Resource allocation in business process executions—A systematic literature study

Abstract

To achieve their goals, organizations execute business processes, which require effective allocation of resources to process activities. This results in the decision-making problem: Which resources should be allocated to which process activities? This problem significantly impacts both process efficiency and effectiveness. Over the past decades, various system-initiated (largely automated) resource allocation approaches have been developed. This study presents a comprehensive overview of this field by analyzing 61 primary studies identified through a rigorous, structured literature review covering publications from 1995 to 2023. We investigate resource allocation goals and cardinalities and describe how process models, execution data, and task attributes, as well as resource attributes, are used to specify the resource allocation problem. Additionally, the type of algorithmic solution and evaluation methods are discussed. This study shows that most approaches support 1-to-1 allocation cardinalities only, specify process-oriented goals, focus on process models, and utilize rule-based methods. Based on the results, we call for future research to define common terminology, support evidence-oriented resource allocation and adaptability, and improve reproducibility and comparability by performing benchmarking studies.