Inter-organizational business process management with XML nets

Abstract

Due to the fast growth of internet based electronic business activities, languages for modeling as well as methods for analyzing and executing distributed business processes are becoming more and more important. Efficient inter-organizational business processes in the field of e-commerce require the integration of electronic document interchange and inter-organizational process management. We propose to support inter-organizational business processes by so-called XML nets, a new variant of high-level Petri nets. XML nets are a formal, graphical modeling language that allows to model both the flow of XML documents and the control flow of the underlying business process. XML nets are based on GXSL, a novel graphical XML schema definition language, and its related graphical XML document manipulation language XManiLa. They can be directly executed by a respective workflow engine. Advantage of the formal foundation of XML nets can be taken, e.g., when analyzing a (global) interorganizational workflow model. XML nets support the identification of relevant process fragments and their allocation to the appropriate organizational units. Thus XML nets help to derive an improved, process-oriented organizational structure. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.