Correctness of Business Process Models with Roles and Objects

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Abstract

The verification of business process models is an important step in the design phase
of process-aware information systems. While a process model often describes different
perspectives like control flow, object flow, and role assignment, most of the
contributions in the areas of verification consider only the control flow. Hardly any
work considers these three perspectives in a combined verification approach. In this
paper we address this gap and introduce Integrated EPCs (iEPCs), a business process
modeling language that extends EPCs with a concept of object flow and role
assignment. By abstracting from the subtle differences of recent EPC semantics definitions, we show how any of these formalizations can be enhanced with transition
rules that consider object existence and role availability as part of the state concept.
Furthermore, we define three theorems that relate soundness of EPCs to soundness
of iEPCs with different initial role and object set. These theorems provide the basis
for a systematic verification approach of iEPCs that first identifies control-flow
problems, then object-flow problems, and finally suitable role subsets. This way, our
work contributes to a better identification of correctness issues already in conceptual
process models in the early design phases.