With the increase in desktop computing power available to office workers, and the advent of easily accessible networking, 3D virtual worlds can now be rolled out as an enterprise wide IT solution, making them an attractive proposition for many application domains.
Much effort has been invested in using these 3D worlds for military, mining, health and emergency services, to simulate and practice dangerous and expensive process scenarios. While business processes are typically not so dangerous, their incorrect execution can be expensive, and so simulation of business processes for validation and education has a potentially strong business case via cost savings, increases in process conformance and related productivity increases.
This seminar will present the results of two projects utilizing 3D virtual worlds in the field of BPM, addressing specific business process communication problems.
Process Model Execution Visualisation – visualising executing business processes for communication, education and training remains a relatively unexplored area of BPM. We have developed an approach to integrating executable workflow environments into a 3D virtual world. Business processes are exposed in world as animations, interactive worklists and as interactive, instrumented environments. Such an approach enables a number of modes of interaction with executable business process systems, facilitating many communication, validation, training and education scenarios.
Remote Collaborative Process Modelling - many enterprises are international in scope, involving teams that have to collaborate remotely. 3D virtual worlds facilitate remote networked collaboration, due to their ability to spatially juxtapose an avatar of the remote user alongside the artifact being discussed, enabling better non-verbal communication and thus better remote collaboration. In this case, a BPMN model becomes the shared artifact that can be manipulated by a team of analysts using remotely connected 3D avatars. We believe this to be a more intuitive manner of remote collaboration than present 2D video collaboration approaches.
Ross Brown is a Senior Lecturer with the Science and Technology Faculty, where he is a member of the QUT Business Process Management (BPM) Research Discipline. He also teaches computer graphics and final year project units in the Bachelor of Games and Interactive Entertainment at QUT.
His main research interests are in the application of 3D games technology to other research domains. In particular, his latest research involves the development of 3D virtual world technology for the representation of, and interaction with, BPM systems. A number of projects are currently underway, including: the embedding of executable workflows in virtual environments, collaborative 3D process modelling, 3D spatial visualisation of process models and the development of consumer interfaces for augmented reality retail services. This research is being financially supported by the Smart Services Collaborative Research Centre in Australia.