Algorithmical approaches to business process design

The paper introduces formal models of the business process design problem, which can be used to analytically determine optimal designs with respect to various objective functions. Specifically, we consider additive and max-min type functions. Three solution techniques for such models are analyzed: mathematical programming, a branch and bound method, and genetic algorithms. Computational experiments indicate that among those methods, the branch and bound method is best suited to solve problems of realistic size.