Ad-hoc changes in IoT-aware business processes

The Internet of Things makes it possible to adapt the behaviour of business processes in response to real-time context updates. In addition, physical items can run and validate parts of the business processes and optimise their execution, while reducing message transmissions. State-of-the-art event-driven, service-oriented architecture approaches contribute to enabling inter-organisational collaboration and interoperability of heterogeneous hardware, but their applicability is limited to preplanned, well-structured processes. We take a step forward by supporting ad-hoc changes within business processes, considering changes in the state of the Things; likewise, whenever needed, the software controlling the behaviour of sensors may be dynamically reconfigured as a result of changes in the functional specifications of business processes.