Synthesizing object life cycles from business process models

Abstract

Business process models expressed in UML activity diagrams can specify the flow of stateful business objects among activities. Such business process models implicitly specify the life cycles of those objects. To check the consistency of a business process model with an existing object life cycle or to generate or configure software supporting the business process, these implicit life cycles need to be discovered. This paper presents an approach for synthesizing an object life cycle from a business process model in which the object occurs in different states. The synthesized object life cycles are expressed as hierarchical statecharts. The approach makes implicit life cycles contained inside business process models explicit. The synthesis approach has been implemented using a graph transformation tool and has been applied to case studies. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.