Business Process Simulation on Procedural Graphical Process Models

Business process simulation marks an essential technique for analyzing business processes and for reasoning about process improvement. With first contributions dating back to the mid-1990s, computerized business process simulation has been a continuing research focus and is widely acknowledged as foundational to Business Process Management research and practice. Reviewing contributions to the field published between 1990 and 2018, the authors assess the state of research on business process simulation and develop an organizing overview of research contributions discussing simulation approaches, tool support, results visualization, use context, application purposes, and adoption barriers. Findings inform future research on business process simulation by discussing paths for behavioral research on the use of business process simulation, user requirements, and adoption barriers as well as complementary paths for design science research addressing limitations of present approaches and simulation tool support.