Generalizing The Concept of Business Processes Structural Soundness from Classic Petri-nets to BPMN2.0 Process Models
Subject Areas : ICT
Yahya Poursoltani
1
,
Mohammad Hassan Shirali-Shahreza
2
,
S. Alireza Hashemi Golpayegani
3
1 - Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic), Iran
2 - Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic), Iran
3 - Department of Information Technology, Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic), Iran
Keywords: Structural Soundness, BPMN2.0 Processes Models, Process Models, Liveness , Boundness,
Abstract :
BPMN2.0 Standard is a modeling language, which can be understood and used by a wide range of users. However, because of its non-formal nature, models (designed using it) can be containing structural errors such as Deadlock (impossibility of executing some of process tasks) and Livelock (infinite repetition of tasks) may be produced by using them. These semantic errors can create anomalies in the workflow of the organization. So far, some researches has been conducted on the validation of these process models and various solutions have been provided to discover some of these structural errors. The question that may be raised about these methods is whether it is possible to definitely guarantee the structural accuracy of a BPMN method model by using any of them? To answer this question, we need a comprehensive definition of a correct BPMN2.0 process model, based on which we can evaluate the comprehensiveness of validation methods and strongly make sure that the considered method can discover all of the structural errors of the process model. In this paper, based on concept of general process models and the concept of soundness (based on process models created using Petri nets) and the generalization of its properties, i.e. Liveness and Boundness to BPMN2.0 process models, a comprehensive definition for a correct (sound) BPMN2 process model provided. Then, the comprehensiveness of the suggested methods of some of the most important researches conducted has been evaluated based on it. This definition can be used as a measure for efficiency of BPMN validation methods.
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