Problem Statement
The modeling of inter-organizational
business processes is receiving
a lot of attention in the age
of e-business. A number of standardization
initiatives are working on standards
for modeling languages that
can be employed in this domain.
Exemplary languages include
BPML by BPMI.org,
WPDL and XPDL by the Workflow
Management Coalition, BPSS
by the ebXML consortium, XLANG
by Microsoft,
WSFL by IBM,
and BPEL4WS,
which is an effort to combine
the former two. Depending on
their origin these modeling
languages compete with established
modeling formalisms such as
Petri Nets, IDEF3, event-driven
process chains or UML activity
diagrams. The sheer number of
different approaches creates
confusion in the marketplace,
because, some languages might
be beneficial for the user while
others are not applicable, depending
on the modeling purpose. The
standardization organizations
are busy defining the syntax
and semantics of their own approaches,
but do not demonstrate the applicability
of different languages to actual
business problems.
Project Description
In this project we will analyze
the properties of different
workflow modeling languages
and compare these with the requirements
identified in business-to-business
process design projects. As
a result we strive to develop
a framework for the evaluation
of workflow modeling languages,
which enables prospective users
to judge the strengths and weaknesses
of different modeling approaches.
We conduct the project in cooperation
with the Workflow
Management Coalition and
the Business
Process Management Initiative,
in order to apply identified
improvements to their respective
standards.
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