Multiparadigm description of system development processes

Abstract

A multiparadigm approach for representing system development processes is proposed. High-level Petri nets are used for representing knowledge about activity coordination. The intuitive visual representation of Petri nets as well as associated formal techniques for validation of important process properties support the establishment and maintenance of coordination structures. Specifications of tasks are the building blocks of the process description. Individual tasks associated with Petri net transitions are specified by a set of rules. These rules guarantee the flexibility for updating task specifications to fit to new situations. They support the evolution of process descriptions and allow improvement of the process while it is being performed. On the realization level a high-level Petri net-simulator serves as a distributed inference engine for the rules that are associated with the transitions. The process description relies on the expressive power of an object oriented data model.