A modeling paradigm for integrating processes and data at the micro level

Abstract

Despite the widespread adoption of BPM, there exist many business processes not adequately supported by existing BPM technology. In previous work we reported on the properties of these processes. As a major insight we learned that, in accordance to the data model comprising object types and object relations, the modeling and execution of processes can be based on two levels of granularity: object behavior and object interactions. This paper focuses on micro processes capturing object behavior and constituting a fundamental pillar of our framework for object-aware process management. Our approach applies the well established concept of modeling object behavior in terms of states and state transitions. Opposed to existing work, we establish a mapping between attribute values and objects states to ensure compliance between them. Finally, we provide a well-defined operational semantics enabling the automatic and dynamic generation of most end-user components at run-time (e.g., overview tables and user forms). © 2011 Springer-Verlag.