Title: Rule-based business process modelling and enactment

Authors: Stijn Goedertier, Raf Haesen, Jan Vanthienen

Addresses: Department of Decision Sciences and Information Management, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium. ' Department of Decision Sciences and Information Management, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium. ' Department of Decision Sciences and Information Management, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

Abstract: A business process model is called rule-based if the logic of its control flow, data flow and resource allocation is declaratively expressed by means of business rules. Business rules are recognised as powerful representation forms that can potentially define the semantics of business process models and business vocabulary. To date, however, there is little consensus and fragmentary knowledge about the precise relationship between these elements of business modelling. In this article, we develop a first-version metamodel that is to be used as a foundation in integrating and developing existing and new forms of rule-based business process modelling. In addition, we show how rule-based process models can be brought to execution in the context of service-oriented architecture.

Keywords: business process modelling; business rules; ontology; process enactment; service-oriented architecture; SOA; business rules; metamodelling; rule-based process models.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBPIM.2008.023219

International Journal of Business Process Integration and Management, 2008 Vol.3 No.3, pp.194 - 207

Published online: 14 Feb 2009 *

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