Wil van der Aalst
Encyclopedia
Wil M.P. van der Aalst is a Dutch
computer scientist
, and professor at the Department of Mathematics & Computer Science of the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, where he chairs the Architecture of Information Systems
group, His research and teaching interests include information systems
, workflow management, Petri nets, process mining
, specification language
s, and simulation
. He is also known for his work on workflow patterns
.
in The Netherlands. He has received a MSc in computing science in 1988 at the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven (TU/e), and a PhD in mathematics
in 1992 with the thesis "Timed colored Petri nets and their application to logistics" under supervision of prof.dr. J. Wessels and prof.dr. K.M. van Hee.
In 1992 he started working at the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven as an assistant professor for the department of Mathematics and Computing Science, where he headed the Specification and Modeling of Information systems (SMIS) research group. 2000 to 2003 he became a part-time full professor at the Computing Science department. And from 2000 to 2006 he was head of the Information Systems department at the Technology Management department of TU/e. Since 2006 he is full professor at the Department of Mathematics & Computer Science of the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, where he chairs the Architecture of Information Systems (AIS) group. He also has a part-time appointment in the BPM group of Queensland University of Technology
(QUT).
He has been a visiting professor on at Karlsruhe University (AIFB), the University of Georgia
(LSDIS), Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main (WI-II), the University of Colorado
(CTRG), Queensland University of Technology
(CITI), and the Aarhus University (DAIMI).
He is associate editor for several journals, including "IEEE Transactions on Services Computing", "IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics", "International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management", "International Journal on Enterprise Modelling and Information Systems Architectures", "Computers in Industry", and "Transactions on Petri Nets and Other Models of Concurrency".
He is series editor of "Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing" (LNBIP) by Springer, member of the editorial board of "Distributed and Parallel Databases" and "Business and Information Systems Engineering", and member of several steering committees, including "International Conference Series on Business Process Management" (chair), "International Conference Series on Application and Theory of Petri nets" and "International Workshop Series on Web Services and Formal Methods". He is also a member of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen).
, business process management
, simulation
, Petri nets, process models, workflow management systems, verification techniques, process mining
, enterprise resource planning
systems, computer supported cooperative work, webservices, business process redesign, resource allocation and interorganizational business process
es.
He is a strong supporter of open-source software
. He initiated and led the development of:
He also initiated the Workflow Patterns
initiative. The Workflow Patterns website is visited by hundreds of researchers and practitioners each day and this work influenced industry standards such as the Business Process Execution Language
(BPEL), the Business Process Modeling Notation
(BPMN), etc. Van der Aalst's ideas have also influenced various widely used commercial software tools such as Flower, Protos, Futura Reflect, Staffware, WebSphere, and ARIS
.
Other scientific contributions of Van der Alst are in the field of Business Process Discovery
, Event-driven process chain
, Workflow Management Coalition
and XPDL
.
Articles, a selection:
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
computer scientist
Computer scientist
A computer scientist is a scientist who has acquired knowledge of computer science, the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their application in computer systems....
, and professor at the Department of Mathematics & Computer Science of the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, where he chairs the Architecture of Information Systems
Enterprise architecture
An enterprise architecture is a rigorous description of the structure of an enterprise, which comprises enterprise components , the externally visible properties of those components, and the relationships between them...
group, His research and teaching interests include information systems
Information systems
Information Systems is an academic/professional discipline bridging the business field and the well-defined computer science field that is evolving toward a new scientific area of study...
, workflow management, Petri nets, process mining
Process mining
Process mining is a process management technique that allows for the analysis of business processes based on event logs. The basic idea is to extract knowledge from event logs recorded by an information system...
, specification language
Specification language
A specification language is a formal language used in computer science.Unlike most programming languages, which are directly executable formal languages used to implement a system, specification languages are used during systems analysis, requirements analysis and systems design.Specification...
s, and simulation
Simulation
Simulation is the imitation of some real thing available, state of affairs, or process. The act of simulating something generally entails representing certain key characteristics or behaviours of a selected physical or abstract system....
. He is also known for his work on workflow patterns
Workflow patterns
A workflow pattern is a specialized form of a design pattern as defined in the area of software engineering or business process engineering respectively...
.
Biography
Van der Aalst was born on 29 January 1966, in EerselEersel
Eersel is a municipality and a town in southern Netherlands in the province of North Brabant. Eersel is situated in the Campine area....
in The Netherlands. He has received a MSc in computing science in 1988 at the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven (TU/e), and a PhD in mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
in 1992 with the thesis "Timed colored Petri nets and their application to logistics" under supervision of prof.dr. J. Wessels and prof.dr. K.M. van Hee.
In 1992 he started working at the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven as an assistant professor for the department of Mathematics and Computing Science, where he headed the Specification and Modeling of Information systems (SMIS) research group. 2000 to 2003 he became a part-time full professor at the Computing Science department. And from 2000 to 2006 he was head of the Information Systems department at the Technology Management department of TU/e. Since 2006 he is full professor at the Department of Mathematics & Computer Science of the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, where he chairs the Architecture of Information Systems (AIS) group. He also has a part-time appointment in the BPM group of Queensland University of Technology
Queensland University of Technology
Queensland University of Technology is an Australian university with an applied emphasis in courses and research. Based in Brisbane, it has 40,000 students, including 6,000 international students, over 4,000 staff members, and an annual budget of more than A$750 million.QUT is marketed as "A...
(QUT).
He has been a visiting professor on at Karlsruhe University (AIFB), the University of Georgia
University of Georgia
The University of Georgia is a public research university located in Athens, Georgia, United States. Founded in 1785, it is the oldest and largest of the state's institutions of higher learning and is one of multiple schools to claim the title of the oldest public university in the United States...
(LSDIS), Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main (WI-II), the University of Colorado
University of Colorado at Boulder
The University of Colorado Boulder is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado...
(CTRG), Queensland University of Technology
Queensland University of Technology
Queensland University of Technology is an Australian university with an applied emphasis in courses and research. Based in Brisbane, it has 40,000 students, including 6,000 international students, over 4,000 staff members, and an annual budget of more than A$750 million.QUT is marketed as "A...
(CITI), and the Aarhus University (DAIMI).
He is associate editor for several journals, including "IEEE Transactions on Services Computing", "IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics", "International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management", "International Journal on Enterprise Modelling and Information Systems Architectures", "Computers in Industry", and "Transactions on Petri Nets and Other Models of Concurrency".
He is series editor of "Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing" (LNBIP) by Springer, member of the editorial board of "Distributed and Parallel Databases" and "Business and Information Systems Engineering", and member of several steering committees, including "International Conference Series on Business Process Management" (chair), "International Conference Series on Application and Theory of Petri nets" and "International Workshop Series on Web Services and Formal Methods". He is also a member of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (Koninklijke Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschappen).
Work
Van der Aalst's research interest is in the fields of information systemsInformation systems
Information Systems is an academic/professional discipline bridging the business field and the well-defined computer science field that is evolving toward a new scientific area of study...
, business process management
Business process management
Business process management is a holistic management approach focused on aligning all aspects of an organization with the wants and needs of clients. It promotes business effectiveness and efficiency while striving for innovation, flexibility, and integration with technology. BPM attempts to...
, simulation
Simulation
Simulation is the imitation of some real thing available, state of affairs, or process. The act of simulating something generally entails representing certain key characteristics or behaviours of a selected physical or abstract system....
, Petri nets, process models, workflow management systems, verification techniques, process mining
Process mining
Process mining is a process management technique that allows for the analysis of business processes based on event logs. The basic idea is to extract knowledge from event logs recorded by an information system...
, enterprise resource planning
Enterprise resource planning
Enterprise resource planning systems integrate internal and external management information across an entire organization, embracing finance/accounting, manufacturing, sales and service, customer relationship management, etc. ERP systems automate this activity with an integrated software application...
systems, computer supported cooperative work, webservices, business process redesign, resource allocation and interorganizational business process
Business process
A business process or business method is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks that produce a specific service or product for a particular customer or customers...
es.
He is a strong supporter of open-source software
Open-source software
Open-source software is computer software that is available in source code form: the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the software.Open...
. He initiated and led the development of:
- the ProM framework, a process miningProcess miningProcess mining is a process management technique that allows for the analysis of business processes based on event logs. The basic idea is to extract knowledge from event logs recorded by an information system...
tool - YAWLYAWLThis article is about the workflow system. For the sailing craft, see yawl.YAWL is a workflow language based on the Workflow patterns. The language is supported by a software system that includes an execution engine, a graphical editor and a worklist handler...
, a workflow management system - and several other software tools such as Declare, Woflan, XRL, etc.
He also initiated the Workflow Patterns
Workflow patterns
A workflow pattern is a specialized form of a design pattern as defined in the area of software engineering or business process engineering respectively...
initiative. The Workflow Patterns website is visited by hundreds of researchers and practitioners each day and this work influenced industry standards such as the Business Process Execution Language
Business Process Execution Language
Business Process Execution Language , short for Web Services Business Process Execution Language is an OASIS standard executable language for specifying actions within business processes with web services...
(BPEL), the Business Process Modeling Notation
Business Process Modeling Notation
Business Process Model and Notation is a graphical representation for specifying business processes in a business process model. It was previously known as Business Process Modeling Notation....
(BPMN), etc. Van der Aalst's ideas have also influenced various widely used commercial software tools such as Flower, Protos, Futura Reflect, Staffware, WebSphere, and ARIS
ARIS
ARIS may refer to:*Advanced Research Instrumentation Ship *American Religious Identification Survey*Anti-Racism Information Service*Architecture of Integrated Information Systems...
.
Other scientific contributions of Van der Alst are in the field of Business Process Discovery
Business Process Discovery
Business process discovery related to process mining is a set of techniques that automatically construct a representation of an organization’s current business processes and its major process variations...
, Event-driven process chain
Event-driven process chain
An Event-driven Process Chain is a type of flowchart used for business process modelling. EPC's can be used for configuring an enterprise resource planning implementation, and for business process improvement.- Overview :...
, Workflow Management Coalition
Workflow Management Coalition
Workflow Management Coalition is a consortium, formed to define standards for the interoperability of workflow management systems. It was founded in May 1993 as an offshoot of the Black Forest Group with original members including IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Fujitsu, ICL, Staffware and approximately 300...
and XPDL
XPDL
The XML Process Definition Language is a format standardized by the Workflow Management Coalition to interchange business process definitions between different workflow products, i.e...
.
Publications
Van der Aalst has published in total more than 400 books, journal papers, book chapters, conference papers, and reports on these topics. Books, a selection:- 2000. Business Process Management: Models, Techniques, and Empirical Studies. With J. Desel, and A. Oberweis ed. Vol 1806 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2000.
- 2002. Workflow Management: Models, Methods, and Systems. With K.M. van HeeM. IT press, Cambridge, MA, 2002.
- 2003. Petri Net Approaches for Modelling and Validation. With J-M. Colom, F. Kordon, G. Kotsis, and D. Moldt. Volume 1 of LINCOM Studies in Computer Science. Lincom, München, Germany, 2003.
- 2005. Process-Aware Information Systems: Bridging People and Software through Process Technology. With M. Dumas, and A.H.M. ter Hofstede. Wiley & Sons.
- 2009. Handbook of Research on Business Process Modeling. With J. Cardoso. Information Science Publishing, Hershey, PA, USA, 2009.
- 2010. Modern Business Process Automation: YAWL and its Support Environment. With A.H.M. ter Hofstede, M. Adams, and N. Russell. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2010.
- 2011. Modeling Business Processes: A Petri Net Oriented Approach. With C. Stahl. MIT press, Cambridge, MA, 2011.
- 2011. Process Mining: Discovery, Conformance and Enhancement of Business Processes. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2011.
Articles, a selection:
- 2003. Wil van Der Aalst, Arthur H.M. Hofstede, Bartek Kiepuszewski, and Alistair P. Barros (2003). "Workflow Patterns". In: Distributed and Parallel Databases 14 (1): pp. 5–51. doi:10.1023/A:1022883727209.
External links
- Homepage Wil van der Aalst at Eindhoven University of Technology.