Case-Base Maintenance for CCBR-Based Process Evolution

The success of a company more and more depends on its ability to flexibly and quickly react to changes. Combining process management techniques and conversational case-based reasoning (CCBR) allows for flexibly aligning the business processes to new requirements by providing integrated process life cycle support. This includes the adaptation of business processes to changing needs by allowing deviations from the predefined process model, the memorization and the reuse of these deviations using CCBR, and the derivation of process improvements from cases. However, to effectively support users during the whole process life cycle, the quality of the data maintained in the case base (CB) is essential. Low problem solving efficiency of the CCBR system as well as inconsistent or inaccurate cases can limit user acceptance. In this paper we describe fundamental requirements for CB maintenance, which arise when integrating business process management (BPM) and CCBR and elaborate our approach to meeting these requirements.