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This paper offers tips for performing facilities and infrastructure management tasks quickly and efficiently via the Internet or an organisational intranet. When properly deployed, such Web‐centric technologies can hone an organisation’s competitive edge with best‐of‐class business processes not constrained by time zones, distance or technological platforms. Facilities management professionals will learn how to serve their clients more efficiently, while commanding greater compensation packages and securing their roles as highly valued members of the organisation.

The concept of business process (BP) as a service is a new solution in enterprises for the purpose of using specific BPs. BPs represent combinations of software services that must be properly executed by the resources provided by a company’s information technology infrastructure. As the policy requirements are different in each enterprise, processes are constantly evolving and demanding new resources in terms of computation and storage. To support more agility and flexibility, it is common today for enterprises to outsource their processes to clouds and, more recently, to cloud federation environment. Ensuring the optimal allocation of cloud resources to process service during the execution of workflows in accordance with user policy requirements is a major concern. Given the diversity of resources available in a cloud federation environment and the ongoing process changes required based on policies, reallocating cloud resources for service processing may lead to high computational costs and increased overheads in communication costs.

This paper presents a new adaptive resource allocation approach that uses a novel algorithm extending the natural-based intelligent water drops (IWD) algorithm that optimizes the resource allocation of workflows on the cloud federation which can estimate and optimize final deployment costs. The proposed algorithm is implemented and embedded within the WokflowSim simulation toolkit and tested in different simulated cloud environments with different workflow models.

The algorithm showed noticeable enhancements over the classical workflow deployment algorithms taking into account the challenges of data transfer. This paper made a comparison between the proposed IWD-based workflow deployment (IWFD) algorithm with other proposed algorithms. IWFD presented considerable improvements in the makespan, cost and data transfer in most situations in the cloud federation environment.

An extension for WorkflowSim to support the implementation of BPs in a federation cloud space regarding BP policy. Optimize workflow execution performance in Federated clouds by means of IWFD algorithm.

The optimization of quality‐of‐service (QoS) aware service selection problems is a crucial issue in both grids and distributed service‐oriented systems. When several implementations per service exist, one has to be selected for each workflow step. This paper aims to address these issues.

The authors proposed several heuristics with specific focus on blackboard and genetic algorithms. Their applicability and performance has already been assessed for static systems. In order to cover real‐world scenarios, the approaches are required to deal with dynamics of distributed systems.

The proposed algorithms prove their feasibility in terms of scalability and runtime performance, taking into account their adaptability to system changes.

In this paper, the authors propose a representation of the dynamic aspects of distributed systems and enhance their algorithms to efficiently capture them.

By combining both algorithms, the authors envision a global approach to QoS‐aware service selection applicable to static and dynamic systems.

The authors prove the feasibility of their hybrid approach by deploying the algorithms in a cloud environment (Google App Engine), that allows simulating and evaluating different system configurations.

The purpose of this paper is to present a virtual process simulation technique for modeling process alternatives.

The paper proposes modeling method and applies it to an illustrative example.

The method is effective in modeling the illustrative example and provides a method for studying team composition and dynamics a priori.

The paper presents an approach to model process alternatives in order to select the best deployment option. The modeling process incorporates measures and metrics relating to global geographic and team issues. Incorporation of these issues affords the process designer the ability to predict more accurately the most successful deployment option.

The research contributes to the study of process modeling by examining the potentially neglected or ignored issues relating to geographic and team diversity.

This purpose of this paper is to use the concepts of performance and emotional labour to shed new light on the skills workers use on two workflows in one call centre. In addition, the paper demonstrates how different workflows impact on workers everyday emotional experiences and wellbeing.

Using an auto-ethnographic approach to data collection the paper provides insights by focusing on both the self and others as objects of research. The underpinning theoretical inspiration is drawn from Labour Process Theory but considering the interactive nature of front-line call centre work, it adopts Goffman's (1959) dramaturgical concepts and draws on micro-sociological analyses of the labour process, particularly Hochschild (1983).

The case study illustrates how workers use social skills, through the performance of emotional labour, to different extents on contrasting workflows. The concept of performance is also used to demonstrate how management rely on worker's social skills to deliver fast and quality customer service. Contrary to other research, this study finds that the greater time front-line workers spend on calls and the wider scope they have for exercising discretion does not necessarily mean they experience greater levels of satisfaction and emotional wellbeing. Rather, the workflow with the tightest scripting and shortest call cycles – which inhibit the need to perform emotional labour – offered the greatest protection from the emotional demands of the job.

This paper is the first to apply Goffman's theatrical metaphors and concepts of performativity to unpack the nature of front-line call centre workers’ skills.

The purpose of this paper is to present the architectural principles and the services of the D-NET software toolkit. D-NET is a framework where designers and developers find the tools for constructing and operating aggregative infrastructures (systems for aggregating data sources with heterogeneous data models and technologies) in a cost-effective way. Designers and developers can select from a variety of D-NET data management services, can configure them to handle data according to given data models, and can construct autonomic workflows to obtain personalized aggregative infrastructures.

The paper provides a definition of aggregative infrastructures, sketching architecture, and components, as inspired by real-case examples. It then describes the limits of current solutions, which find their lacks in the realization and maintenance costs of such complex software. Finally, it proposes D-NET as an optimal solution for designers and developers willing to realize aggregative infrastructures. The D-NET architecture and services are presented, drawing a parallel with the ones of aggregative infrastructures. Finally, real-cases of D-NET are presented, to show-case the statement above.

The D-NET software toolkit is a general-purpose service-oriented framework where designers can construct customized, robust, scalable, autonomic aggregative infrastructures in a cost-effective way. D-NET is today adopted by several EC projects, national consortia and communities to create customized infrastructures under diverse application domains, and other organizations are enquiring for or are experimenting its adoption. Its customizability and extendibility make D-NET a suitable candidate for creating aggregative infrastructures mediating between different scientific domains and therefore supporting multi-disciplinary research.

D-NET is the first general-purpose framework of this kind. Other solutions are available in the literature but focus on specific use-cases and therefore suffer from the limited re-use in different contexts. Due to its maturity, D-NET can also be used by third-party organizations, not necessarily involved in the software design and maintenance.

The objective of the work is to analyze the impact of the Internet of Things (IoT) concepts and associated technologies in the framework of organizations and the management of their processes and how event orientation, as well as the structure of said business processes, can play an important role in this new organizational model. The main contribution of this work is to present a conceptualization of the research, identify approaches and challenges that require further study, and as a result, a proposal for future research.

The methodology comprises a qualitative analysis using secondary data. The approach relies on searches of scientific papers conducted in well-known databases, identifying research work around the IoT and Industry 4.0 applied to business process management. Based on the identified papers, the authors selected the most relevant and the latest publications, and categorized their contributions and findings based on open and selective coding. In total, the analysis is based on 95 papers that were selected and analyzed in depth.

The results of this research allow analyzing and ordering the existing contributions around Industry 4.0 and its impact on current organizations. The proposed conceptualization was derived from the analysis of the state of the research and identifies four categories: (1) improvements caused by Industry 4.0 and its impact on inter-organizational relations, (2) new architectural models and infrastructure of remote resources, their movement from the cloud to the edge and its effect on business processes, (3) context-aware concepts brought to business process management (BPM) linked to unstructured business processes and (4) complex event processing as a possible means for business processes sensitive to IoT signals.

The construction of current software ecosystems is strongly affected by the variety of information sources that feed them, as well as their volume. In addition, business processes represent organizations internally and are challenged to transcend the limits of companies due to the mentioned changes in software ecosystems. Industry 4.0 in conjunction with BPM re-defines the business process management paradigm and leads them to acquire the dynamism and sensitivity to the context that they usually did not have, as well as force them to move toward distributed platforms.

This paper assesses the state of the art in Industry 4.0 and business process management. The area can be defined as the intersection of two bigger areas highly relevant for organizations; on the one hand, the management and execution of business processes; and on the other hand, new conceptual, technological and methodological challenges to information systems that have to become more sensitive to event processing and also have to consume a large volume of data permanently and ubiquitously.

Humanitarian logistics is an essential element of disaster management and it presents many challenges due to the unique disaster relief environment. The paper describes the main features and challenges of humanitarian logistics and the potential role of technology. Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology has been increasingly considered to improve the efficiency of supply chain management. Security is an important requirement for disaster management. The purpose of this paper is to propose and describe the application of secure RFID technology to improve the management and security of relief supply chains.

The paper describes the challenges of disaster of supply chains and how secure RFID can address them in the overall framework of disaster management.

The paper describes the efficiency of the crypotgraphic algorithm used in the design of the secure RFID, the system architecture and the deployment workflow.

The establishment of a logistics tracking framework based on secure RFID has the potential to greatly increase the effectiveness of future emergency crises response operations.

The originality of the paper is to present the application of secure RFID to the context of disaster management, where the security of supply chains is often not addressed.

Because of its effectiveness, process mining is rapidly becoming ubiquitous. A recent IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) survey found that 65 percent of organizations report actively using process mining to improve processes. And in partnership with software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers to add even greater insight into their processes, 69 percent compare their organization’s data with other SaaS customers. And as many as 77 percent of supply chain executives say they are at least at the implementation stage of process and task mining.

The IBM Institute for Business Value and APQC, in cooperation with Oxford Economics, surveyed 2,000 C-level executives in first half of 2022 from 13 countries in all major geographies and across 22 industries. The IBV and APQC implemented an in-depth analysis of how organizations use benchmarking and process mining tools, the benefits they gain from use of these tools and how they anticipate using them in the future.

Big data and digital technologies also creates new possibilities for measuring performance and revealing process improvement opportunities through process mining ? a relatively new discipline that applies data science to discover, validate and improve workflows in real time.

By utilizing data from IT systems to create a process model and then examining the end-to-end process, process mining enables root causes of variations from norms to be identified using specialized algorithms, and these insights enable management to see if processes are functioning as intended and identify new opportunities to optimize them.

More recently, the scope of process mining initiatives has widened to encompass more sophisticated mission-critical functions, notably human capital, cybersecurity and sales. Organizations that embrace process mining outperform others across key business measures, including profitability, innovation, agility, customer satisfaction and technological sophistication. 10;

Manufacturers have experienced many stages of evolution and paradigm shift. The paradigm shifts from crafts to mass production, then to lean production, and finally to agile manufacturing (AM). Agility will reduce the time to market for appropriate products and services. Twenty-first century companies must meet a demanding customer base that will increasingly seek high quality, low-cost products adapted to their specific and continually evolving needs. It is time for companies to compete, and “push the boundaries” in response to delivery, product quality, and overall excellence in customer service and satisfaction. For addressing these challenges, a new way to manage businesses was proposed called “Agility,” AM is defined as the ability to survive in a competitive environment characterized by the continual and unpredictable changes, by responding effectively to the changing markets with products and services designed by the customer. This chapter presents a review of research related to the agility concept through an analysis of the variously proposed studies. This analysis was conducted based on a meta-model of three words (Agility, Management, and Organization).