text to formal BP ontologies, with a Lite version suitable for SMEs. The authors demonstrate the approach through a real-world MERA licensing case in Malawi, showing how BP Signature, BP Statement, and BP User Story interconnect with a BPMN diagram to produce a coherent, diagrammatic workflow. They argue that BPA Canvas supports collaborative knowledge building, reduces ambiguity, and lays groundwork for AI-driven, decentralized, self-adaptive production ecosystems in public-sector environments.
Abstract
Enterprises are currently undergoing profound transformations due to the unpostponable digital transformation. Then, to remain competitive, enterprises must adapt digital solutions, transforming their organisational structures and operations. This organisational shift is also important for small and medium-sized enterprises. A key innovation frontier is the adoption of process-oriented production models. This paper presents a knowledge-based method to support business experts in designing business processes. The method requires no prior expertise in Knowledge Engineering and guides designers through a structured sequence of steps to produce a diagrammatic workflow of the target process. The construction of the knowledge base starts from simple, text-based, knowledge artefacts and then progresses towards more structured, formal representations. The approach has been conceived to allow a shared approach for all stakeholders and actors who participate in the BP design.