A graph grammar-based formal validation of object-process diagrams

Abstract

Two basic requirements from a system's conceptual model are correctness and comprehensibility. Most modeling methodologies satisfy only one of these apparently contradicting requirements, usually comprehensibility, leaving aside problems of correctness and ambiguousness that are associated with expressiveness. Some formal modeling languages do exist, but in these languages a complete model of a complex system is fairly complicated to understand. Objectprocess methodology (OPM) is a holistic systems modeling methodology that combines the two major aspects of a system-structure and behavior-in one model, providing mechanisms to manage the complexity of the model using refinement-abstraction operations, which divide a complex system into many interconnected diagrams. Although the basic syntax and semantics of an OPM model are defined, they are incomplete and leave room for incorrect or ambiguous models. This work advances the formal definition of OPM by providing a graph grammar for creating and checking OPM diagrams. The grammar provides a validation methodology of the semantic and syntactic correctness of a single object-process diagram.

Model‐based standards authoring: ISO 15288 as a case in point

“…The graphical modality of OPM is a hierarchically arranged set of Object‐Process Diagrams (OPDs), which can be depicted manually or via an OPM modeling software, such as OPCAT or OPCloud 19 . The OPD set is fully specified via a graph grammar in, 20 enabling validation of existing OPDs for syntactic correctness and the creation of new OPDs that are syntactically correct. The textual modality of OPM, called Object‐Process Language (OPL), is a constrained subset of English (and other natural languages) that is generated automatically by the OPM modeling software.…”

“…The graphical modality of OPM is a hierarchically arranged set of Object-Process Diagrams (OPDs), which can be depicted manually or via an OPM modeling software, such as OPCAT or OPCloud. 19 The OPD set is fully specified via a graph grammar in, 20 enabling validation of existing OPDs for syntactic correctness and the creation of new OPDs that are syntactically correct.…”