Title: Transforming business process models in the presence of irreducibility and concurrency

Authors: Wei Zhao, Barrett R. Bryant, Fei Cao, Rainer Hauser, Kamal Bhattacharya, Tao Tao

Addresses: Department of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294-1170, USA. ' Department of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294-1170, USA. ' Department of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294-1170, USA. ' IBM Zurich Research, Saeumerstrasse 4, Rueschlikon 8803, Switzerland. ' IBM T.J. Watson Research, P.O. Box 218, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA. ' IBM T.J. Watson Research, 19 Skyline Drive, Hawthorne, NY 10532, USA

Abstract: Two practical paradigms are presented, which facilitate domain concepts to be directly used to model business operations: the first paradigm is based on the business artefacts and their life cycle; the second paradigm is based on the business tasks and their sequencing. Transformation is an effective way to bridge the gap between business level analysis and IT solutions. We present algorithms that transform business process models based on these two paradigms into IT solutions of web service platform. The specific problems we addressed in this transformation are: (1) how to generate the implementation code of an optimal size for any arbitrary process model; (2) how to preserve the natural structure of business process models in the generated code and (3) how to translate concurrent processes.

Keywords: business process modelling; model transformation; irreducible loop; concurrency; invalid concurrent region;business process integration; information technology; web services.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBPIM.2007.014103

International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management, 2007 Vol.2 No.1, pp.37 - 48

Published online: 20 Jun 2007 *

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