Towards Formal Analysis of Artifact-Centric Business Process Models

Abstract. Business process (BP) modeling is a building block for design and management of business processes. Two fundamental aspects of BP modeling are: a formal framework that well integrates both control flow and data, and a set of tools to assist all phases of a BP life cycle. This paper is an initial attempt to address both aspects of BP modeling. We view our investigation as a precursor to the development of a framework and tools that enable automated construction of processes, along the lines of techniques developed around OWL-S and Semantic Web Services. Over the last decade, an artifact-centric approach of coupling control and data emerged in the practice of BP design. It focuses on the “moving” data as they are manipulated throughout a process. In this paper, we formulate a formal model for artifact-centric business processes and develop complexity results concerning static analysis of three problems of immediate practical concerns, which focus on the ability to complete...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: BPM
• Authors: Kamal Bhattacharya, Cagdas Evren Gerede, Richard Hull, Rong Liu, Jianwen Su
• Keywords: BP Life Cycle, BP Modeling, BPM 2007, Business, Business Processes