A Study of the Evolution of the Representational Capabilities of Process Modeling Grammars

Abstract

Abstract.A plethora of process modeling techniques has been proposed over the years. One way of evaluating and comparing the scope and completeness of techniques is by way of representational analysis. The purpose of this paper is to examine how process modeling techniques have developed over the last four decades. The basis of the comparison is the Bunge-Wand-Weber representation model, a benchmark used for the analysis of grammars that purport to model the real world and the interactions within it. This paper presents a comparison of representational analyses of several popular process modeling techniques and has two main outcomes. First, it provides insights, within the boundaries of a representational analysis, into the extent to which process modeling techniques have developed over time. Second, the findings also indicate areas in which the underlying theory seems to be over-engineered or lacking in specialization.

Feasibility of EPC to BPEL Model Transformations Based on Ontology and Patterns

“…These represent the patterns that commonly occur in business processes. Both EPC and BPEL have been evaluated separately already with respect to the BWW model and WFCPs [8][9] [10]. In this research, we compare the evaluations of the two languages with each other in order to discover the theoretical limitations of transformation.…”

Automatic Extraction of Process Control Flow from I/O Operations

“…As there can be some slight variations to the location of the occurrences of this control variable in the trace, the algorithm uses a simple windowing scheme to sync-up their occurrences in the trace. 9 Figure 4(a) presents an example of an input trace with a total of 21 read and write operations over a set of variables. For the variable i and operation write the algorithm uses Fourier analysis as depicted in figure 3 to uncover a period of approximately 6 time units, the period of i as the control variable for a loop construct.…”

“…8 So that a spurious variable that occurs often but randomly is not selected. 9 Spurious occurrences of an operation at time stamps that are not lined up with the recognized interval are not critical, as the second phase of the algorithm absorbs these instances by taking them into account as different paths in the loop control flow.…”

“…However, most workflow and Business Process Management (BPM) systems typically make use of proprietary modeling languages [7]. Despite efforts such as the development of workflow patterns [8], a vast community of end users still makes use of informal languages and notations, some of which have their origin in flowcharting [9], and many of which are reminiscent of basic programming concepts such as decision and loop constructs.…”

Business Process Models

“…Previous research has successfully investigated, for instance, the graphical constructs and their meaning in process models, e.g., [6], the expressiveness and validity of control flow aspects in process models, e.g., [7] or process-related aspects such as data and resources, e.g., [8,9]. However, only little attention has been devoted to a very essential task in process modeling -the labeling of the graphical constructs, in particular of the constructs standing for "activities" (or "tasks", or "work to be performed") in a process model.…”