Matching

Abstract

In the previous chapter, we have introduced the intermediate representation for business process models to enable change management of process models independent of their processmodeling language. In this chapter, we present an approach to match process models in the intermediate representation. Matching considers the identification of related information, in order to identify corresponding model elements between two process models. The result of a matching is a mapping, which links related elements contained in different models. Based on a mapping differences and equivalences between process models can be computed.

The remainder of this chapter is structured as follows: First, we establish requirements for a solution to process model matching. Then, we evaluate existing strategies to model matching with respect to their usability for process model matching. In Section 4.3, we introduce the concept of correspondences to link related model elements.We present our approach to process model matching in versioning scenarios in Section 4.4. Finally, we conclude with a summary and discussion.