Evaluating the Performance of a Batch Activity in Process Models

Today, the goal of many organizations is to optimize their business processes. A factor for optimization is the reduction of costs associated with mass production and customer service, e.g., by the mean of batch processing. In business process management, batch activities allow to improve the process performance by synchronizing the execution of a set of process instances. However, the issue of optimal utilization of batch activities and estimation of associated costs remains still open. In this paper, we present an approach to evaluate batch activity performance based on techniques from queuing theory. Thus, cost functions are introduced in order to (1) compare usual (i.e., non-batch) and batch activity execution and (2) find the optimal configuration of a batch activity. The approach is applied to a real-world use case from the healthcare domain.