Abstract
We define an extensible semantical framework for business process modeling notations. Since our definition starts from scratch, it helps to faithfully link the understanding of business processes by analysts and operators, on the process design and management side, by IT technologists and programmers, on the implementation side, and by users, on the application side. We illustrate the framework by a high-level operational definition of the semantics of the BPMN standard of OMG. The definition combines the visual appeal of the graph-based BPMN with the expressive power and simplicity of rule-based modeling and can be applied as well to other business process modeling notations, e.g. UML 2.0 activity diagrams.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
OMG Unified Modeling Language superstructure (final adopted specification, version 2.0) (2003), http://www.omg.org
Web Services Business Process Execution Language version 2.0. OASIS Standard,( April 11,2007), http://docs.oasis-open.org/wsbpel/2.0/OS/wsbpel-v2.0-OS.html
Barros, A., Dumas, M., ter Hofstede, A.H.M.: Service interaction patterns. In: van der Aalst, W.M.P., Benatallah, B., Casati, F., Curbera, F. (eds.) BPM 2005. LNCS, vol. 3649, pp. 302–318. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)
Barros, A., Börger, E.: A compositional framework for service interaction patterns and interaction flows. In: Lau, K.-K., Banach, R. (eds.) ICFEM 2005. LNCS, vol. 3785, pp. 5–35. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)
Batory, D., Börger, E.: Modularizing theorems for software product lines: The Jbook case study,Universal Computer Science,Special ASM Issue(2008): Coupling Design and Verification in Software Product Lines. In: Hartmann, S., Kern-Isberner, G. (eds.) FoIKS 2008. LNCS, vol. 4932, pp. 1–4. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)
Batory, D., O’Malley, S.: The design and implementation of hierarchical software systems with reusable components. In: Krishnamurthi, S., Odersky, M. (eds.) CC 2007. LNCS, vol. 4420, pp. 156–171. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)
Börger, E.: High-level system design and analysis using Abstract State Machines. In: Hutter, D., Traverso, P. (eds.) FM-Trends 1998, vol. 1641, pp. 1–43. Springer, Heidelberg (1999)
Börger, E.: The ASM refinement method. Formal Aspects of Computing 15, 237–257 (2003)
Börger, E.: Construction and analysis of ground models and their refinements as a foundation for validating computer based systems. Formal Aspects of Computing 19, 225–241 (2007)
Börger, E.: Modeling workflow patterns from first principles. In: Parent, C., Schewe, K.-D., Storey, V.C., Thalheim, B. (eds.) ER 2007. LNCS, vol. 4801, pp. 1–20. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)
Börger, E., Fruja, G., Gervasi, V., Stärk, R.: A high-level modular definition of the semantics of C#. Theoretical Computer Science 336(2–3), 235–284 (2005)
Börger, E., Stärk, R.F.: Abstract State Machines. A Method for High-Level System Design and Analysis. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)
Börger, E., Stärk, R.F.: Exploiting Abstraction for Specification Reuse. The Java/C# Case Study. In: de Boer, F.S., Bonsangue, M.M., Graf, S., de Roever, W.-P. (eds.) FMCO 2003. LNCS, vol. 3188, pp. 42–76. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)
Börger, E., Thalheim, B.: On defining the behavior of OR-joins in business process models( in preparation)
BPMI.org. Business Process Modeling Notation Specification v.1.0. dtc/2006-02-01 (2006), http://www.omg.org/technology/documents/spec_catalog.htm
BPMI.org. Business Process Modeling Notation Specification v.1.1. formal/2008-01-17 (2008), http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/1.1/PDF
Dijkman, R.M., Dumas, M., Ouyang, C.: Formal semantics and analysis of BPMN process models using Petri nets. Technical Report 7115, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane (2007)
Farahbod, R, et al.: The CoreASM Project, http://www.coreasm.org
Farahbod, R., Gervasi, V., Glässer, U.: CoreASM: An Extensible ASM Execution Engine. Fundamenta Informaticae XXI (2006)
Farahbod, R., Glässer, U., Vajihollahi, M.: Specification and validation of the business process execution language for web services. In: Zimmermann, W., Thalheim, B. (eds.) ASM 2004. LNCS, vol. 3052, pp. 78–94. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)
Farahbod, R., Glässer, U., Vajihollahi, M.: An Abstract Machine Architecture for Web Service Based Business Process Management. Int. J. Business Process Integration and Management 1(4), 279–291 (2006)
Freund, J.: BPM-software–2008. Berlin, Germany (2008), http://www.comunda.com
Grosskopf, A.: xBPMN. Formal control flow specification of a BPMN based process execution language. Master’s thesis, HPI at Universität Potsdam, pp. 1-142 (July 2007)
Gruhn, V., Laue, R.: How style checking can improve business process models. In: Proc. 8th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2006), Paphos, Cyprus (May 2006)
Gruhn, V., Laue, R.: What business process modelers can learn from programmers. Science of Computer Programming 65, 4–13 (2007)
Knuth, D.E.: Literate Programming. Number 27 in CSLI Lecture Notes. Center for the Study of Language and Information at Stanford/ California (1992)
Lavagno, L., Sangiovanni-Vincentelli, A., Sentovitch, E.M.: Models of computation for system design. In: Börger, E. (ed.) Architecture Design and Validation Methods, pp. 243–295. Springer, Heidelberg (2000)
Listiani, M.: Review on business process modeling notation. Master’s thesis, Institute of Telematics of Hamburg University of Technology (July 2008)
Ouyang, C., Dumas, M., van der Aalst, W.M.P., Hofstede, A.H.M.: From business process models to process-oriented software systems: The BPMN to BPEL way. Technical Report 06-27, BPMcenter (2006), http://is.tm.tue.nl/staff/wvdaalst/BPMcenter/
Recker, J., Mendling, J.: Research Issues in Systems Analysis and Design, Databases and Software Development. In: Chapter Lost in Business Process Model Translations.How a Structured Approach helps to Identify Conceptual Mismatch, pp. 227–259. IGI Publishing, Hershey (2007)
Russel, N., ter Hofstede, A., Edmond, D., van der Aalst, W.M.P.: Workflow data patterns. BPM-04-01 at BPMcenter.org (2004)
Russel, N., ter Hofstede, A., Edmond, D., van der Aalst, W.M.P.: Workflow resource patterns. In: BPM-04-07 at BPMcenter.org (2004)
Russel, N., ter Hofstede, A., van der Aalst, W.M.P., Mulyar, N.: Workflow control-flow patterns: A revised view. BPM-06-22 July (2006), at http://is.tm.tue.nl/staff/wvdaalst/BPMcenter/
Schattkowsky, T., Förster, A.: On the pitfalls of UML 2 activity modeling. In: International Workshop on Modeling in Software Engineering (MISE 2007), IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos (2007)
Stärk, R.F., Schmid, J., Börger, E.: Java and the Java Virtual Machine: Definition, Verification, Validation. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)
Störrle, H., Hausman, J.H.: Towards a formal semantics of UML 2.0 activities. In: Proc. Software Engineering 2005, (2005)
van der Aalst, W., ter Hofstede, A., Kiepuszewski, B., Barros, A.: Workflow patterns. Distributed and Parallel Databases 14(3), 5–51 (2003)
White, S.A.: Process modeling notations and workflow patterns (2007). pbmn.org/Documents (download September)
Wohed, P., van der Aalst, W.M.P., Dumas, M., ter Hofstede, A., Russel, N.: On the suitability of BPMN for business process modelling. In:4th Int. Conf. on Business Process Management (2006) (submitted)
Wohed, P., van der Aalst, W.M.P., Dumas, M., ter Hofstede, A., Russel, N.: Pattern-based analysis of BPMN - an extensive evaluation of the control-flow, the data and the resource perspectives (revised version). BPM-06-17 at BPMcenter.org (2006)
Wong, P.Y.H., Gibbons, J.: A process semantics fo BPMN. Preprint Oxford University Computing Lab URL (July 2007), http://web.comlab.ox.ac.uk/oucl/work/peter.wong/pub/bpmn_extended.pdf
Wynn, M.T., Edmond, D., van der Aalst, W.M.P., ter Hofstede, A.H.M.: Achieving a general, formal and decidable approach to the OR-join in workflow using reset nets. In: Ciardo, G., Darondeau, P. (eds.) ICATPN 2005. LNCS, vol. 3536, pp. 423–443. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Börger, E., Thalheim, B. (2008). A Method for Verifiable and Validatable Business Process Modeling. In: Börger, E., Cisternino, A. (eds) Advances in Software Engineering. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5316. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-89762-0_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-89762-0_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-89761-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-89762-0
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)