Some popular modeling languages for business processes, e.g., BPMN, contain inclusive OR-joins (IOR-joins), but others, e.g., Petri nets, do not. Various scenarios in Business Process Management require, or benefit from, translating a process model from one language to another. This paper studies whether the control flow of a process containing IOR-joins can be translated into a control flow without IOR-joins. First we characterize which IOR-joins can be replaced locally and define a local replacement for each replaceable IOR-join. Then, we present examples that cannot be locally replaced but have a more general translation. We give a non-local replacement technique, together with its condition of applicability, which runs in polynomial time. Finally, we show that there exist simple process models with an IOR-join that cannot be replaced - in the sense that its synchronization behavior cannot be obtained by any combination of AND and XOR gateways. The proof reveals an intrinsic limitation on the replaceability of IOR-joins and hence the translatability of BPMN-like control flow into Petri nets. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.
CITATION STYLE
Favre, C., & Völzer, H. (2012). The difficulty of replacing an inclusive OR-join. In Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics) (Vol. 7481 LNCS, pp. 156–171). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32885-5_12
Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.