UML activity diagrams as a workflow specification language

Abstract

If UML activity diagrams are to succeed as a standard in the area of organisational process modeling, they need to compare well to alternative languages such as those provided by commercial Workflow Management Systems. This paper examines the expressiveness and the adequacy of activity diagrams for workflow specification, by systematically evaluating their ability to capture a collection of workflow patterns. This analysis provides insights into the relative strengths and weaknesses of activity diagrams. In particular, it is shown that, given an appropriate clarification of their semantics, activity diagrams are able to capture situations arising in practice, which cannot be captured by most commercial Workflow Management Systems. On the other hand, the study shows that activity diagrams fail to capture some useful situations, thereby suggesting directions for improvement.