Knowledge management and decision support in adaptive case management platforms

The paper sets out from a central proposition that the concept of adaptive case management (ACM) bears on the evolution of business decision support and knowledge management in modern businesses. While presenting the state of the art in efforts to blend enterprise resources planning/business process management (ERP/BPM) systems with knowledge management systems (KMS) and decision support systems (DSS), the authors observe that the classical platform combining ERP/BPM with KMS and DSS was based on the interaction of three separate layers/subsystems and that, throughout the past decade, that approach proved satisfactory. However, in the last few years it has been increasingly felt that the approach to business process management and enterprise resource planning, as well as to their integration with knowledge management and decision support, needs to be modified. The dynamic and adaptive nature of some business processes poses challenges that the classical BPM approach cannot adequately address. Adaptive case management has been developed to better cope with such challenges. It makes it, on the one hand, easier to align a business to rapidly changing requirements and conditions, and, on the other, it allows organizations to more effectively exploit the potential inherent in organizational knowledge and information resources. The paper discusses the evolution of KMS and DSS from the perspective of their application in ACM environments.