Process Model Merging

Abstract

In this chapter, we consider the merging of different process model versions into an integrated business process model. For that purpose, we will resolve differences between the process model versions by applying change operations contained in the hierarchical change logs, which we have reconstructed in the previous chapters.

We begin by giving an overview of the merging process in Section 10.1. In Section 10.2, we translate generic compound change operations that we have computed based on abstracted models in the intermediate representation, into languagespecific change operations to make them applicable on process models in a concrete modeling language. Based on such language-specific compound change operations, we then introduce different ways to apply non-conflicting change operations in Section 10.3. Afterwards, we point out resolution strategies for conflicting change operations in Section 10.4.