Abstract
Some popular modeling languages for business processes, e.g., BPMN, contain inclusive OR-joins (IOR-joins), but others, e.g., Petri nets, do not. Various scenarios in Business Process Management require, or benefit from, translating a process model from one language to another. This paper studies whether the control flow of a process containing IOR-joins can be translated into a control flow without IOR-joins.
First we characterize which IOR-joins can be replaced locally and define a local replacement for each replaceable IOR-join. Then, we present examples that cannot be locally replaced but have a more general translation. We give a non-local replacement technique, together with its condition of applicability, which runs in polynomial time. Finally, we show that there exist simple process models with an IOR-join that cannot be replaced – in the sense that its synchronization behavior cannot be obtained by any combination of AND and XOR gateways. The proof reveals an intrinsic limitation on the replaceability of IOR-joins and hence the translatability of BPMN-like control flow into Petri nets.
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
Alves, A., et al.: Web services business process execution language version 2.0. OASIS Standard 11 (2007)
Desel, J., Esparza, J.: Free Choice Petri Nets. Cambridge University Press (1995)
Fahland, D., Favre, C., Koehler, J., Lohmann, N., Völzer, H., Wolf, K.: Analysis on demand: Instantaneous soundness checking of industrial business process models. Data Knowl. Eng. 70(5), 448–466 (2011)
Favre, C., Völzer, H.: Symbolic Execution of Acyclic Workflow Graphs. In: Hull, R., Mendling, J., Tai, S. (eds.) BPM 2010. LNCS, vol. 6336, pp. 260–275. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)
Favre, C., Völzer, H.: The Difficulty of Replacing an Inclusive OR-Join. Technical report, IBM Research, RZ3824 (2012)
Kiepuszewski, B., ter Hofstede, A., van der Aalst, W.M.P.: Fundamentals of control flow in workflows. Acta Informatica 39(3), 143–209 (2003)
Mendling, J., van Dongen, B., van der Aalst, W.M.P.: Getting rid of or-joins and multiple start events in business process models. Enterprise Information Systems 2(4), 403–419 (2008)
van der Aalst, W.M.P., Hirnschall, A., Verbeek, H.M.W.: An Alternative Way to Analyze Workflow Graphs. In: Pidduck, A.B., Mylopoulos, J., Woo, C.C., Ozsu, M.T. (eds.) CAiSE 2002. LNCS, vol. 2348, pp. 535–552. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)
van der Aalst, W.M.P., ter Hofstede, A., Kiepuszewski, B., Barros, A.: Workflow patterns. Distributed and Parallel Databases 14(1), 5–51 (2003)
van Glabbeek, R.J.: The Linear Time-Branching Time Spectrum (Extended Abstract). In: Baeten, J.C.M., Klop, J.W. (eds.) CONCUR 1990. LNCS, vol. 458, pp. 278–297. Springer, Heidelberg (1990)
Vanhatalo, J., Völzer, H., Leymann, F., Moser, S.: Automatic Workflow Graph Refactoring and Completion. In: Bouguettaya, A., Krueger, I., Margaria, T. (eds.) ICSOC 2008. LNCS, vol. 5364, pp. 100–115. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)
Völzer, H.: A New Semantics for the Inclusive Converging Gateway in Safe Processes. In: Hull, R., Mendling, J., Tai, S. (eds.) BPM 2010. LNCS, vol. 6336, pp. 294–309. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)
Wynn, M., Verbeek, H.M.W., van der Aalst, W.M.P., ter Hofstede, A., Edmond, D.: Business Process Verification–Finally a Reality! Business Process Management Journal 15(1), 74–92 (2009)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Favre, C., Völzer, H. (2012). The Difficulty of Replacing an Inclusive OR-Join. In: Barros, A., Gal, A., Kindler, E. (eds) Business Process Management. BPM 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7481. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32885-5_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32885-5_12
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-32884-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-32885-5
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)